Review and Measurements of Schiit Yggdrasil V2 DAC

[amirm]

Well since they admitted that they did, I would chalk that up to an oops moment. But I can certainly understand why you wouldn't. I would have asked for it back so that you can re-run tests and see if it matches.

I did better. I and the owner asked both Jude at head-fi and atomicbob to re-run their tests on the units before going to Schiit. Both declined.

As for me, the owner made me insure the unit out of my pock which cost me $100 with shipping costs. And having tested no less than three units to make the same point, it was not my burden to carry anymore.

If this was never a problem, Schiit should have contacted me and sent me another unit to test. This is what Benchmark did with their DAC. To this date, Schiit has not contacted me whatsoever. In contrast, I reached to both Mike and Jason on head-fi, both of whom banned me from their respective threads in addition to being quite rude.

So if you like to give them the benefit of doubt, do. But they have done nothing to earn it.

 

[Sal1950]

This saga of problems with schiit started a tyrade that eventually ended up with me being banned from Head-Fi for not supporting Schiit since "they are a partner" and by recommending Topping and SMSL gear in threads over Schiit gear I was "recommending unproven gear and steering people in the wrong direction".
After a bunch of whiney comments from admins on Headfi and even Jason contacting me personally and offering to refund me all the money I've spent on Schiit products in exchange for me being quiet about the issues.... Jude put my account on permanent moderation.

Your a bad man Jim.

 

[garbulky]

I did better. I and the owner asked both Jude at head-fi and atomicbob to re-run their tests on the units before going to Schiit. Both declined.

As for me, the owner made me insure the unit out of my pock which cost me $100 with shipping costs. And having tested no less than three units to make the same point, it was not my burden to carry anymore.

If this was never a problem, Schiit should have contacted me and sent me another unit to test. This is what Benchmark did with their DAC. To this date, Schiit has not contacted me whatsoever. In contrast, I reached to both Mike and Jason on head-fi, both of whom banned me from their respective threads in addition to being quite rude.

So if you like to give them the benefit of doubt, do. But they have done nothing to earn it.

Yeah I remember that whole deal. I guess I was sort of on the sidelines. That sucks that it went down like that. I have a feeling you and Schiit would have gotten along if things had gone a bit differently. FWIW, I don't think they are out to mislead...

 

[amirm]

FWIW, I don't think they are out to mislead...

They did exactly this on Yggdrasil. Ditto for the hum on their other products that I discovered due to poor grounding. They do not want to admit mistakes. It goes against the persona they have created online. That they are gods of audio and mere mortal audiophiles need to not question them. Accepting design flaws like we have discovered is just not in their vocabulary. So they play fast and loose with facts.

My advice: don't trust a thing they say. Rely on independent verification and data.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

They did exactly this on Yggdrasil. Ditto for the hum on their other products that I discovered due to poor grounding. They do not want to admit mistakes. It goes against the persona they have created online. That they are gods of audio and mere mortal audiophiles need to not question them. Accepting design flaws like we have discovered is just not in their vocabulary. So they play fast and loose with facts.

My advice: don't trust a thing they say. Rely on independent verification and data.

Based on what I've seen and heard, I wouldn't use a Schiit DAC even if it was given to me for free.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

All of the things you just mentioned are just fake marketing words used by people scamming you out of your hardearned green.
Soundstage and instrument separataion are due to speaker placement and recording quality. In headphones it is sometimes simulated with frequency roll-off but otherwise it comes out in live recordings that were recorded and mixed properly (with multiple mics &/ instrument hookups).

Things like "tone" and "texture" are just recording quality and speaker quality stuff once again. Either your DAC resolves the music or it doesnt (yggdrasil barely resolves 16 bits so everything you mentioned would be false compared to other DACs).

"Presence and air" are 2 words that have 0 linking to the real world. If by "air" you mean "background noise" then you are talking about an elevated soundstage. Headphones can sound "airy" if they are open back and as such you have an elevated background noise level from things around you. This is not something provided by a DAC unless its resolution is so crappy that it creates a fake elevated background noise that causes your microdetails to be consumed by distortion (typically possible with poorly designed products such as most Schiit products).

If you wish to debate science on a scientific forum; you should probably use some science to combat our findings rather than pure marketing terms made up by people who are paid to do reviews.

All of those convoluted words are pure hogwash and people trying to explain their own acoustic confusion / madness. I have a very enjoyable experience when listening to music, and certain feelings come to mind, but I'd never in my right mind ever think of writing that down as a means of convincing anyone of anything.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

There are no issues as evidence by countless other DACs that have performed well on my bench. Also keep in mind that the dismal performance of Yggdrasil came about in three separate measurements: one at my place, one at our audiophile society meeting place, and the third, at an audiophile friend's house.

