I am not sure he understands what dither is when he says this: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/page-161According to the designer, he knew it was there from the beginning, he just thought that a -120dB artifact wasn't likely to be audible. When it all blew up, he released a firmware change. (Added an offset in the digital filter.) If he'd done what most designers of multibit DACs do in that situation (add dither to mask it) no-one would have noticed in the first place.
"The glitch pointed out (and agreed to by me as glitch before my surgery) is DAC glitch proper to multibit DACs driven by 2s compliment math at zero crossings, already pointed out by one poster, but ignored by many on this thread in their haste to condemn the DAC. This glitch worsens with lowering decoded output on any mb DAC.
The rest of the world deals with this zero crossing phenomenon is by adding dither, which is random noise just above the level of the glitch. This can either be done on purpose digitally or accidentally with an overly noisy analog section."
The rest of the world deals with this zero crossing phenomenon is by adding dither, which is random noise just above the level of the glitch. This can either be done on purpose digitally or accidentally with an overly noisy analog section."
Dithering noise must be added prior to conversion. Adding noise in the final stage like the analog amp just adds noise. It does not dither (i.e. distortion remains).
Given this, I am not clear that he really knew the problem existed until it blew up online.