[bearFNF]

With regards to leaving the yiggy plugged in, does it mean plugged in to power but the power switch is turned off? Or keep it turned on?

Keep it turned on.

 

[yadoo]

For anyone interested, this is Bob Katz and Tyll's initial impressions on Yggy https://youtu.be/jtjlUiCFkno?t=52s from 0:52 to 7:21. They also compared Ygg with 'Antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum DSD DAC with Voltikus Power Supply, and 10M Rubidium Atomic Clock ($13,045)'

 

[wahsmoh]

  First impressions of the Yiggy after listening to it for about 4 hours, playing games and music
 
My setup: PC > USB cable > Yiggy > Wywires Silver IC > Oppo HA-1 > Wywires Red > Ether C
 
i had been listening to the Oppo Ha-1 for over a year now, and for about a month with the Ether C which has been fully burned in. This would be a direct comparison between the Oppo HA-1's DAC vs the Yiggy. 
 
Bass:
As i played my favourite EDM tracks, the bass felt pretty tight, impactful and punchy. That being said, i still do EQ the sub bass below 125hz +4.5db  as i use my Ether C's without extra tuning pads and need abit more bass. Man... i felt a special energy when listening to Five Hours track i didn't really feel with the Oppo. There just seems to be more details in the bass, and damn it feels tight.
 
Mids:
The Oppo HA-1 and its Sabre DAC is very much neutral and organic. i've liked it for a long time for its ability to be neutral and sort of cost effective DAC/Amp combo, but i bought the Yiggy expecting a step up to what i had and so far without having gone through the full burn in, i think i can say that there's almost no difference for me to the mids. However, when i played around with the Phase Inverter switch, something seemed to change. The mids seemed fuller to me, the imaging and soundstage expanded, and the mids felt really smooth, full bodied and detailed.
 
Treble:
This is where it really is a BIG differentiator for me. Before with the Oppo HA-1, there were the odd shrills with some tracks which i've had to EQ down 2-3db at the 6-8K mark. However, when i played the Yiggy with a flat EQ with the same track, the point of where the music would have sounded shrilly with the Oppo was nicely rounded off and actually didn't make me cringe one bit! Holy cow. 
I also felt that the high notes seem to have better clarity and resolution to them
 
Soundstage:
Definitely much expanded soundstage compared to the Sabre DAC. This was my primary motivating factor for buying a standalone DAC and i'm really happy that this nailed it for me.
 
Aside from the change in DAC, i had also incorporated my interconnects so i too wonder how much of the improvement in sound would be attributed to them. Pretty damn pleased i am with the Wywires ICs, its the first time i spent so much on a cable!
 
i'm looking for further improvement as the Yiggy gets burned in and will post further impressions as my yiggy ages

Nice impressions. Shrill highs and collapsed soundstage are the first things that came to mind when I auditioned a slew of Sabre DACs and other delta-sigma variants.
 
Something special about the Yggy, Theta, and Bifrost MB (all of which I have heard and/or owned) is that they share the same cohesive sound and imaging. What makes them all vastly different is the amount of resolution and the amount of drive in the midrange and bass that I believe are dependent upon other factors than the custom DSP algorithm. This comes down to the chips used, amount of dynamic range, and the sophistication of the power supplies.
 
The sum of all these components is why I think the Yggy and my 1994 Theta sounds better than the Bifrost MB with redbook. There is no way to fit a larger power supply in the Bifrost MB so I am sure they put in as much as they can get into it.

 

[RCBinTN]

  I find I sometimes hear a bit of muddiness in the lower regions of my HD800. Bass, I suppose, is difficult to reproduce with the air and clarity of the treble, but I'm wondering whether this is a transducer issue, a Mjolnir 2 issue, or (given that it's the weakest link in the chain) a Bifrost issue.

 
Is your Bifrost the DS or MB (upgraded) version?  I'm sure the M2 will push the HD800 very well, but your DAC may not be allowing you to hear all the music.  I overcame that with the Gungnir MB that is highly revealing / I suspect the BMB would be as well.
 
BTW, to answer your question about the Liquid Gold amp - it is super sublime.  Heard it at the Nashville meet...was my favorite amp there even compared to the WA5.

 

[artur9]

Anyone have a Wofson WM8740 based DAC to compare to the Yggy? I am curious as to whether bypassing my preamp's DAC and using its digital out would yield an improvement.

 

[Torq]

  Anyone have a Wofson WM8740 based DAC to compare to the Yggy? I am curious as to whether bypassing my preamp's DAC and using its digital out would yield an improvement.

 
The only WM8740 based "DAC" I have is the AK120, which uses a dual-mono implementation of the 8740.  While it's not a pure-DAC due to the headphone output stage (no true line-out), I wouldn't say it betters the Bifrost 4490, let alone Yggdrasil.  Chord's Mojo also easily clobbers the 8740 through the AK120.
 