I am confident Schiit has made software and hardware changes to the product without admitting such. This was clearly obvious when the tested unit in this thread went back to them and they immediately upgraded it and posted measurement different than mine.

They really need to fix the lack of transparency here. They are doing better on engineering front but still have a ways to go the reputation front.

At some point it seems that people can't get their head around the fact that a small Khadas Tone Board for 100 bucks can be a vastly superior product than this $2,600 monstrosity. It's like all their fundamental beliefs would be shattered in the process of accepting the facts as they stand. And they would have to admit to being duped by a company with cheap / bad taste marketing, hype, and anonymous online amateur reviewers / charlatans.

These two factors are the biggest impediment to getting people to accept the truth

 

[amirm]

At some point it seems that people can't get their head around the fact that a small Khadas Tone Board for 100 bucks can be a vastly superior product than this $2,600 monstrosity. It's like all their fundamental beliefs would be shattered in the process of accepting the facts as they stand. And they would have to admit to being duped by a company with cheap / bad taste marketing, hype, and anonymous online amateur reviewers / charlatans.

These two factors are the biggest impediment to getting people to accept the truth

They go by their lay intuition that bigger box, more expensive, must be better. This "makes sense" to people. Alas, it is false logic because we have phones in our pockets that are much faster than much bigger computers 10 years back. Lay intuition has no place here. Measurements speak the truth, not what one "thinks."

 

[LuckyLuke575]

They go by their lay intuition that bigger box, more expensive, must be better. This "makes sense" to people. Alas, it is false logic because we have phones in our pockets that are much faster than much bigger computers 10 years back. Lay intuition has no place here. Measurements speak the truth, not what one "thinks."

Yes, the peripheral characteristics of the price and big box are definitely big factors here. And coming from a highly analytical occupation, I'm keenly aware of the shortcomings and failures of layman intuition, false logic or social constructs that dictate certain outcomes (e.g. all the reviewers say it's good, so it has to be).

I like coming back to this review and seeing the follow up; it's like watching a favorite stand up comedy routine that never gets old

 

[ShiZo]

My jotunheim had a grounding issue. Touching the knob would send an extra audible buzz in addition to the noise caused by the usb grounding through it. I sent it to them to fix and they sent it back but it was only a little bit better (the buzz from not being grounded).

After that i was done. If they cant ground a product they know isn't grounded properly, you know there's a problem.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

My jotunheim had a grounding issue. Touching the knob would send an extra audible buzz in addition to the noise caused by the usb grounding through it. I sent it to them to fix and they sent it back but it was only a little bit better (the buzz from not being grounded).

After that i was done. If they cant ground a product they know isn't grounded properly, you know there's a problem.

Wow, that's really the arse end of the audio industry when you get to that point. Looking back at the cocky / bullshit language on their website, you'd expect people that have the gall and arrogance to write up a website like that would botch the design and quality.

 

[ElNino]

Wow, that's really the arse end of the audio industry when you get to that point. Looking back at the cocky / bullshit language on their website, you'd expect people that have the gall and arrogance to write up a website like that would botch the design and quality.

They have a weird disconnect between the image they're trying to project via marketing and reality. For example, there clearly was a problem with the original Bifrost 2 firmware that resulted in audible artifacts after sample rate switching in many cases. Jason confirmed this unambiguously on SBAF. But if you go to their firmware download page on their website, they flat-out state "No sound changes" for the firmware update.

This is one of the things that eventually soured me on Schiit. They are capable of designing decent, desirable gear sometimes (e.g., Saga) but you literally never know if they're being completely forthright about performance, or whether you have a silently updated version of something that fixed problems that were never openly acknowledged, or whether the person who's opinion you're reading (several posters on SBAF, in particular) is friends with the company founders and receives pre-release gear and support in a way that makes it hard to know whether they're being neutral about the products.

 

[Gradofan2]

Perhaps, these posts provide an explanation of how a product like the Yggdrasil sounds as good as the 2 or 3 best sounding DAC's available (as presented in all the reviews):

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussi...endgrid&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=website

https://www.fairobserver.com/more/s...XrF2G8uH9MhtpDrJwYlviJkS7vsna3j463yWGW9PFGfAM

Personally... I think it's that the measurements are reporting distortion that is so minute that it is beyond the detection of the human ear - and it is therefore meaningless from the listeners perspective. There is no other possible explanation - otherwise, the DAC's that have the lowest distortion would receive the best reviews from the "audiophiles." And... they don't.

