New Yggdrasil - First (and second) Impressions

I hve been thinking about buying a Ygg..
Some comments about this thread.
I had, years back bought a $2,400 DAC, highly praised by both Stereophile and TAS.
I returned it as it sounded no better than my old (bought for $250) Adcom DA700.
Up to now, I still use the Adcom.
But I had a chance to try a Marantz SA10 ($7000) for a few day at home.
The Marantz converrts CD data to DSD and decodes it as DSD.
I used another CD player via Toslink and found with this Marantz I could readily hear a difference, mainly in the treble. which with the Marantz is clean and lacking any digital haze. Grungy Rock music vocals are more distinct
I wish I had a chance to compare the Ygg with the Marantz!
(One could buy two or three Ygg with the cash the Marantz costs.

@elizabeth I own both the Marantz NA-11S1 and the original Yggy.  Marantz's digital reference series equipment is very underrated from my experience.  Too further that thought, I find it interesting that the NA-11S1 still sells new for exactly the same price it did when I bought it 5 years ago, and I don't believe they've updated it hardware-wise, and mine has the same software updates which it receives fairly regularly.  The used prices have remained constant at $2200 for years (just below a new Yggy).  I've had 2 to 3 quality issues with my Marantz, and it currently doesn't seem to have an effective USB input, which I'm not going to bother sending in for a 3rd time at this point (I'm out of warranty I think).  Ironically, my Iggy had issues on all inputs as well (all inputs aside from USB didn't work when it arrived day-1), and also made a round trip for repairs--twice.  I want to be sure to point that out, as I don't consider myself a "fanboy" of either brand at this point, even though I love the sound of both of their "top" DACs.

I replaced the Marantz with the Yggy, and moved the Marantz to my second system, where right now I don't feed it directly via USB (since it's again not working), but rather wireless as a Roon endpoint (which all still works).  It still sounds fantastic.  The Yggy, however, is a little stronger...most notably in the soundstage and "air" and general "big sound."  I always found the Marantz gear to be a little more reserved (I had their now-discontinued reference pre-amp for a while which I felt was very musical as you would want, but a tad "reserved").  I would rate almost all other qualities as equal, aside from soundstage, which I found a tad bigger on the Yggy regularly.

The Yggy definitely takes 300-400 hours to sound it's best, per previous posts on this thread.  Rather than wait in line for an upgrade and then be without it for awhile, I've ordered a new V2 with the new analog output...not looking forward to those weeks of new burn in, but they will certainly be required.  They were required with my last 2 USB board changes alone.

In short, if you like the Marantz sound (which i think anyone who heard it would), you will like the Yggy sound at least as well...but because of the required burn-in you won't hear the best of it in the 2 week review period unfortunately.  Sonically it is a slightly more capable DAC by my 1-person assessment, if you don't care as much about DSD and Airplay/Roon endpoint features that the Marantz can do, which the Yggy obviously cannot.

BTW, I've demo'd a well-reviewed $15K DAC recently (wanting VERY much to love it), and while there were things about it that were better than the Yggy, all else equal, there were some things I liked less (not withstanding the 5x cost).  Since then, I've instead made about $5K of improvements in front of the Yggy, and the Yggy continues to rise to the level of the equipment before and after it.  Most of my equipment is $15-20K pieces, and yet the Yggy is still holding its own amongst gear that good and that expensive (which is not the same thing).  I know others on this forum have similarly researched and expensed systems which also still have the Yggy as one of the least expensive pieces in the chain.  It will take a lot of $ to handily beat it, so far anyway.  How much will be system- and preference-dependent.

I should add, I have not heard the SA-10...I'm only presuming it has a similar DAC/analog stage to the NA-11S1 with the added transport in the same box, and added cost.  I neither assume it to sound better as a stand-alone DAC, nor worse.  That's 100% speculation.

Some believe in break in--others don't.  I'm one of the firm believers.  It's cool if others disagree.

When I had the $16K DAC in my system, I listened closely to a number of tunes I know very, very well.  What I noticed was the soundstage tended to "float around" and be a little loose, in spite of being a little larger.  It sounded good, but "off."  Not different--"off."  After another 100 hours, it pulled itself together and much of the things that didn't sound right to me sounded corrected--more cohesive.  I asked the dealer, without indicating why I was asking, if this was a new unit or the previous version (there had been an update).  He said "yeah, current version, brand new...it's been played for a day or two only since we pulled it out of the box."  Then without my saying another word he said "Sorry, it's definitely not broken in either, so please keep it a couple weeks."  

