[mttbsh]

For the past 6 months I've been using a glass optical cable to connect a CDP to my Yggy, but recently acquired a Mac Mini as my source and am using only a cheap Radio Shack USB cable to the Yggy. It sounds great but I can't help wondering if upgrading the USB cable will be worthwhile.
 
I respect the belief that the quality of the USB cable makes absolutely no difference as long as the DAC receives the data, but from those who believe USB cables do make a big difference and that a cable that mates well with one DAC may not produce the same results with another, could you share your thoughts on which ones work best with the Yggy?   Thanks 

 

[Jamiee]

The very best USB cable I've heard at any price so far is the Curious Cable.
I have owned more expensive cables (less expensive too) but the Curious USB cable seems to strike a nice full bodied sound that many other USB cables can't quite seem to muster.
 
It has all the resolving detail of my Light Harmonic Lightspeed (dual-end) cable but with more Ooomph! in the mids and mid-bass region.
 
Just my $0.02 

 

[AudioBear]

If it sounds great to you why worry about it?  A bad USB cable/interface ought to produce some noticeable audible symptoms that require correction.  If you can't hear a problem you don't have one.  That's my minimalist take on it.  But....
 
I use USB into Yggy's little brother, the Gumby.   I'm feeding it with a MacPro using Audirvana or Fidellia.  As a precaution I go through an IiFi Micro iUSB 2 (there is also now  3rd edition that is even better).  There is also the Schiit Wyrd to consider as well as many other USB galvanic idolaters, de-crappifiers, reclockers, and whatever.  I think you get more for your buck with these  kinds of devices that just changing cables but they cost more than cables. Of course neither may be necessary.  It all depends on your particular environment with respect to EMI and RFI noise, etc. 
 
Sometimes doing nothing but leaning back and enjoying the music is the best approach.  It is highly likely that if you buy a better cable or a USB purifier you will think it sounds better (expectation bias) so if you start down this path be prepared for a tormented lifetime of moving from one fix to the next. Oh, and welcome to Head-fi Audiophile Syndrome.  All of ask, can it be better?
 
Quote:

   It sounds great but I can't help wondering if upgrading the USB cable will be worthwhile.
 
 

 

[tjl5709]

If you want an eye openner, try this one. I spent a couple weeks on the road on business/pleassure. Occasionally listening to my portable rigs.
 
All the while, the yggy sat at home and cooked another 2 weeks. So here it sits a month in since turning it on, and I got to re-listen to it today after a 2 week hiatus.
 
Simple description: OMG
 
Smooth, wide, detailed, musical
 
Grinning ear to ear............

 

[gefski]

Purchased Yggy last spring for my HeadFi desktop. Very happy, as I've described several times.

Just for the first time moved mac/Yggy into my living room speaker rig (Sonus Faber/Sonic Frontiers). Jaw dropping improvements.

Timbre - every instrument has more realistic texture. "Touch" of piano keys, strings, wood, skins. It's startling.

Air & space around everything, but no over-lean feeling. Just the opposite in fact.

Bass. Not "moar bass", but solid & defined.

Vital & dynamic with slam and attack, yet relaxed. (How can that be? No edginess I guess)

Since speakers do "real instruments in a room" better, the mac/Yggy seems more valuable out here. Just sold my backup Bifrost, so it looks like the cans will sit unused for a while.

 

[Ali-Pacha]

I wonder if a great vintage transport (looking at Esoteric P2-S) would be a good match with Yggy through AES/EBU... 

 
Ali

 

[gefski]

I wonder if a great vintage transport (looking at Esoteric P2-S) would be a good match with Yggy through AES/EBU... 

Ali

Used to have a California Audio Labs transport and liked it (via AES/EBU). It would be fun to try a reference transport like you mention.

But you never know which transports will work well with Yggy until you try.

CD players I've got around now and have tried (RCA coax)

A couple Sonys "buy better gear"
Rega Apollo "buy better gear"
Marantz Changer "buy better gear"

Marantz CD63SE does not light "buy better gear"

None sounded as good as 16/44 rips playing from RAM, either Windows/Jplay or mac/Audirvana.

IMOYMMV etc.

 

[comzee]

A couple Sonys "buy better gear"
Rega Apollo "buy better gear"
Marantz Changer "buy better gear"

Marantz CD63SE does not light "buy better gear"
 

I have a Pioneer DVD-V7400 as a CD transport. It does not light up the "buy better gear". Interesting that a Marantz and Rega transport would light up, while my V7400 doesn't....
Imo, the V7400 is a diamond in the rough in terms of price/performance.

 

[Ali-Pacha]

Got the "buy better gear" alight in only 2 occasions :
- when powering up, it's blinking
- with a crappy  Denon CD player, barely capable of reading a CD without glitches
 
No problem with other gear : several PCs, PhilipsCD930 / Marantz CD6003 / Teac CD-H750, PS3, optical output of my Sony TV, coaxial output of my internet provider box, and so on...
 
Ali

 

[taxiq]

None sounded as good as 16/44 rips playing from RAM, either Windows/Jplay or mac/Audirvana.

IMOYMMV etc.

