Schiit Yggdrasil or Bryston BDA-2 opinions to help me choose!


What do you think! In your opinion whitch one sounds better? Other gear goes as follows 
Bryston bdp pi
Emotiva dc1 (replacing)
Pass preamp
Pass x250.8
Bryston model T speakers

leaning to the BDA-2 because I have herd it but like what people are saying about the Yggdrasil has any of you herd both?

jpkinsella
Sorry, Bill, I have to disagree. I had a Genesis Digital Lens back in 1995, before that, a DAC whose name i forget, then Bryston, ARC of recent vintage, Oppo 105, and now Yggdrasil. I think the room acoustics can swamp the differences, but my room was designed by ASC, is on a resilient channel and completed with their Wall Damp construction. In addition, I have 42 tube traps and the differences are stark. Besides which, I have Townshend platforms, which remove structural and airborne vibrations, A Finite Elemente Rack, PS Audio Power Plant, Audience Adept-T, (Teflon version), and Synergistic, PS audio, Maestro, Oyaide and Furutech wall receptacles. Electricity, Isolation form vibration, and room acoustics are the Big Three. Leaving any one out can lessen our ability to hear the differences.

I own the McIntosh D100 and love its 'honest' sound signature  very neutral and natural you are hearing excatly what was recorded without any kind of  coloration or exaggeration .
How did you find the McIntosh compare to the Bryston and the Yggdrasil ?
Thanks, Bill. I used to wonder - before I became part of the "underground press - why people come to such different conclusions about equipment. Then I realized it was the materials of the walls. The Brits have mostly plaster-type rooms, I hear. Americans have drywall (which vibrates more than plaster), so when ASC introduced their Wall Damp, I decided to try it out. I first got Tube Traps back in 1988, long before anyone was using them, after I saw J. Gordon Holt’s review in Stereophile. After I got them, I realized they made a big difference in the sonics. I could even keep up with HP’s observations in TAS, even though his equipment was light years ahead of mine, because my room was well-controlled. It sure helps! And so much of what people hear is merely their own room problems, their electricity (although I think most people have realized AC can really make or break a system), or their isolation. A friend of mine had his turntable on a heavy table, and he was certain that that was good enough to stop vibration. I told him (not so politely, but then, he’s a friend and part of that system he has, I gave to him, so I know what it should sound like) that he wasn’t even close to controlling vibrations. He didn’t take offense. Quite the contrary. Two weeks later, he announced he’d gotten an equipment rack (without asking my opinion [which was just fine with me!] and when I asked how he liked it, he said the sound was spectacular. So, he realized on his own, just from my having brought over the Townshend Seismic Isolation platform and putting it under his turntable, that indeed, the difference was really, REALLY noticeable when we listened to some of his albums. And now he realizes I’m not just saying things  from "on high" just because I was in the business for a while. (Sometimes people react rather hostilely to  reviewers). He can hear it for himself (and I like that he goes to symphonies at the Bushnell in Hartford, CT). So, it’s fun to demonstrate to people that room acoustics and vibration really matter. It just allows the music to be more truthfully portrayed and that’s what most of us want, isn’t it??

But if you do PCM/Redbook/CD if it's 16/44 or 24/96 then it's best played on the Schiit being a Multibit dac which converts PCM/Redbook/CD bit perfect, unlike Delta Sigma of the Bryston which only can give a facsimile of it.

That fact "sealed-the-deal" for me, hence I went with an Yggdrasil.