Battle of the Older DAC

I had the bee’s knees in 1995 with my California Audio Labs Delta/Alpha combo, an older ladder style (multibit) DAC of some renown with 12AX7 tube output. Very musical, but my Yggdrasil wipes it on the floor, much better in virtually every way. I still have the older CAL setup in my bedroom stereo.

I have had about 10 DACs in the house over the last 5 years, from $700 to $15 000. Most of them sounded good. I do not think DAC tech has changed much in the last 5 years. Once jitter was figured out the difference between DACs came down to tastes, warm, neutral, bright, chip, no chip. etc.

The best DAC I have owned by far was the latest Schitt Yggi+ OG. They do not make this one anymore since a piece of electronics they used is no longer available. So, I am not sure if the AG version of the Yggi+ can be upgraded to the last iteration that I have.

My second-best DAC is the Schitt Yggi+ LIM. That DAC is not as detailed as the OG but it has a place in my office system, and I love it there. Only issue I have is whether to covert the LIM to the replacement for the OG. The replacement is called More is Better and is supposedly closer to the sound of my OG and not the LIM.

In my 2 systems I can tell the differences between the OG and the LIM. Especially my best system. I also use fibre optic to stream.

What is your budget ?

ASR reviews are useless.  I have a audiophile friend in town that swears by it, as one of the posters above stated they mostly review lower priced gear which there is absolutely nothing wrong other than stating its state of the art due to measurements which have no bearing on the sound quality that they produce.  The whole system has an impact on what you get,  I have a Benchmark Dac 2 HGC in my bedroom for headphones and when I put it in my main system I definitely feel the let down in sound quality compared to my Wells Audio Cipher Dac(tube).  I have owned many good dacs over the years and have always went back to a tube based DAC.  Ones to look for in your budget are the Wavelength DACS with the N2 board & ANK tube dacs factory built.  I would have recommended my Wells Dac but I am respecting your budget of $2k.  

My system is:

Herron 360 Reference ESP preamp

Herron VTPH-2a Phono Preamp

Sota Nova Turntable With Jelco 850 tonearm w/Haniwa HCTR-01 cartridge

Wells Audio Cipher Dac level 1 w/Bybee AC purifier's installed

432Evo Aeon Mkiii streamer

Miyajima OTL 2010 amplifiers(mono bloc)

hORNS Mummy speakers

Good Luck with your search. 

There is a brand new version of the Yggdrasil now, the Yggy+.

I had the original Yggy and loved it.  Every time I put a better power cord on it, the improvement came through clearly.

But you should only buy a DAC that you can audition in your own system and trust your ears (after an adequate break in time.)  You can do that with the Yggy+.