Well my "IMOYMM" don't vary.   The rips sound better to me than what comes through a ModWright  Sony 9100es.   
 
FWIW do use Exact Copy with full testing and correction for best copy.  Now if only there were a reasonably priced box with AES/EBU output to store it in.

 

[Xcalibur255]

The Little Dot CDP_1 (in all it's awful glory) doesn't light up the better gear light either much to my surprise.  It's a pure transport but I still wasn't expecting much.
 
Yggy finally landed for me.  It has about, oh, 15 minutes of break-in.  My first impression is it sounds slightly better than my old DAC, about the same in detail and fuller in body.  Funny how everybody says the treble is bright and harsh before Yggy breaks-in and I think it sounds better than my old DAC right now.  I suppose that says something about my old DAC.......
 
The whole switching audio devices in Windows thing is playing out how I expected.  No matter what I do I have to go into a control panel and change an output mode somewhere if I want to switch from Yggy to my speaker amp or vise versa.  It's something I'll just have to get used to.  The sampling rate lights on Yggy also confirmed for certain what I was talking about earlier with my Claro soundcard.  The Claro C-media control panel's PCM sampling rate setting is absolute and nothing overrides it, not even direct ASIO output from Jriver.
 
The USB is working fine.  I did some preliminary comparisons between it and the optical toslink output from my soundcard.  They sound very similar.  There are differences, but they are minor.  I thought the optical had a tad bit more bass definition and timbre and the USB sounded a bit more full bodied but just a hair glossed over by comparison.  The USB cable is new, whether or not that is playing any role I cannot say.  I intend to stay with the USB input for now and see how it goes.
 
I'm really looking forward to hearing it around this time next week, I suspect given how long I stayed with my old DAC this will be a bigger upgrade for me than for most people.
 
Finally, quick question that I probably know the answer to but I have to ask anyway:  does Yggy have any way of telling the user whether it is receiving a 16 or 24 bit signal?  Or is it just the sampling rate?  I see more and more 44.1khz files that are 24bit and it would be nice to be able to tell which are which.

 

[earnmyturns]

   respect the belief that the quality of the USB cable makes absolutely no difference as long as the DAC receives the data, but from those who believe USB cables do make a big difference and that a cable that mates well with one DAC may not produce the same results with another, could you share your thoughts on which ones work best with the Yggy?   Thanks 

There are at least two ways in which the USB cable might matter. 1) (Lack of proper) error correction: a poor connection between sender and receiver could muddle up some of the bits, without any means to recover from the errors; 2) jitter: the ideal square waveforms representing the sent bits get somewhat munged by the cable as a result of the cable's frequency response, with the result that the timing of the detection of the leading edges of bit representations moves around and that may affect when samples are presented to the DAC -- that's why high-quality DACs (and clock regeneration devices) buffer the incoming samples its and re-issue them with a carefully controlled clock. Whether any of this matters in practice, only your ears (or sophisticated measuring devices) can ascertain.

 

[mttbsh]

  The very best USB cable I've heard at any price so far is the Curious Cable.
I have owned more expensive cables (less expensive too) but the Curious USB cable seems to strike a nice full bodied sound that many other USB cables can't quite seem to muster.
 
It has all the resolving detail of my Light Harmonic Lightspeed (dual-end) cable but with more Ooomph! in the mids and mid-bass region.
 
Just my $0.02 

The critics agree with you on the Curious Cable Jamiee! I was hoping not to spend $350-$400 on a USB cable but after reading the reviews and testimonials I may just take the plunge. Thanks for your suggestion and quick reply.
Matt,

 

[Xcalibur255]

Yggy already sounds a lot better than it did this afternoon.  If this is where things stopped improving I would consider it a worthy upgrade over what I had.  I'm really enjoying going through some select tracks and hearing the new presentation.  It sounds smooth, deep, revealing, effortless.
 
I can't believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.  How exciting.
 
I'm guessing nobody has any input on my bit depth question?  Or is the answer perhaps too obvious to everybody but me? 

 

[sheldaze]

  Yggy already sounds a lot better than it did this afternoon.  If this is where things stopped improving I would consider it a worthy upgrade over what I had.  I'm really enjoying going through some select tracks and hearing the new presentation.  It sounds smooth, deep, revealing, effortless.
 
I can't believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.  How exciting.
 
I'm guessing nobody has any input on my bit depth question?  Or is the answer perhaps too obvious to everybody but me? 

I personally just don't read the thread that closely. Nor do I look at the front panel of the Yggdrasil that much - in my system, it is simply too far away for me to see 

 
Yggdrasil is the only DAC in the Schiit lineup, which displays the 44.1, 48 and 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x - noting of course that 8x will never light up. It's for future use, if there ever comes to be a need. In short, you're in a special club just to have the sample rate information displayed 

 
Bit-depth though can quickly become a sore topic. It probably made sense not to include it, as there have been past discussions about real bit depth of the recorded material versus what-it-says in the advertisement. 32-bits - sure! For a fun time, read the first post of the thread in the link below and how 24-bits is enough dynamic information to kill you:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
 
And, the short answer to your question, does it display the bits - no