New DAC issues

I went "down" from a $15k DAC to the latest Schitt Yggi+ LIM. It was bit better than the prior DAC (more details). The LIM is a slightly rolled off DAC and did not work great with my slightly warm Yamaha NS5000. However, the same DAC on the slightly bright Magnepan LRS+ is incredible. I use a Sanders Magtech as the amp. I previously used the CODA #16 as the amp but moved that to the NS5000. The preamp is a Holo Serene.

There is a sweetness or juiciness to the LIM that is amazing with the LRS+. I liked that DAC so much that I bought the last available Schitt Yggi+ OG (discontinued) for my Yamaha NS5000. The OG has over 100 hours and sounds better than the LIM with the NS5000. However, I am not sure if that is the DAC for the long-term. The OG sounds good with the LRS+ but the LIM is my preference.

I moved the OG to my office and stacked it on top of the LIM. I put the OG with my RAAL VM-1a tube headphone amp. That is a killer combo and will stay that way long-term because I have a 10k headphone coming home soon and I need a killer DAC for that. The LIM was not my preference with the VM-1a tube amp.

As of now I have my Benchmark DAC3B + Benchmark HPA4 preamp + CODA #16 on the NS5000. It is rather good. Not as good as the OG but good until I figure out what DAC to get for the NS5000.

I am thinking of a Playback Designs DAC because the designer, Andreas Koch, is a star like Mike Moffet of Schitt.

Yes, on the break in of the Schitt Yggi+ OG. It is easy to hear this break-in process with my uber detailed RAAL CA-1a heaphone.

The 2017 TAS review of the Yggi that raved about it and compared it $20k DACs said it needed 1 month of break-in. My Yggi+ OG has about 100 hours and a few days ago I was getting some fatigue while using my slightly bright RAAL CA-1a phones with a tube amp. However, last night after some more hours that fatigue I experienced did not reoccur with the same gear. I am assuming the DAC is still breaking in.

Schiit Audio Yggdrasil DAC - The Absolute Sound

Although Moffatt warned me that the Yggy wouldn’t sound good right out of the box, I gave it a quick listen anyway after an hour of warm-up. He was right; the Yggy was hard, bright, forward, and flat. I checked in with it a couple of times over the next week and heard it improving somewhat, but it was still disappointing. I decided to let it sit in my rack, powered up, for a full month before revisiting it.

When I returned to the Yggy I discovered a DAC that wasn’t superb. It wasn’t even good. And it certainly wasn’t “good for the money.” What I discovered, to my amazement, was a DAC that was stunningly great, period. Price aside, the Yggy turned out to be a world-class contender in the same league as cost-no-object digital-to-analog converters—and I’ve heard some good ones. How could this be?

I can’t tell you how Moffatt did it, but I can describe how the Yggy sounds, and why its one of the three best DACs I’ve heard regardless of price. (The other two are the $19,500 Berkeley Alpha Reference and the $35,000 dCS Vivaldi. I suspect that the MSB Select is outstanding, after hearing it many times at shows, but I haven’t evaluated it in my own system.)

The Yggy is not just a tremendous value in today’s DACs, it’s one of the greatest bargains in the history of high-end audio.

@zlone I would have PASS look at it or send you the solder they use. When I was putting back together my totally messed up Thiel CS3.7 speaker the Thiel tech in Kentucky (forgot his name) sent me some solder they use on the Thiel speakers. That was so easy to use, and the tech told me they liked it the best over other solder. Maybe Pass has they own secret sauce for solder. Seems like an important part of the gear.

BTW - I did some more testing with my new Yggdrasil+ OG. I set it up in my office on top of the Yggdrasil+ Less Is More DAC. I wanted something that worked better than the LIM on a tube headphone amp.

The OG was giving me a bit of fatigue last week on the bright RAAL CA-1a headphones. I spent the past week playing the OG a lot on both my LRS+ speakers and the RAAL CA-1a headphones. Now after another week of playing the OG it sounds spectacular on both the LRS+ and the CA-1a. Now I need to decide if I keep the warmer LIM, which is also great in a different way on the LRS+. Not so great on the tube amp (too warm for me).

@lous "they reluctantly admittedly that it was less detailed"

Are you referring to the Schitt MIB?

I think the Yggi+ LIM is likely closer to the Lampi sound. I was debating whether to convert my LIM to the OG replacement, the More Is Better. It is a hard decision since the LIM sounds so good with my Magnepan LRS+. Not so good on my Yamaha NS5000 in the Livingroom. Even though the LIM is not as revealing as the Yggi+ OG the LIM has some magic synergy in my office system, except with my office headphones. I would hate to lose that sound on the LRS+. It is not the best DAC by a long shot, but I love listening to it. It kind of reminds me how much I enjoyed the KRELLL DUO 175XD amp. The Yggi+ OG that I now have over a month of playback is good as any DAC I have heard. A shame they had to stop making it.

 I am about to buy what people are now thinking are the world's best headphones, and I need a DAC to hang with it, The LIM will not do that, the OG can but it is not in the office. I may end up buying a 3rd Yggi+ DAC, the More Is Better.

I had an interesting conversation with a musician that worked for Schitt at the SchittR in Newhall, CA. I wanted to drive up and listen to the MIB since I was considering it as a DAC for my slightly warm Livingroom system. He had not heard the MIB, and they did not have it at the SchittR, but he had heard the OG and the LIM. He hated the LIM (which I like a lot). I understood why he did not like the LIM, however, as an audio consumer my needs are sometimes different from a musician.

He loved the Yggi+ OG and was lamenting that Schitt had to discontinue the unit because an important part was no longer going to be available for them. He urged me to buy the last OG on the Discontinued page of their website. He was not able to buy the last OG himself due to the cost. Now a month+ later, I can understand the praise he had for the OG. Best DAC I have owned.

I also had a Yggdrasil and thought the Denafrips TP was in every way, and and among other things the TP had way more and cleaner bass, it made the Yggy seem lean.  I have 2 REL S510 subs so my system goes low and is sensitive to muddy bass.  The Denafrips did OK on the bass but is no where close to the Lampizator in quality or quantity.

In my experience bass quality and quantity can vary a lot between DACs.

Maybe that was with an older iteration. Reason I say that is that after my 1 month break in of the latest Yggi+ OG the immediate thing I noticed was the increase in bass on every single track I listened to. I was on a Classic Rock bender one day and songs I know really well showed way more in the bass department. It was nice to hear Geddy Lee's bass guitar more prominently on RUSHs Moving Pictures with the OG.

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At one time I had 3 streamers in the house at the same time

• Sonore Optical Rendu
• Playback Designs Stream-IF
• Lumin X1

Surprisingly they all sounded different. The only streamer I was not able to use fibre optic input was the PBD Stream-IF (I did not have a PBD DAC for Plink input). They were all excellent with the Sonore being the most laid back. The Lumin the most aggressive, and the PBD (using SPDIF) in the middle and maybe my fav. I never expected the PBD to compete with the other 2 fibre streamers. I sold the Lumin X1 and the Stream-IF and only have 2 Sonore OpticalRendu's today.

Another great thing about using these 3 streamers is that my ROON Core music server (a cheap computer) was nowhere near the audio gear.