So... all that really matters... to most discerning listeners... is the sound they hear... not... the sound they see.

 

[Xulonn]

So... all that really matters... to most discerning listeners... is the sound they hear... not... the sound they see.

LOL You seem to be a hard-core audio subjectivist, but you just described the primary reason for doing level-matched "blind" audio testing/auditioning.

"THE SOUND THEY SEE - NOT WHAT THEY HEAR" is an excellent description of the greatest fallacy in audio - thinking that sighted audio reviews and evaluations are actually accurate with respect to the inherent characteristics of the sonic vibrations that vibrate their eardrums!

 

[majingotan]

It's not about Yggdrasil or any R2R DACs sounding good. Sure it sounds just like any well engineered DACs when A/Bed volume matched double blind but for the price Schiit is charging for a product full of high frequency distortion just barely eclipsing listening dynamic range (90+ dB), you're paying for the fancy and poorly engineered DAC in terms of measurements while you can get the same sound quality for 1/20 or less of its price tag.

 

[Sal1950]

There is no other possible explanation - otherwise, the DAC's that have the lowest distortion would receive the best reviews from the "audiophiles." And... they don't.

Nope, it's the ones with the highest price tags.

So... all that really matters... to most financially well healed listeners... is the sound they paid for... not... the sound they think they hear.

There, I fixed it for you.

 

[solderdude]

Uh huh

 

[VintageFlanker]

And that's where Yggi excels: sound is more natural, voice is like im listening really really good turntable. Then layers, first time after awhile i could finally hear layers of instruments on the sound stage. RME kinda squashed everything together, it had some depth, but not layers. Also details and micro-dynamics, Yggi is more smooth, but extracts more details, I can hear into the recording, and have better punch/micro-dynamics (guitar string pluck).
So even RME measures so much better, sometimes you have to trust your ears.

Best part.
Was this after or before the required 200 hours of burn-in? What power cables did you use? Did you try the RME with proper pure silver OCC (not silver plated) XLR Cables? That would change a lot of things. Did your wife (or some musician friend) confirmed that impression as well?

The Audio Science Review Manifesto

 

[ShiZo]

How good is your hearing (no offense, dead serious)? Also, if the other devices in your chain are colored as well, it can affect the final output making one dac sound better than the other under those conditions. You arent really hearing the dacs output if your sending it through a tube ect.

Ive had my favorite headphones change moving from colored to transparent gear. It was like i was hearing what the headphones/speakers actually sounded like for the first time with uncolored reproduction.

I see so many posts like this it makes me question there authenticity (i have no way of really knowing). Also when i learned my schiit gear sucked there was a bit of disbelief and denial at first. " who is this amir guy, what does he know. My schiit sounds good!"

Thank god i eventually capitulated. My friends d50 plus atom sounds basically as good as my rme. And 50x better than the thousands i spent on schiit gear for a fraction of the price.

Not to mention schiit produces dangerous ungrounded gear that when given an opportunity to fix it, they couldn't for me.

 

[Ilkless]

I purchased Yggi few months ago, and after i started reading these measurements, got myself thinking, why it sounds good to me and measurement looks so bad compared to some other DACs, thats weird! Then at the end of the review, when I saw recommendation for RME ADI DAC 2, I felt good again
The reason for that is because I replaced RME with Schiit, so have a decent experience listening RME, and how is Yggi different.
RME was fine, specially with headphones, but on stereo system, it sounded so, lets say unnatural, digital - timbar was so off. It isn't cold, but the texture of human voice or some acoustic instrument was just off, and after few months I just couldn't listen it anymore. And that's where Yggi excels: sound is more natural, voice is like im listening really really good turntable. Then layers, first time after awhile i could finally hear layers of instruments on the sound stage. RME kinda squashed everything together, it had some depth, but not layers. Also details and micro-dynamics, Yggi is more smooth, but extracts more details, I can hear into the recording, and have better punch/micro-dynamics (guitar string pluck).
So even RME measures so much better, sometimes you have to trust your ears. My system is Focal 1028be, Primaluna tube preamp, Nord class-d power amp. Headphones are Hifiman HE400S.

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/6nla0a
And yet as I show in the above post, the claims about "depth" or any other extraordinary spatial performance are not AT ALL consistent with the science on human hearing. Are you suggesting your ears are not human? That research in ear anatomy, auditory processing and digital audio are all entirely wrong and your anecdotal experience is sufficient to reject empirical evidence? That is extremely arrogant and anti-intellectual science denialism. The same words that can be reserved for anti-vaxxers or flat-earthers, except perhaps this is a more benign and subtle version of the same mindset.