I assume that the Yggy has very little burn in time then. Some equipment definitely has to burn in over time.
This is a crucial observation. At this point, no one, including Schiit has had any one particular Yggy running for months on end. As I've stated, warm-up time seems to decrease as the product gets older, e.g. my ~20 year old Theta Gen V is pretty much ready to go after flipping the switch.
Lacking though I am in English comprehension and being of limited hearing ability and slight of intellect too (
!), I did dare to think purrin's listening skills - which I too respect BTW - might be just a little too refined and discriminating. His comments might put off potential purchasers who would actually
enjoy yggy. IOW, perhaps purrin instantly hears subtleties I personally have yet to discover. Or might never. Not improbable: what I hear (can decode) now is considerably more than 2 or 3 years ago.
For new readers to this thread - yes. I am extremely discriminating. This is a typical conversation between some audiophile friends and I: "**** you, I don't hear this plankton (microdetail and resolution) ****. I'm not a level 70 audiophile." and I reply back: "You are still a level 55 audiophile, so I know you hear this plankton ****. You just don't want to go down that road because it's going to cost you."
I thought I had mentioned this in the first post or somewhere close to it, DACs tends to more close to each other than amps or headphones. It's funny because at the meet, I had a good conversation with Amos about how sensitive I am to small differences. Small differences that most people wouldn't care about. Also, everything is relative. If there is something better, second, third, and fourth, place sounds like ass. For example: PCM63 sounds great. The PCM1704 sounds like ass. (Actually, my thoughts about the PCM1704 have always been mixed.)
Someone commented a while back that this wasnt a thread about the Yggy, rather a thread for general discussion around DACs - I'm afraid that isnt the way I read the OP in late March 2015. Sigma-delta bad, R2R good - if you're prepared to make a relatively small commitment to getting the best out of it.
This thread became a journey for me. Rankings have changed a lot since I started it. I started with S-D / D-S stuff, learned to appreciate what R2R as of 2013 and 2014 brought to the table, went back in time to R2R as of 1990 (when there were better quality R2R chips, and latched on to Mike Moffat's secret project. People are going to gravitate to other people who have similar tastes. People may think I am a Schiit Yggy shill, but the fact is, this thread was started way way before I even knew about the existence of the Yggy. You guys have to know that the AGD M7 with OR5 i2s, and the PWD1->2 DACs were tops for a while.
Ok, I've been looking at the posts in this thread, and I'd thought I'd chime in with my thoughts on the Ygg/Rag combo at CanJam. Yes, I was lucky enough to plug in the Ether and the HE-1000 into the combo (as well as an HD800 and HE-560 that were at the Schiit table, and the HE-400i that I brought).
If I calibrate certain aspects of my preferences to yours, I actually don't disagree on your observations. I can definitely see a lot of people observing the Rag/Yggy combo as too bright. Tonal balance is a priority, but not the highest priority for me in terms of DACs. Resolution and lack of digital artifacts are the top priorities. I intentionally brought certain CDs which I felt were sufficiently resolving for the Yggy. Some of the CDs I brought were custom remastered to sound right on a neutral (more or less) speaker system. (The RHCP CD was not one of them, my neighbor put that CD in there.) Did you get a chance to hear my setup, the custom EC 2A3 amp + Yggy on Sunday morning or afternoon?
But every time I read about the Schiit Bifrost Uber vs Gungnir, I'm more and more uncertain about which one to choose
The Bifrost Uber USB fits my budget. Gungnir would be more a long-long term investment. Are the additional 330 $ (well, in Canada it's more like 400 $!) of the Gungnir worth it ? It's almost twice the price ...
LOL, I have a problem between choosing Bifrost Uber or Gungnir myself. If you think you might go forward in this hobby, I'd get the Gungnir since they are so close in price. Mike Moffat mentioned at CanJam during his presentation something along the lines of when you buy a DAC from Schiit, you buy a relationship, and when it comes time for an upgrade, if you buy used, you are going to ******* pay more for an upgrade. Given the history of Theta providing upgrades, and Schiit providing upgrades in the past, I wonder if something might be up. I'm just thinking that if something happens, the Gungnir will be a much better platform for uber awesome upgrades.
Purrin, or hell, even Mike Moffat, have you not considered explaining why you think the Ygg/Theta, etc improve with warm up time. I mean, the discussion on jitter is interesting,
It would all be conjecture. I'm thinking it's the 5791 chips. This is based on what I was told about changes to the output section of the .96 and .99 versions. The chips have self-correcting mechanisms to maintain its accuracy. The fact that the spec-sheet has INL plots for different temperatures also makes you wonder. Temperature of the chip may asymptotically stabilize, but a in a small up-down squiggly way toward it.
P.S.
Most of my listening is through speakers. So this presents an entirely different set of variables.
P.S.S.
Just to **** with you guys more, absolute polarity does matter. This is why there is a polarity switch on the Yggy and Gen V. I was not a believer before.
