[rsbrsvp]

  You're just toying with us now.  But this is very freaky, if you ask me.  
 
Do the other multibit DACs have this characteristic of BOOM! suddenly coming together?

Just reporting my experience.  The main point is I‘m glad it worked out.  Now I can really give it a proper 24/7 burn in for a good month without worrying about returning the dac and really see where it gets.  But even if it made no changes from where it is now- it sounds excellent as it is.

 

[landroni]

Each original sample (which are all retained in the Yggy's mega combo burrito filter) could be from 16 (Redbook) to 24 (Hi-res) bits.  The 20 bit output samples are rounded off (not truncated) right before the DAC.

On a different occasion you've mentioned this, too:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/782824/schiit-fire-and-save-matches-bifrost-multibit-is-here/480#post_11988106

  In Yggy, Gumby, and Bimby all trailing bits are rounded at 20, 18, and 16 bits respectively - not truncated which introduces errors.

 
But I still don't get it... Technically what is difference between truncation and rounding in this context? Why does truncation introduce errors, and how? I'm hoping someone could come up with a brief example... And how does this all fit in with Mike's/Jason's assertions that there is barely any actual content above 20 bits (2^20=1048576), even in 24 bit files...

 

[landroni]

 

  Musical (take 2) - both Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multibit are musical. You do not lose this in getting more details out from the Yggdrasil. I think that is the concept that is difficult to imagine, due to most detail-oriented devices taking away from the musical nature. The Yggdrasil does not! It gets you even closer to the music. And if you are listening to a talented performer, say Yo Yo Ma on a cello, the Yggdrasil will be more musical. If you are listening to a poorly mixed or recorded track, the Yggdrasil will tell you this - likely making it less musical and more distracting.

 
This goes back to my statement, can you take advantage of the fidelity of the Yggdrasil? If it makes sense, do it! If it does not, I would actually recommend listening to both the Gungnir Multibit and Bifrost Multibit, because all three DACs are quite musical, at different layers of fidelity.

That was my concern about the Yggy.   I do not want to loose musicality for a small amount of detail.  Musicality is more important to me.

Now that you've got your copy of Yggy and experienced its magic after the necessary burn-in period, how do you rate its musicality? Does it bring extra resolution to the table, and in your opinion does it interfere with perceived musicality?
 
Thanks

 

[crazychile]

 

Originally Posted by rsbrsvp /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
The first six days until 3-4 hours ago- the dac sounded somewhat congested and the resolution was O.K. but nothing special at all.  In the last few hours the detail and soundstage has exploded.  I have never heard such micro detail ever.
...
This dac is for real.

You're just toying with us now.  But this is very freaky, if you ask me.  
 
Do the other multibit DACs have this characteristic of BOOM! suddenly coming together?

In the case of the Bimby, there was no BOOM. It started off very good and then a bit of glare subsided and the low level detail developed a little. I'd say that within 40 hours you're at 98% of how good it's going to get.

 

[rsbrsvp]

 
Now that you've got your copy of Yggy and experienced its magic after the necessary burn-in period, how do you rate its musicality? Does it bring extra resolution to the table, and in your opinion does it interfere with perceived musicality?
 
Thanks

The resolution is excellent on today- the 7th day of burn-in.  However- I still need to give it time and see where it goes.  I have read some posts that actually things may temporarily go backwards.  I need to wait and see for final results.  I am impressed as of today- but I will see how I feel in a month or two.
 
It is to my ears a musical dac as well....
 
My quick summary of the sonics would be:  sounds very neutral with lot’s of resolution and excellent transparency.

 

[Baldr]

I felt that I reached a listening threshold with the megacomboburrito filter I became aware of after the fact of listening to it for some time but not being aware of it. I have no idea how to explain it to anyone who has not experienced it.  Startling is the word for me.

 

[DougD]

  I felt that I reached a listening threshold with the megacomboburrito filter I became aware of after the fact of listening to it for some time but not being aware of it. I have no idea how to explain it to anyone who has not experienced it.  Startling is the word for me.

 
I've been wondering for a while:
 
(1) if/how you design gear with the thought or expectation that it's going to have the kind of major post-burn improvement in SQ that so many people report they experience with the Yggy, and 
 
(2) given #1, how you test the prototypes. "Hey, haven't heard the 3-day magic, let's try at 7 days." "Bah, no 7-day jolt, better wait & hope for 12-days." 
 
This is mostly a rhetorical question for pondering, unless there are actual answers to these things. 

 

[shultzee]

My experience is it creeps up on you.  Then all of a its like wow this thing is really,really good.   Unlike anything else I have owned in the audio world and I have had some good stuff.

 

[johndean]

My experience is it creeps up on you.  Then all of a its like wow this thing is really,really good.   Unlike anything else I have owned in the audio world and I have had some good stuff.

This is completely accurate . It does creep up on you . Then the hair raises up on your forearm , literally .

 

[Peaceofmind]

Maybe all the parts that go into the Yggy began to work together like a single coherent brain after awhile. Maybe being a balanced designed and having symmetry in circuit layout helps it develop a self awareness of what it's supposed to do, turn digital data into music.

 

[jcx]

 

Each original sample (which are all retained in the Yggy's mega combo burrito filter) could be from 16 (Redbook) to 24 (Hi-res) bits.  The 20 bit output samples are rounded off (not truncated) right before the DAC.

