[money4me247]

why not just have someone setup a blind test for you to remove expectation bias?

 

[preproman]

Nope, I roll solo.  So the DAC that sounds good / the best in my system to my ears is the one I want to keep. 
 
Other news..
 
For those of you who have not heard the Bricasti M1 DAC, yes it's a D-S DAC that's configured in a dual mono design.   I suggest you some how take a listen to it.  I only heard it for about an hour, but it's resolution is top notch with loads of dynamics.  I didn't notice any of the so called D-S hash...
 
I wish I can have the Yggy, M1, and the TotalDAC at home all at the same time.  That's just to damn expensive.   
 
I was going to try and demo the Pavane, but decided not to and went with the TotalDAC.  I'll give the Pavane some time to hit the streets first.

 

[7ryder]

There's one for sale right now on the gone http://app.audiogon.com/listings/da-converters-bricasti-m1-dac-my-most-favorite-dacs-2015-04-28-digital-06105-hartford-ct--2

 

[negura]

88 hours report:
The Theta Gen V continues to rule supreme. Just had the regular tour across several genres. Listening to Leonard Cohen and the vocals are just so out of this world on the Gen V. The background instrumentation is so tonally correct, realistic and really very detailed. While not sounding as clean or clear, the transients are so visceral on the Theta and that Moffatt bass is insane. The harmonic richness and musical flow is unmatched by the Yggdrasil. The latter puts a worthy try and is certainly squeezing out more detail than the Theta, but no. Not playing the same league.
 
This is with speakers.
 
P.S.: I feel a bit sorry for purrin taking the Yggdrasil to the meet when he has the Theta. If this warm-up process is retained in the long run, in 48 hours the Yggdrasil just doesn't compete imho. I have almost double that number of hours on it.

 

[Baldr]

USB vs SPDIF vs AES-EBU:
 
Those who have followed my prior writings may well know that I am still a USB skeptic. My minimalism is inherently offended by a medium (USB) which requires yet another stage of disassembly/reassembly of perfectly good digital audio data which resides on the data bus of the serving computing device. A simile is that it is like converting bananas into puree and then reforming them into whole bananas one more time. The dilemma is that so much music lives on computers, only 1 of 100 of which have built-in SPDIF and 114 out of 100 have USB. It is not my desire to lead some anti-USB cult and marginalize my products. All of that said, it is and remains my opinion that the best possible mainstream digital audio transmission is SPDIF/AES-EBU over USB. The former was designed for digital audio, the latter for any kind of data (printers, cameras, etc). Think universal, multi-purpose. Almost all schools have multi-purpose rooms that nobody ever uses. If they do a play, they do it in an auditorium – if they teach a class, they do it in a classroom.
 
So what about SPDIF vs AES-EBU? AES-EBU has gotta be better, since it is for pros, no? Not so fast. Both protocols contain metadata hiding out there in some bonus frame bits (sample rate/bit depth, coded/non-coded, etc.). There are some minor differences there, but few devices on the consumer side actually decode them anyway, since it is possible to figure most of that out downstream in the design anyway. The relevant factor for home users is that SPDIF is single ended, and AES-EBU is balanced. This means AES-EBU drives much longer cables, a necessity in studios. It also means the signal is bigger. Big SPDIF/AES-EBU signals are believed to sound better by many audiophiles. What is for sure is that they are far less likely to unlock.
 
Back in the day, SPDIF transmitters/receivers were all transformer or line driver sent and received. All AES-EBU design examples I have seen were so designed. As we have cheapened out, most of the SPDIF line drivers/transformers have disappeared. This in turn, has partially ameliorated the SPDIF advantage, but in my opinion a clear advantage remains. The road to minimum cost goes on forever. The cheap Bill of Material party never ends. This explains the ubiquity of USB audio. It's cheap!
 
So, I install USB on all of my converters because I must accommodate the vast majority of my users. Those so inclined are free to experiment in the direction of different sockets. Please do – you may be surprised.

 

[skeptic]

  USB vs SPDIF vs AES-EBU...
 

 
Interesting post!  Is there a good PCI -> SPDIF card that you think would be worth trying, as an alternative to the Yggy's USB input, for those of us with desktop PC's?  

 

[moss]

I'm sorry if this violates forum rules, but I just have to vent.  
 
I made plans to stay home all day to receive Yggy.  I had to go outside my house for no more than five minutes, only to find that I missed delivery, and Fedex Home Delivery is not available until Tuesday.
 
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
 
Thanks for the forum, and sorry again.

 

[US Blues]

  I'm sorry if this violates forum rules, but I just have to vent.  
 
I made plans to stay home all day to receive Yggy.  I had to go outside my house for no more than five minutes, only to find that I missed delivery, and Fedex Home Delivery is not available until Tuesday.
 
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
 
Thanks for the forum, and sorry again.

Sorry to hear that news, better luck on Tuesday.

 

[negura]

 
So, I install USB on all of my converters because I must accommodate the vast majority of my users. Those so inclined are free to experiment in the direction of different sockets. Please do – you may be surprised.

