[adydula]

It's crazy when you see respected audiophile listeners putting Yggdrasil and Bifrost 2 in their top-10 list with a couple of $100K DACs

That says it all IMO.....

Great stuff at great prices, great service, and they and us are having "FUN" as well....

 

[macdonjh]

Jason put the case for spending money on transducers very well in his chapter called 'The Elephant in the Room' . ( Chapter 9, June 2016).

'Realistic speakers are going to start at 4 figures, and not at the lower end of the range…they could easily get into 5 figures. And this is the way it should be—most of your money should go into the transducer. Or at least so says this dinosaur'.

From my very first 'Hi Fi' system in 1973 I have always allocated most of my budget to speakers.
I didn't buy the mantra, from a well-known British Hi Fi manufacturer in the 70s, of 'source first'.
Now, even with the fantastic Yggy in my system, I have continued with this philosophy. I would guess that based on current new prices, my speakers represent almost 90% of the total system cost!
That percentage will come down a smidgen when I get the new CD Transport and Freya though...

My philosophy as well: speakers first.

After that I think it's a matter of scaling. If your speakers are revealing enough, you'll be able to hear the difference when you change out a piece of up-stream gear. To me, amplifier differences are easier to hear than CD player differences. I've never been one to obsess over cables, but I did recently decide I can hear differences in various IEM cables.

Then there's the factor of effort. There are plenty of hidden gems out there, but are you the type of person willing to parade a dozen amps through your system looking for the one $200 amp which performs like a $1000 amp in your system? When I had more time than money I did, now not so much. Perhaps again when the kids are grown.

My two cents.

 

[macdonjh]

It's crazy when you see respected audiophile listeners putting Yggdrasil and Bifrost 2 in their top-10 list with a couple of $100K DACs.

To me, $100,000 DACs are crazy. Of course, I'm biased. When I had the time to try to appreciate the differences between average and pinnacle-level gear I didn't have the funds for the pinnacle-level gear. Now, even if I had the funds for the pinnacle-level stuff, I wouldn't spend the time to appreciate the differences; just too far along the diminishing returns curve for me. Aw, schiit, I guess I've just outed myself as an ersatz audiophile.

 

[Ableza]

I once had more money than brains and thought that cost = quality and had over $500K invested in my 2-channel system. Then I had a balloon mortgage payment due on the house and not enough cash to pay it, so I sold everything at a significant loss and paid the house payment. My next system was far more conservatively priced and I kept finding myself using it more and enjoying it more. My mantra these days is I don't care what something costs I care how it sounds. I like good sounds. I like music. I am not "into" the gear - it is a tool to meet the goal of the music (or the movie.)

 

[TheTechQ]

• PC boards, argh, yeah, some specialty boards have been delayed. It is what it is. Sorry about that. That affected Bifrost 2. Hopefully those will be back in stock soon. I know we have the boards now.

I wonder how this is going.

 

[tincanear]

Not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing lol.

I agree that Gungnir is strangely positioned, given the pricing & features of the other models

 

[438555]

Yeah, the rule of "don't spend more on other gear than you do on speakers" is why I didn't get a Yggdrasil initially. But I jumped on the GS when it came out to complete my 2-channel system. I'd have to step up to 3.7i to get the transducers past 50% of the total cost, but I'm plenty happy with the 1.7i until the kids go off to college and I commandeer one of their bedrooms for a dedicated room. For headphones, I'm afraid to even calculate total transducer cost, but I'm sure it exceeds 2x what I've spent for any of the associated headfi electronics.

 

[Pete Schiller]

Then there's the factor of effort. There are plenty of hidden gems out there, but are you the type of person willing to parade a dozen amps through your system looking for the one $200 amp which performs like a $1000 amp in your system? When I had more time than money I did, now not so much. Perhaps again when the kids are grown.

That was more or less my point in saying that even though all of my components are made by Schiit, I don't really think of myself as a Schiit fanboy per se, but it's just an easy decision in terms of value/performance ratio. I feel like Schiit is to the audio world what Toyota is to the car world, except imagine Toyota selling direct to its customers at 2/3rds the price they do now, and there are no trustworthy sources for determining if a Yugo is as good as a Corolla, or if a Bentley is worth the extra money than a Lexus (if not a Camry). That's probably not the best analogy, since reliability is more of a factor in long term car ownership than in audio equipment, but hopefully most people get what I'm saying.

 

[strider1007]

So, what is the most important ? The source, the amplification or the transducer? I think it's a combined effort, and here's why:

Now I've seen a lot of almost philosophical approaches to hi-fi, or rather music-reproduction. Let me give you my 2 cents.

It has been a while, but I've been selling Hifi-equipment for fifteen years, hearing and weighing the weirdest arguments. Usually there are three sides or convictions..

