Hot off the press: Yggdrasil review

I have a PSA PerfectWave Mk-II and tried the PSA DirectStream. The PerfectWave beat that hands down. Then I tried a Yggy. Even with no break-in time, it was better than the PSA units. I've had it now for a month and, finally, the bass is catching up with the rest mids & treble. Up to 3 weeks in, the bass sounds a bit shy, but is now well integrated.

I have to say, I've never heard the resolution of leading edge transients of all types as I can now with the Yggy. The quality of brushed cymbals, stringed instruments, piano, drums, and brass (glorious) are immediately obvious.

Just my two cents from a very happy camper.

Re my audition of the PSA DS. I ran it non-stop for two and a half weeks, feeding it music 24/7. The things about it that I didn't like did not change at all over those two weeks. I understand how DACs are sensitive to break-in, but I frankly found the DS to be unlistenable.

The highs did have a bit better detail than my PDS PWD-II, but the midrange and bass sounded like the music was coming through a fog. The bass on the DS was also not well articulated. The DAC actually gave a sense of pressure in my ears (I know of at least one other customer that had the same experience). I suspect that this is the noise shaping that pushes noise into the ultrasonic range. My amps and speakers extend to 100k, if that matters.

BTW, the latest version of the Yale software had been installed. On return of the DAC, PSA checked it out and said that the DAC was working perfectly.

In my system, the Yggy easily sounds better than the PSA DS or the PWD-II. The Yggy's handling of transients and the sense of instrumental timbre is something special.

Re the PSA DS, I didn't find fault with the frequency balance (at least in the 20 to 20k range), so no, I don't think that it was specifically designed for bright systems.