My Yggy impressions -- a non comprehensive look at what's knocking me over:
IMOYMMV
I've not owned or expect to own $3k - $10k dacs. However, with care and attention to detail, I felt that the dacs spending time in my system, Benchmark, Metrum Octave, Schiit Bifrost Uber, along with bel canto USB interface provided me with transparency, texture, and dynamics. Very real musical presentation. However, I made the Yggy plunge, mainly because I liked Schiit's philosophy ("...to give you the most from the music you already have..."), had experience with several of their products, and really believe in the importance of source components.
So upon receipt of Yggy, I left it on, ran many playlists through it, and spent a couple hours a day listening. Sounded good, maybe an improvement here and there, but not amazing, not a revelation. So, a couple weeks of "on" time and 150-200 hours playing time.
On day 14, a light switch was turned on. The recording space (or illusion of a recording space) is fully lit from top to bottom, side to side, corner to corner. The performance, the detail of all participants' performance in every recording is there. Gillian Welch's voice wavers imperfectly on a single note, The Band's shifting instruments are completely separate yet propel the tune hypnotically forward, Billie Holiday's reedy voice is alive, cushioned by Lester Young's sax, John Scofield's guitar tone is lush and round, then augmented by Medesky, Martin, & Wood punching and ramping everything up to highway speed.
In short, I now have truth of timbre in real space like I've never heard it in my system. And for me, this is what separates Yggy from the lesser digital front ends I've had. Timbre is, of course, the sum of the qualities that makes a saxophone and trumpet sound different from each other when playing the same musical notes. But all dacs enable us to tell a sax from a trumpet. How about very similar sounds in a recording?
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings harmonize very closely. But Yggy reveals their differences. In 'The Way It Goes', her "slightly punk" diction almost snarls while Rawlings' voice is the one that's clear as a bell. Didn't catch that before.
In Miles' 'Flamenco Sketches', the two saxes are not somewhat different, they are hugely different in their woody, honky presentations.
Different textures from the same guitar in one song? Absolutely, from Kenny Burrell's 'My Ship', as I've never heard it.
Yes, this dac delivers detail, detail, detail, but for me it's the real life timbre of detail that shows me what a great dac can bring to my system.
Yggdrasil's sudden accomplishment of break-in doesn't fit in with my years of hi-fi fun. I've "somewhat" believed in this happening, but in the past it's been "yeah, I think I hear a difference now". Never before did a component say "OK, I'm ready, let's listen to music".
Which I am now doing, re-listening to everything. Schiit, to me, is doing just what they claim - giving me the most from music I already have.
P.S. This is with PC - mostly 16/44 rips - JPLAY - Wyrd - Gen 3 USB.