A. The source is the most important. Obviously, if you start with a crappy signal how can you expect good results ?
I think they are correct. If you use a bad recording, or a good recording on a bad source, a good set-up should let you hear just that. It should sound like a bad start.

B. The amplification is the most important. It's like the engine in your car: There's no substitute for cubic inches.. You need power to move !
I think they are correct. If you use an amplifier that can't control the movement of your speakers ( or headphones ) how can you expect to enjoy the end result. Your transducer will do all kinds of things it is not supposed to do.. That makes for a bad finish as well.

C. The loudspeaker/headphone is by far the most important. If the air that reaches your eardrums isn't moving correctly, what can you expect ? It'll all be a waste of time and money..
I think they are correct. If that beautiful and electronically correct signal is not translated into moving air-molecules the way it is supposed to.. Well, what's the point of it all, really.

D. was mostly not even considered until I mentioned it. Room acoustics. Just compare a heavily carpeted bedroom to a fully tiled-up bathroom. Headphones were the perfect solution for D. Nowadays you can use digital room-correction software we didn't have back then, Dirac comes to mind.

F. are the cables, powerlines etcetera, but believe me, it follows the same pattern.

Now my own enjoying-music philosophy has always been a combination. For comparison I used four sheets of glass to look through. All four ( three if you use headphones ) are dirty. You can see what's on the other side, but the view is murky at best. To get a better view you start cleaning one of the glass sheets. After a proper cleaning you put it back, and who would have guessed.. The entire picture looks a little better.
So, it was not that difficult to convince anyone who was completely and utterly stuck on either A,B or C that it was pointless to spend hours ( translate that into a lot of money ) on their sheet of glass if the other sheets were still rather dirty.. Clean up the dirtiest ( there's always one ) and enjoy the view.. ehh.. music.. Then look for your next project.

I just replaced my Asgard3 with a Jotunheim, and I hear the difference, even with my cheapo sennheiser earbuds, more so with my HD660S.

Like I said, just my 2 cents..

Eagerly awaiting my Modius sometimes next week..

 

[bboris77]

I just replaced my Asgard3 with a Jotunheim, and I hear the difference, even with my cheapo sennheiser earbuds, more so with my HD660S.

A quick question - I have the Asgard 3 and I really love the way it sounds with my HD800S. How would you describe the differences between the Asgard 3 and the Jotunheim?

 

[JCS17]

My first car. Mine was green. 2CV or The Ugly Duck



And the second one. Which was red. DAF Variomatic.

So I have to ask: Why did you need a second car? Perhaps my memories from more than half a century ago are wrong, but I thought the 2CV could be kept running essentially forever.

Cheers, Jim

 

[Pete Schiller]

Yeah, the rule of "don't spend more on other gear than you do on speakers" is why I didn't get a Yggdrasil initially. But I jumped on the GS when it came out to complete my 2-channel system. I'd have to step up to 3.7i to get the transducers past 50% of the total cost, but I'm plenty happy with the 1.7i until the kids go off to college and I commandeer one of their bedrooms for a dedicated room. For headphones, I'm afraid to even calculate total transducer cost, but I'm sure it exceeds 2x what I've spent for any of the associated headfi electronics.

That's a pretty phenomenal system right there. I haven't listened to Magnepan speakers, but from what I've read, they are a bargain, and being in the perfect sweet spot between the speakers isn't as important as it is with say my Salks, but they aren't the easiest to drive (see my comment to someone else a few pages ago "What are you trying to drive?"). Because of that, it would only make sense that you would need to spend a bit more (percentage wise) on the power amps, and I think you picked the right amps to do it with. I'm sure there's a couple of good reasons why the Schiiter has a pair of Maggies for people to listen to.

 

[strider1007]

@bboris77
Only had it for a day, but it's more lively, more dynamic. Bass has more body, voices are fuller in a nice way. There's a little more space between and around instruments.. Just first impressions though..

I have yet to compare the built-in MB dac to my modi-multi, but I'm using the built-in dac for now.

 

[Ableza]

It's amazing how the same discussions, debates and diatribes that have been going around among audio fans since the invention of Hi Fi continue to go around. And nothing in all that time has changed. The bottom line is: if it sounds good to you then it is, and it doesn't matter what anyone else or any "expert" might think about your choice. Just enjoy the music.

 

[yonson]

Yeah, the rule of "don't spend more on other gear than you do on speakers" is why I didn't get a Yggdrasil initially. But I jumped on the GS when it came out to complete my 2-channel system. I'd have to step up to 3.7i to get the transducers past 50% of the total cost, but I'm plenty happy with the 1.7i until the kids go off to college and I commandeer one of their bedrooms for a dedicated room. For headphones, I'm afraid to even calculate total transducer cost, but I'm sure it exceeds 2x what I've spent for any of the associated headfi electronics.

Hehe, mine breaks down to be 83, 5, 7, 2.5, 2.5