[Ultimateaudioslave]

Look guys what I found in the internet today. I think this is going to keep me busy for the weekend.

Schiit's Jason Stoddard comparing their headphone amps:
Jason Stoddard comparing their speaker amps:
Jason stoddard about release date of SOL and Rag 2:
Exclusive detailed look of Rag 2:

 

[mulveling]

Bought a Yggdrasil this week - this one's a 4 month-old Analog2 / USB 5 as opposed to the original model I used to own.
It sounds pretty damn good 1 day into warm-up. Definitely reminds me of the old Yggy's sound; perhaps a little cleaner and free of the "haze" as others have mentioned. Extremely detailed, with very nice mids. I'd wish for a bit more bass impact and maybe a touch more relaxed up top, but I'll wait and see if it improves further. I initially tried the USB5 input, but still thought it was a bit bright (*hated* this aspect of the USB3) - but maybe it needed more warm-up. For now I'm running my old Audiophilleo 2 converter to SPDIF, which never fails to sound good.

I'm 95% vinyl in both speaker & headphone systems, so I don't have any good digital gear for comparison. The Yggy is definitely a big step up from the ECP MX DAC I was using - which itself is a nice sounding budget-ish DAC (~ $1K) with a lovely sweet tone and superb CineMag based output stage, but the old Wolfson chip simply can't supply the detail and dynamics my Stax 009 / 009S and DIY T2 headphone system requires to really hit its stride. I downsized to the ECP back before I upgraded my turntable and was still running a Blue Hawaii SE - and it actually did quite well in that arrangement. But nowadays the T2 begs for much, much more performance. I think the Yggy delivers a lot of that - but of course still doesn't match the vinyl rig here, which runs at 5x the Yggy's cost. Not bad for the price of the Yggy though, considering how it sits closer to the performance of the vinyl rig than it does to the old DAC.

Looking forward to some good listening now - I have a large hard drive of FLACs that fell into disuse because my digital side had fallen way too far behind vinyl.

 

[Svatopluk]

That 5x the cost part has discouraged me from getting too serious about vinyl over the years. I still have the Technics SL-3300 turntable I bought back in the early 80's and my vinyl collection hasn't grown in the past thirty years. It's truely been an enjoyable year and a half with the Yggdrasil/Ragnarok combo.

 

[mulveling]

That 5x the cost part has discouraged me from getting too serious about vinyl over the years. I still have the Technics SL-3300 turntable I bought back in the early 80's and my vinyl collection hasn't grown in the past thirty years. It's truely been an enjoyable year and a half with the Yggdrasil/Ragnarok combo.

True, now that I look back the expense is crazy. That 5x is not even my main turntable in the 2ch system. I got started in vinyl around 2007, when it wasn't quite so bad. I started with a nice SOTA Star / Fidelity Research / Benz rig that clobbered my Meridian G08 CD player for the same cash outlay - and I was hooked. Now I have enough of a vinyl library that there's no going back. But as much as I love vinyl, I have to admit the value equation has changed a lot in the past few years. It's nice that digital sources in the 2K range sound genuinely good these days - that wasn't the case when I got into this hobby in the early days of head-fi. BelCanto DAC2, Benchmark DAC1, Sony SCD-1 (in Redbook), even the Meridian G08 - none of these really "did it" for me. The Yggy is much much better than them all.

 

[goreshade]

I have a noob question.
If i use RCA out, do i still benefit from the ygg fully ? or only half the machine is working since RCA means single ended ?

 

[bacobits]

Of course. Use good interconnects as there are differences on all the wires to and from the Yiggy.

 

[Ableza]

I have a noob question.
If i use RCA out, do i still benefit from the ygg fully ? or only half the machine is working since RCA means single ended ?

You will not be using "half the machine." A single-ended output is the same signal as a balanced output.

 

[ToTo Man]

Soon I'll have the opportunity to home demo the Hugo TT 2 and Hugo M Scaler. It'll be interesting to compare this combo to my Yggy2. Have any other Yggy owners made this comparison? If so, what did you think?

 

[Ultimateaudioslave]

Soon I'll have the opportunity to home demo the Hugo TT 2 and Hugo M Scaler. It'll be interesting to compare this combo to my Yggy2. Have any other Yggy owners made this comparison? If so, what did you think?

No, and of course I am interested. My Idea is nothing less than Dave will be able to put up to a competition.

 

[szymonsays]

Sigh... i wonder if the new unit i ordered and bought is a lemon. The LED lights on the front aren't lit up when i have turned the unit on. I've tried switching to a different power cord, but this didn't work. My laptop recognizes the Yggy, but i am not getting any playback (probably because i don't even know which input is on as the light isn't on). I've tried to press the input button several times to see if i could randomly land on the USB input, but no go...

I can't believe i have to write to customer service already

 

[bacobits]

Used or new?
Return it!
Not right.

 

[szymonsays]

Used or new?
Return it!
Not right.

Brand new. And on the Schiit UK website it looks as if the one i bought was the last unit they had in stock as the site currently states it's out of stock. If i need a replacement, it looks like i might need to wait a while I've just written an email to customer service.

 

[bearFNF]

AW man that stinks...

Sigh... i wonder if the new unit i ordered and bought is a lemon. The LED lights on the front aren't lit up when i have turned the unit on. I've tried switching to a different power cord, but this didn't work. My laptop recognizes the Yggy, but i am not getting any playback (probably because i don't even know which input is on as the light isn't on). I've tried to press the input button several times to see if i could randomly land on the USB input, but no go...

I can't believe i have to write to customer service already

 

[alpovs]

Sigh... i wonder if the new unit i ordered and bought is a lemon. The LED lights on the front aren't lit up when i have turned the unit on. I've tried switching to a different power cord, but this didn't work. My laptop recognizes the Yggy, but i am not getting any playback (probably because i don't even know which input is on as the light isn't on). I've tried to press the input button several times to see if i could randomly land on the USB input, but no go...

I can't believe i have to write to customer service already

I hope you flipped the power switch on the BACK. I think you wrote you did. The computer will recognize it even if it's completely off and unplugged. Looks like yours just won't turn on.

 

[szymonsays]

So after receiving the unit i sent in (it appears there was just something disconnected inside the dac), i have had the Yggy burning in for almost 2 weeks now. It definitely sounds better than it did a week ago. I am very impressed and can finally accept that a good DAC makes a difference in your setup. But i do have to say that the law of diminishing returns definitely plays a role - at least with dacs anyway. Coming from an ifi micro iDSD and chord mojo, the Yggy definitely is better and i'd easily accept the price difference between them. However, i don't think the Yggy is 4 to 5 times better than those two. Either way, i'm happy to say that the Yggy is my endgame dac for the foreseeable future as i just don't believe a dac costing 3-4 times more than the Yggy could be significantly better.