DENAFRIPS Terminator and Schiit Yggdrasil Evaluation and Comparison


The Evaluation and Comparison of my Denafrips Terminator and Schiit Yggdrasil DACs is posted in full, here:

http://terminatorandyggdrasil.blogspot.com/

Main body of my 'review' is copied and posted below.

For details on my Methodology, System and Room Information, and Music Selection please go to the second section (similarly titled) after opening the link.
david_ten
eugene81:

Hi, hope all is going well. I am just about to write that one. It is the most difficult review I’ve ever attempted because it does SOOOO much and I wanted to be fair. It won’t be long but what I write is what I actually hear during my listening sessions and comparisons. The Berkeley, I can only speak about the Reference MK 1 which I had on hand, just forget about it. The Berkeley Ref was, well, sorry but it was just bad sounding. Hard, anti-musical just plain bad sounding digital. The Berkeley is beautiful to behold and feels like a solid piece of aluminum sculpture but you couldn’t give it to me free and expect that I would ever hook it up. 

I’ll give you a real quick and dirty run down before I write the full review. AMR DP 777 SE > iDSD Pro > iDSD BL >>> Berkeley Reference Mk 1.

The iDSD Pro playing DSD files ( I have about 800 of them) gets way way close to the AMR 777 SE. It plays DSD files better than I’ve ever heard that format played before.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/driving-gallo-reference-5ls

" Well... I bought the Yggdrasil... because all of the reviews said it one of the top 3 dacs at any price, ranking with the best available. And... though skeptical... I was pleasantly surprised... it is, as they say... "on a whole other level".... cont'd..."
Looking for end game level dac, the obvious choice for price point is the yggdrasil.
I owned it and then went with a "Holo Spring" dac after.

R2R is the dac topology of choice for maximum end game sound,
But I have to agree with the review of this thread.

The Terminator IS ABOVE the yggy .
It seems like an impossibility for those that have not heard better, simply because there are none better that I and most have heard.
The Chord and others are simply a different choice.

The Terminator is the only dac I have heard that was noticeably better.
If I were to give a simple idea, I would describe it as being probably  about 15% better, so you must consider if that type of gain is worthy of the expense of upgrading ...

Anyone have the dsp board upgrade for terminator?  I got it and it enhanced the sound significantly.