 
I appreciate this. The Yggdrasil seems to have one of the better built-in USB interfaces out there. I always start out with limited expectations on built-in USB interfaces, based on experience, but this one seems to be decent. I do however started to think more can be achieved over SPDIF or AES. I will not comment further on this until I feel warm-up/burn-in has completed.

 

[Ableza]

   
Interesting post!  Is there a good PCI -> SPDIF card that you think would be worth trying, as an alternative to the Yggy's USB input, for those of us with desktop PC's?  

http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/audiophile-192#.VUVekJMmud4

 

[Aurthur]

  The dilemma is that so much music lives on computers, only 1 of 100 of which have built-in SPDIF and 114 out of 100 have USB.

 
Not so much arguing as trying to educate myself here, because I believe you, but I feel like there's a piece of information missing.
 
The SPDIF included in PC's is coming from the sound card in the system, i.e. the onboard DAC and amp.  It is hypothetically a pass-through digital interface, but only exists when the driver for the sound card is loaded, and as such, has to make a stop at the sound card driver and card, even in a pass-through scenario.  Therefore, the sound card has to process it in some fashion before sending it out through SPDIF.  As such, a lesser device than an outboard DAC has now potentially affected the signal before the higher quality outboard DAC has a chance to convert.
 
Is this not also, then, a conversion subject to the limitations of the sound card driver and the sample rate, bit depth, etc that it can handle, and as such, a degradation also, where a USB connection passes the information directly from bus, bypassing the sound card completely?  I feel like there's some information on the SPDIF pass-through that I'm missing.

 

[negura]

What he cannot probably say as openly, is us lot should freely try some other interfaces that connect to SPDIF or AES. So far I don't disagree. That doesn't mean generally crap low-end PC or laptop outputs will do any good.

 

[Ableza]

   
Not so much arguing as trying to educate myself here, because I believe you, but I feel like there's a piece of information missing.
 
The SPDIF included in PC's is coming from the sound card in the system, i.e. the onboard DAC and amp.  It is hypothetically a pass-through digital interface, but only exists when the driver for the sound card is loaded, and as such, has to make a stop at the sound card driver and card, even in a pass-through scenario.  Therefore, the sound card has to process it in some fashion before sending it out through SPDIF.  As such, a lesser device than an outboard DAC has now potentially affected the signal before the higher quality outboard DAC has a chance to convert.
 
Is this not also, then, a conversion subject to the limitations of the sound card driver and the sample rate, bit depth, etc that it can handle, and as such, a degradation also, where a USB connection passes the information directly from bus, bypassing the sound card completely?  I feel like there's some information on the SPDIF pass-through that I'm missing.

And you don't think USB is a processed signal as well?  There is no such thing as "getting information directly from the bus."  It's either processed and encoded by the USB driver and hardware or it's processed and encoded by the digital audio output driver and hardware, and then the signal is similarly received and decoded on the other end.  It's the way this stuff works.  Mr. Moffat's suggestion is that an encoding process that is designed specifically for audio just might do a better job than one designed for generic digital data of any sort.

 

[Aurthur]

  And you don't think USB is a processed signal as well?  There is no such thing as "getting information directly from the bus."  It's either processed and encoded by the USB driver and hardware or it's processed and encoded by the digital audio output driver and hardware, and then the signal is similarly received and decoded on the other end.  It's the way this stuff works.  Mr. Moffat's suggestion is that an encoding process that is designed specifically for audio just might do a better job than one designed for generic digital data of any sort.

That is a perfectly fair counterpoint.  USB does indeed have a driver also, but the USB driver doesn't dictate specific audio quality as a sound card driver does.  You don't set a sample rate or bit depth for your USB ports, in other words.  You do for the sound card.

 

[AlanU]

   
 
+10 to the power of 10.
 
I'm so glad I could care less about this so-called "synergy".  Can you imagine how maddening it would be to try out 50 different variations of cables and pretend to notice huge differences?  Cheap power cord + silver interconnects + power conditioning + copper headphone cables vs Nordost power cord + copper interconnects + no power conditioning + silver headphone cables vs on and on and on and on.  What ever.  No thank you with that garbage.
 
Why do you think Patrick is not around anymore?  He drove himself mad doing this with the K1000.

Your very fortunate to have no "esoteric concepts" because this makes this hobby extremely cheap otherwise LOL!!  I'd have a yggy amongst fresh new popular products on the market and lots of money to spare for Qtips    

 using a $1.50 offshore 16 awg power cord 

 
When the wyred4sound v2 came out it was flying off the shelves with popularity with forum hype. It was well reviewed and now forgettable. I think the Yggy is just as hyped but this time I think there is some true analog depth to this SS dac.
 
Subtle.......dont get so emontional and excited we are only talking about digital to analog conversion 

 when we both buy one eventually we can share kind words together and be friends 

 
However mine will sound better because I will use at least a blue circle power conditioner LOL!!!