Hot off the press: Yggdrasil review

I have one of the first batch that shipped; got my order in about 30 minutes after the Yggdrasil ordering on Schiit's site went live.

Fresh out of the box, I was hearing subtle things on familiar music that I hadn't noticed before. I tend to value detail… I want to hear whatever is on the recording, so I am happy with this DAC. Don't notice any bass lacking, but that can totally depend on how the song was mixed/mastered.

It's been powered on continuously since the end of April, with a few brief exceptions when I was swapping wires.

It replaced a Meitner MA-1 (which replaced a W4S). For my ears & system, it's a better match. The Meitner and Schiit approaches to DAC design are very different, to be sure.

No magic in the R2R ladder, just another design. Bill I will have to disagree with your statement. As you know I am building DHT DACs now and previously I was using the ESS Sabre32 Reference (ES9018) DAC chip. It sounded fantastic until we tried the R2R. In our DAC there was no going back. Much more analog, in fact we have been beating most very high priced analog set-ups as we are now out there demonstrating the dac. I also heard I think an early version of the Yggdrasil DAC with CEC 3N transport. I did not find the unit bright sounding but the CEC probably helps in that area. Nice dac maybe for the price but IMO, much left to be desired.

Happy Listening.

Bigkidz,

I agree with you that a R2R DAC is a better sounding solution, have you tried Soekris DAC
Seems very interesting

Good Listening

Peter

yes I have used that in my DHT DAC.

proof is in the listening. R2R may or may not be the best it depends on the total build! Power supply is just as important folks, perhaps more so!