Doesn't prove anything, nor am I trying to sway you.  But while I don't know that you'll hear a completely "magical" change, I do suspect you'll hear a soundstage improvement at some point in weeks 3 or 4, including the soundstage getting bigger.  And I also think powering it on helps, but having it's output section outputting signal is also an important break-in step in my opinion...I think you want it fully doing it's thing.

My further experience:  if you buy tubes from the factory, they change in the first week or so (output, driver, rectifiers--all uses).  If you build new crossovers for speakers, they mellow out and change in sound over the first couple of weeks (often sounding downright bad at first).  If you get a new cart for your turntable, you hear changes as you get through the first 50 albums or so, especially as you cycle back through favorites.  I'd prefer break-in didn't exist (I'm terribly impatient, especially with new, expensive equipment).  But I will never be convinced it doesn't unfortunately.  YMMV, obviously.

One more comment on burn-in, then I'll stop...but I was just reminded of it when I dropped my new SOTM "trifecta" stack into my system last night.

Aside from the soundstage effects you can sometimes hear that I previously mentioned...

One clear side-effect I very often hear when dropping in a factory-new source into a system (like a DAC, streamer, Roon endpoint, etc.)...the resulting PACE gives the impression of just the slightest, but very noticeable, perception of "slowing down" of a song that you know very well.  It needs to be a song that you have listened to for years to really notice it.  Often the tonal qualities, detail, and even soundstage are there as you would hope for, but something about it still doesn't sound "right"...and when you really listen, you can realize that the timing of piano strikes, drum strikes, guitar string plucks, etc...will sometime sound just the slightest bit delayed from what you are used to.  LIke it's just slightly dragging the whole song.

It's a very strange effect, and I cannot explain why I find this to be true.  And it almost always goes away after the first 24 hours of continuous play for me...it's rarely a day 3 or 4 or beyond thing.

I also noticed this same effect with new cross-overs (twice).  I've never heard this with burning in carts for turntables or tubes (although I hear other tonal and soundstage changes there).

Maybe this is a caps thing?

Just wanted to mention that as something else you might try to listen for on a new piece.

Also, my new Yggy arrived yesterday, but I'm not going to set it up for a little bit as I want to get the SOTM gear situated before I make an Yggy comparison between non analog 2 and analog 2.

I will also be sure to do some critical listening right out of the box to see if I hear anything change over the first couple of weeks and beyond and report back.

Ha, I’m eating my words on this one. The new Yggy sounds awesome right out of the box, cold. The pace is back after 24 hours on the SOTM equipment and for fun I plunked in the new Yggy to get it burning in. It easily sounds as good as the old one, but I of course don’t know if I’m hearing the further improvements of the SOTM gear over my UltraRendu/IsoRegen combo (I definitely hear improvements last night on hour 5). Regardless, I don’t think the new/cold Yggy is hurting it any.

I’ll report back if I hear further improvements.

I definitely found myself playing everything a louder levels than before, which I always equate to improved detail, lower noise floors, and improved clarity.

@gdhal   I'd love to hear if you can shoot back to that Stones tune and see if you still hear a pacing difference now that the Yggy has had some more time to run in?  Would be a cool thing to know either way.

@david_ten  I once sold (actually gave away) a Chinese tube amp that I otherwise was quite fond of (other than its noisy/dirty volume pot) because I felt like it never really nailed the pacing (PRAT) I had heard in a number of previous set-ups I'd owned.  The unfortunate part is that I blamed "tubes" since it was my very first tube amp, and I missed about the next 3 years of my heavy listening chasing solid-state-only system upgrades.  Ultimately I tried some better tube amps again and I have personally never looked back (not trying to start a holy war, it's simply my preference now).  It was a significant time for me in this sport for that reason and also the fact that I started watching for PRAT and the emotional impact that can have on my listening.  Once you feel it, you know it when it's missing.

Hour 48 and I feel like the soundstage collapsed a little.  Tones still feel right, but perhaps a little darker.  Cymbals don't sound as "shimmery."  Small percentages here, but noticeable.  I have music playing 24x7 to the DAC.