Could anyone with experience using both the RME ADI-2 DAC section and Yggdrasil A2 compare the two?
I'm having sort of a "shootout" today on my headphone rig, I went down and got my Yggdrasil A2 (alas no Unison USB, just Gen 5). I brought it upstairs and hooked it up and am listening now - Yggy - gsx mini - Grado PS1000e. It sounds great!
Comparison to RME (which I normally use on this rig). I'm not the best at describing sound, but I'm finding the Yggdrasil seems "punchier" maybe? It seems like the RME might have more extreme high end. The Yggdrasil seems warmer maybe. Not as bright. As for resolving, it's hard to tell a lot of difference. Guitars seem punchier maybe. On a Rush song called Territories the vocals have echo/delay at the beginning trailing off, It seems I could hear them a (little) more clearly on the RME (going by memory, not a direct comparison). The Yggdrasil is VERY pleasant to listen to I'll say that. I don't want to unplug it and take it back downstairs (I will though).
One difference, the RME switches to different sample rates without a problem, where the Yggdrasil clicks and doesn't switch immediately, a teeny bit of the beginning of a song can be cut off.
Some notes - on my headphone rig, I use Windows 10 - and musicbee as a player for my flac library.
-Yggdrasil - I use the WASAP (Exclusive) -
-RME - ASIO with their madiface driver.
Both use USB on this computer, on my downstairs computer (speaker listening) the Yggdrasil is fed with a lynx soundcard via AES.
Hope this helped. I'm not having a shootout where I keep going back and forth between units, just going by memory of the other RME for now as I listen to Yggdrasil.
On another note, my Yggdrasil takes a few minutes to even come to life. When I hooked up USB and switched it over up here on the headphone rig, it took a minute or so before it decided to work. I wonder if anyone else has had this issue.