[newToAudio100]

The only place it will win is on measurements. Last time I checked we don't listen to sine waves, though. The Yggy will blow it away!!!!!!

I have the yggdrasil og a2 and the t+a dac 200. I went from schiit modi to yggy og a2 and then from yggy to the dac 200. Both were huge upgrades. Going from yggy to dac 200 was one of the biggest upgrades I've heard in my system.

I'm just confused. I see a lot of people on reddit talking bad about high end dacs. I am confused about whether dsd on a cheap dac can compete with pcm on a nice dac, or dsd on a high end dac. What are your thoughts?

 

[GoldenSound]

Looking at audioscience reviews it seems a lot of people really like the topping d90se. How would d90se with hq player dsd 512 compare to yggdrasil og a2 streaming pcm over qobuz? Would the d90se actually beat it?

The D90SE uses an ESS chip which cannot convert DSD natively, it converts to PCM internally.

If wanting to take advantage of HQP modulators you'd need a DAC with true 1-bit DSD support. The AKM chip in the D90 can.

 

[theveterans]

I'm just confused. I see a lot of people on reddit talking bad about high end dacs. I am confused about whether dsd on a cheap dac can compete with pcm on a nice dac, or dsd on a high end dac. What are your thoughts?

Reddit is like 80% ASR and 20% budget oriented head-fi. You don't really post about serious gears on Reddit expecting people taking your impressions seriously there. I'd still take impressions from Head-fi any day despite the noise. Search function works beautifully to filter out any noise and get straight to info that I need.

As for D90SE, I reckon you bypass the ESS filter once you use DSD HQP modulators, but you still have the analog stage differences between Yggy A2 and D90SE. I reckon if you use a warm amp, D90SE with HQPlayer might take the cake over Yggy A2 while a neutral or even lean sounding amp to the Yggy A2 will win over D90SE

 

[geoffalter11]

I have the yggdrasil og a2 and the t+a dac 200. I went from schiit modi to yggy og a2 and then from yggy to the dac 200. Both were huge upgrades. Going from yggy to dac 200 was one of the biggest upgrades I've heard in my system.

I'm just confused. I see a lot of people on reddit talking bad about high end dacs. I am confused about whether dsd on a cheap dac can compete with pcm on a nice dac, or dsd on a high end dac. What are your thoughts?

The T+A does both PCM and 1 Bit Native DSD. It is like 2 DACs in one and is one of the nicest DACs on the planet. It really sounds fantastic. You have a great DAC that will do both for you. @GoldenOne is correct, ESS chips will convert to PCM. The AKM chip will leave it as DSD as far as I understand it, but I don't have the knowledge of @GoldenOne

But, I have heard them all and the T+A is an amazing product. As is the Yggy, and if you like the kind of sound Topping creates I am sure it is good for what it is. A fun tidbit about 9038 Pro chips. Each 9038 chip is 2 of the 9018 chips in one. Therefore, one 9038 Pro gives the DAC 16 channels per side. If the DAC has 2 9038 Pro Chips it will have 32 channels per side. This tidbit came from the Resonessence team who were all from ESS. I think this is one of the reasons why so many struggle to properly implement ESS chips. It is a complicated implementation. It seems that the ones who work directly with ESS on the implementation end up with the best sounding ESS DACs. I have the new Matrix X2 Pure with 2 of the 9039 Pro chips. Same deal, 32 channels per side. I absolutely love this DAC. I love the UI, and the sound is effortless and wonderful.

Oh, @GoldenOne I listened to the Ferrum stack with Wandla at Canjam Dallas and you are right about that DAC. It sounds sensational. However, I prefer my X2 Pure. But, I'd take the T+A or the Rossini Apex over the X2 Pure. But, I didn't hear anything else at Canjam that was better than my system which made me feel good. But, I heard a lot of stuff I could happily live with.

 

[Exekuhtor]

Reddit is like 80% ASR and 20% budget oriented head-fi. You don't really post about serious gears on Reddit expecting people taking your impressions seriously there. I'd still take impressions from Head-fi any day despite the noise. Search function works beautifully to filter out any noise and get straight to info that I need.

100% agree, the Sundara / HD6XX posts are everywhere, the "below 100 bucks headphones" posts are everywhere, people hype up a DT1990 to the max and circlejerk how good it is, and if you post: "Please try to get a tube amp because this thing is rather sharp, but with a tube amp (even a cheap one) it's really good since it enhances the soundstage and takes away the aggressive nature of it.", you get downvoted into oblivion because the average guy on r/headphones has no clue about this hobby...
I stopped commenting there, if you want serious feedback, Head-Fi is the way to go.

The average r/headphones user wants an A90/D90 stack and does not know that you need to use that thing balanced to get somewhat good results...

 

[newToAudio100]

100% agree, the Sundara / HD6XX posts are everywhere, the "below 100 bucks headphones" posts are everywhere, people hype up a DT1990 to the max and circlejerk how good it is, and if you post: "Please try to get a tube amp because this thing is rather sharp, but with a tube amp (even a cheap one) it's really good since it enhances the soundstage and takes away the aggressive nature of it.", you get downvoted into oblivion because the average guy on r/headphones has no clue about this hobby...
I stopped commenting there, if you want serious feedback, Head-Fi is the way to go.

The average r/headphones user wants an A90/D90 stack and does not know that you need to use that thing balanced to get somewhat good results...

I've noticed a lot of commenters on reddit have negative things to say about some of the best gear even though they likely never heard it. A lot of people talking down about gear that is outside their budget. It isn't just for headphones but anything nice like the rtx 4090 when it came out.

I think there's also a problem where people say a product is a "flagship killer". They say a product half the cost beats the flagship, and then comes along a product that beats the flap ship killer for half the cost, and then a product that beats that for half the cost. Suddenly people think their $100 headphones are close to some of the best gear out there.

I was mainly just curious about how some of the cheaper dacs with dsd perform relative to higher end dacs. I have yet to try the dac200 with dsd and I'm going to try it tomorrow night. Dac200 is an amazing piece of gear and I love the sound even with pcm mode. I started with the original schiit modi and then went to a yggy og a2, and then t+a dac200.

I noticed very clear big upgrades each time. I was reading some posts on audio science review saying the d90se is one of the best measuring dacs on the market and it's a waste to go higher etc. I hadn't tried dsd yet so I was wondering if dsd from something like the d90/d90se really is that good. I had my doubts because I've seen such big upgrades going up in dac tiers. I doubted going back could be that good.

My guess is these guys haven't actually tried any dacs higher than that or measured them. Thanks @GoldenOne for providing a valuable response and for the measurements. Looking forward to trying dac 200 with dsd.

I need to raise some money and might sell some gear. Dac 200 is almost certainly going to stay in my possession unless I really have to sell it to get funds.