[Senex49]

Happy Monday. Freely admiitted, I’m one of those hated Northeastern elites who lives in the New York - Boston - D.C. reality distortion bubble. Haven’t really gotten around much, geographically. I see photos of horrible flooding in what is being described as “Texas Hill Country.” Does any of this put Jason and his new purchases in danger? I always thought Texas was a huge desert where you could wear your gun openly and proudly. I honestly thought getting water was the problem.

 

[StimpyWan]

No YGGY, I always preferred the Gumby...

Can you expound on that comment? Just curious as to your Gumby preference(s)? It's nice to hear, for whatever reason, that the Gumby is still worthy...!

Thanks...!

 

[Paladin79]

Can you expound on that comment? Just curious as to your Gumby preference(s)? It's nice to hear, for whatever reason, that the Gumby is still worthy...!

Thanks...!

I don’t want to start any arguments so I will just give the short answer. For my ears the music sounds more natural with the early Gungnir compared to the early Yggy. The same held true in the first DAC comparison my local group did. Maybe it was just the particular unit under test. In our second test the Yggy OG+ finished in the top five so it did much better. I am keeping my answer simple but 25 criteria were involved each time.

 

[RCBinTN]

DAC's I might place into my system at times are:
Holo Audio May KTE
Yggy + OG
Aqua La Voce
Doge Seven
PrimaLuna EVO 100

I have access to maybe five others but above are some of my favorites.

I rarely swap out speakers because of their size and weight but I have access to many.
My main power amps are
PrimaLuna
Cary
the Cowen (my design and build) I had another name for it but I do not recall lol
and Carver TFM 45

Turntables include
Hitachi PS 58
Pro-Ject (modified)
Eventually a Thorens and a Rek O Kut

Various pre-amps and phono pre amps etc.

Headphone amps, maybe seven or eight at this point in time. Headphones include Focal Utopia, OPPO 1's, Mr Speakers Mad Dog's or whatever they were called, I forget. Alpha Prime.

Tom - how would you (and your DAC evaluators) compare the Yggdrasil and the Holo Audio May KTE? I know a couple other head-fiers who own the KTE but I'm unfamiliar with it. Most of the people round these parts swear by the Yggy. Thanks, in advance.

 

[GearMe]

WOW (edit...wrong thread; talented guy/band though )





Bonus

 

[Paladin79]

Tom - how would you (and your DAC evaluators) compare the Yggdrasil and the Holo Audio May KTE? I know a couple other head-fiers who own the KTE but I'm unfamiliar with it. Most of the people round these parts swear by the Yggy. Thanks, in advance.

The May KTE won our second DAC challenge, the Aqua La Voce won our first. We did not have a KTE back then. All DACs were given a long warm up period and all comparisons were blind. Many tested were in the $5k range, we did have a price cutoff each time, $10k and $7k as I recall. Yggy finished with DACs selling for much more in round 2, so it is an outstanding buy.
In both cases the only brand having two versions was Schiit so I am probably biased towards their products.

Oh and in both cases my answers were close to that of the entire group, most of our differences were at DAK 6 and below. We try to use more than 40 participants so we tend to hover around 50 or so.

Your background is in QC as I recall so you might make a great participant. Mind you a lot of what we did was to solve friendly arguments in a way sanctioned by our core members. One might say X is the best DAC I ever heard then pick it as number 10 in a blind listen. Last I heard we may compare power tubes, or tube headphone amps or power amps in our next go round but it is still up in the air.

 

[Paladin79]

.... I have to ask: is your Cowen power amp orthogonally challenged ?

Oddly enough, no. He kept joking about the tubes I used so I named it after him. I designed it with components handed to me in a bucket, in order to win a bet and it had Russian WW 2 tubes. After winning the bet I upgraded many components.
The amp itself is butt ugly, but looks was not part of the original criteria.

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

WOW (edit...wrong thread; talented guy/band though )





Bonus

Don't know if have this or not, if not, worth to try it.

 

[artur9]

How do you all deal with "needle talk"?

As I needledrop the LPs I have that are either too pricey for CD or remastered after 1995, I have my 'table playing the LP and the needle talk is very annoying and disturbing.

Now, mostly, I'm in another room and it's not that loud. Or, if I'm actual listening to record via headphones, I don't hear it. Being a nervosa type, I still know it's there...

P.S. Another video by that same guy states that (paraphrased), "a downside to 96Khz sample rate recording is that it can't be processed so heavily because it's too computationally expensive." I'm good with that

 

[Paladin79]

How do you all deal with "needle talk?

As I needledrop the LPs I have that are either too pricey for CD or remastered after 1995, I have my 'table playing the LP and the needle talk is very annoying and disturbing.

Now, mostly, I'm in another room and it's not that loud. Or, if I'm actual listening to record via headphones, I don't hear it. Being a nervosa type, I still know it's there...

Two of mine have dust covers and automatic shut off, the dust cover does help as the article states.

 

[dstrimbu]

I use Wi-Fi as well, no issues.

Me too. Everything that I've read to date states that properly served WiFi beats wired connections for audio streaming, because air is a great insulator...

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

Me too. Everything that I've read to date states that properly served WiFi beats wired connections for audio streaming, because air is a great insulator...

+1
A cheap low power Wifi Router serves me well, Streaming Apple Music, clean.

 

[Dr. Cube]

How do you all deal with "needle talk?

I lower the dust cover. I have some little Sorbothane triangles that help to isolate the dust cover from the plinth. After that, I can't hear it even at low speaker volume.

 

[Ripper2860]

How do you all deal with "needle talk?

I make sure that my seating position is greater than .5" from the headshell. If it is still a problem, I stuff a cotton ball in each ear. I'm not fortunate enough to have my rig in an anechoic chamber so it's typically not a problem for me. It would seem that my breathing and heartbeat would likely be a bigger problem than 'needle talk'.

 

[Adam Balm]

I make sure that my seating position is greater than .5" from the headshell. If it is still a problem, I stuff a cotton ball in each ear. I'm not lucky enough to have my rig in an anechoic chamber, so it's typically not a problem for me.

Needle talk? Really? With today's high compliance, high quality cartridges, styli and tonearms?
I haven't had to deal with needle talk since I started using Shure V15's.
Oy.