I also have a WM8741 based Linn Akurate DSM, which uses the 8741 (supposedly improved from the 8740 but of fundamentally similar nature) with a custom FPGA filter section and even that is bested by Yggdrasil.
 
Not ideal comparisons by any means, but that's the closest I can give you.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

How significant are the sonic differences between SE and balanced outputs?

 

[landroni]

  How significant are the sonic differences between SE and balanced outputs?

Depends whom you ask...
 
Some will swear SE is crippled, some will swear when others insist SE is crippled...

 

[Baldr]

 
Depends whom you ask...
 
Some will swear SE is crippled, some will swear when others insist SE is crippled...

 
First post since my neck rebuild surgery - feeling better.  RE the above quote:  Nothing is crippled!!!  I took my best shot at both!!  I really do not know where these SE is crippled rumors come from, but they are pure, unadulterated, 100% bullschiit!!!
 
Also, the SAME is true for Gumby!!

 

[landroni]

 
 
First post since my neck rebuild surgery - feeling better.  RE the above quote:  Nothing is crippled!!!  I took my best shot at both!!  I really do not know where these SE is crippled rumors come from, but they are pure, unadulterated, 100% bullschiit!!!

 
Also, the SAME is true for Gumby!!

Glad to hear you're doing better now.
 
I guess some of the rumours come from reviews such as this:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/763905/finding-a-dac-for-the-cavalli-liquid-carbon-only-four-months-to-go/1005#post_11872598
 
This said, I understand that the SE is a couple of dB lower than the balanced out, so this might be perceived in a number of ways by reviewers. In the end I tend to put more weight on reviews such as this:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/785369/yggdrasil-gungnir-mb-bifrost-mb-a-terse-ribald-comparison/15#post_12286020

 

[Xcalibur255]

   
First post since my neck rebuild surgery - feeling better.  RE the above quote:  Nothing is crippled!!!  I took my best shot at both!!  I really do not know where these SE is crippled rumors come from, but they are pure, unadulterated, 100% bullschiit!!!
 
Also, the SAME is true for Gumby!!

 
From what I gathered the only difference is there is one additional part in the signal path for SE, necessary to sum the naturally balanced output signal from the chip, and thus there is a very slight resolution/transparency penalty because the signal has to be fed through one additional electrical component.  Does this sound about on the money?
 
Hope you recover well from surgery, that sounds like an ordeal.  Best wishes.

 

[Torq]

  How significant are the sonic differences between SE and balanced outputs?

It's hard to say, since there's no way to directly compare them - since your amplifier is always going to be part of that equation (i.e. it's implementation of balanced vs. single-ended is going to have as much of an effect as the summing implementation in Yggdrasil).  Additionally, if you're using headphones, whether they are balanced or single-ended and how your amplifier handles that is also going to have an effect!
 
That said ... using Yggdrasil with  Ragnarok I find I prefer the following configurations, in descending order of preference:
 

• Yggdrasil (BAL) -> Ragnarok -> Headphones (BAL)
• Yggdrasil (BAL) -> Ragnarok -> Headphones (SE)
• Yggdrasil (SE) -> Ragnarok -> Headphones (BAL)
• Yggdrasil (SE) -> Ragnarok -> Headphones (SE)

 
I would say that these differences, small though they are (you'd need to listen back to back to hear them at all) have FAR more to do with Raganrok being operated in non-balanced mode end-to-end than anything to do with Yggdrasil.
 
Additionally, feeding my WA5 LE, which is a single-ended amplifier with convenience balanced inputs/outputs, I can't discern between Yggdrasil in Balanced or Single Ended mode (and that's with both connected simultaneously and just swapping inputs on the WA5 LE).  I do prefer the balanced output on the WA5 LE though (which doesn't make much sense, but there you go).
 
Note that I generally level match such tests with an SPL meter, and that was the case when I was comparing here.
 
And for reference, at the moment, I leave the Yggdrasil connected to the Ragnarok using the balanced connections as that best exploits Ragnarok, and I feed the WA5LE with the single-ended outputs.  Again, these are connected simultaneously.
 
Hope that helps.

 

[Torq]

   
First post since my neck rebuild surgery - feeling better.  RE the above quote:  Nothing is crippled!!!  I took my best shot at both!!  I really do not know where these SE is crippled rumors come from, but they are pure, unadulterated, 100% bullschiit!!!
 
Also, the SAME is true for Gumby!!

Glad to see you survived and are feeling better!

 

[buke9]

I don't know of it is cables but there is a slight difference between the two for me on the Liquid Carbon easy to switch between the two. My bal cables are solid silver and the se are Occ Norne wire both diy . Still would be happy with either.

 

[Torq]

I don't know of it is cables but there is a slight difference between the two for me on the Liquid Carbon easy to switch between the two. My bal cables are solid silver and the se are Occ Norne wire both diy . Still would be happy with either.

Even if the cable wasn't a variable, how would you know the difference is due to the output of the Yggdrasil rather than the way the Liquid Carbon implements it's SE/Balanced inputs and outputs?