On a different occasion you've mentioned this, too:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/782824/schiit-fire-and-save-matches-bifrost-multibit-is-here/480#post_11988106

  In Yggy, Gumby, and Bimby all trailing bits are rounded at 20, 18, and 16 bits respectively - not truncated which introduces errors.

 
But I still don't get it... Technically what is difference between truncation and rounding in this context? Why does truncation introduce errors, and how? I'm hoping someone could come up with a brief example... And how does this all fit in with Mike's/Jason's assertions that there is barely any actual content above 20 bits (2^20=1048576), even in 24 bit files...

truncation drops everything right of the "decimal point" (but in binary) in the smooth analog input conversion to discrete ADC steps
 
so -0.999... and +0.999... get truncated to 0 giving a "deadband" or "crossover distortion" 2 bits wide arround 0, while rounding makes all the steps just 1 bit wide everywhere
 
the truncation deadband generates more quantization noise, of different and annoying character than rounding - but both give "correlated quantization noise" - "spitty" distortion as the analog signal fades below the thresholds of the lower bits of the ADC in recording, DAC in playback
 
you can hear it in the 8 bit audio samples at: http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/
 
 
the next step is adding dither - as the Lukin page shows, gives listening examples - dither is near universally recognized as an improvement over rounding alone for digital audio, nearly all commercial CD will have been dithered in the last bit, most with "noise shaping" - for which Lukin is showing various options
 
dither gives a audibly smooth fade of the audio/music signal to below the lowest bit
 
 
Mike has gone ballistic before when it was pointed out that the practice of dither in commercial digital audio releases makes "bit perfect, dammit" a rather odd sounding affectation to those of us familiar with the math, the noise of microphones, playing venues, listening rooms... and the commercial digital audio production practice and Psychoacoustic hearing details
 
as someone experienced in designing Scientific and Industrial Instrumentation; selecting, designing, wiring ADC, and DAC to computers since the 1980's, I would dither inside the DAC when using R2R DAC chips of <24 bit resolution
with "flat/white" spectrum Triangular Probability Density Function (tpdf) dither the "cost" is ~ 3dB of added noise over the full bandwidth, with upsampling DAC less of dither noise is in the audio band even without noise shaping
the most trivial "1st difference" colored tpdf dither wouldn't move the Audio S/N spec meaningfully at 8x upsampling
 
but it would be "below lsb linear" - which the rest of the digital audio world has decided is the more important feature to have

 

[Xcalibur255]

 
In the case of the Bimby, there was no BOOM. It started off very good and then a bit of glare subsided and the low level detail developed a little. I'd say that within 40 hours you're at 98% of how good it's going to get.

 
I think a big part of why Yggy costs so much more is the extra finesee in the power regulation.  Devices like that are very precise and probably only achieve their target performance when they are well and truly thermally stable.
 
Just a guess on my part as to why Yggy's burn in period comes on differently.

 

[crazychile]

 

 
In the case of the Bimby, there was no BOOM. It started off very good and then a bit of glare subsided and the low level detail developed a little. I'd say that within 40 hours you're at 98% of how good it's going to get.

 
I think a big part of why Yggy costs so much more is the extra finesee in the power regulation.  Devices like that are very precise and probably only achieve their target performance when they are well and truly thermally stable.
 
Just a guess on my part as to why Yggy's burn in period comes on differently.

 
 
Going from memory, I think Baldr commented several months back that the Yggy DAC chips simply take a long time to thermally stabilize. Regarding cost, they also run around $100 each and there's 4 of 'em.

 

[RoundRound]

 
Mike has gone ballistic before when it was pointed out that the practice of dither in commercial digital audio releases makes "bit perfect, dammit" a rather odd sounding affectation to those of us familiar with the math, the noise of microphones, playing venues, listening rooms... and the commercial digital audio production practice and Psychoacoustic hearing details
 
as someone experienced in designing Scientific and Industrial Instrumentation; selecting, designing, wiring ADC, and DAC to computers since the 1980's, I would dither inside the DAC when using R2R DAC chips of <24 bit resolution
with "flat/white" spectrum Triangular Probability Density Function (tpdf) dither the "cost" is ~ 3dB of added noise over the full bandwidth, with upsampling DAC less of dither noise is in the audio band even without noise shaping
the most trivial "1st difference" colored tpdf dither wouldn't move the Audio S/N spec meaningfully at 8x upsampling
 
but it would be "below lsb linear" - which the rest of the digital audio world has decided is the more important feature to have

 
Hello Mate,
If the Yggy does the dither internally, does that mean I should turn off dither in JRMC? They support TPDF - 
 
Thank you!

 

[jcx]

Mike's few nearly relevant statements can be interpreted as an indication he doesn't use dither - hard to reconcile dither with "bit perfect, dammit"
 
where I'm suggesting dither is better than rounding is inside the Yggy and Schiit's other R2R DAC boxes, applied after the upsamping, megaburrito filter - when the >32 bit DSP FIR output is cut down to the R2R DAC chip native bit depth
 
 
but at the Yggy's 20+ bit resolution the Audible difference is expected to be swamped by amplifier electronic noise, "quiet" home listening room background noise, microphonics of headphones converting your pulse, muscle tremors into sound