Schiit, interesting name...more interesting products!

[manisandher]

Stereophile jitter measurements vs. cheaper Altair DAC:



"Tested for its rejection of word-clock jitter with a 16-bit J-Test signal, the Schiit Yggdrasil had some problems (fig.11). Although most of the odd-order harmonics of the LSB-level, low-frequency squarewave in the right channel (red trace) are close to the correct level (green line), many components are suppressed, particularly in the left channel (blue), and the two sidebands closest to the spectral spike that represents the 11.025kHz tone are boosted. This behavior was identical with coaxial and optical S/PDIF data and with USB data."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-yggdrasil-da-processor-measurements

Mani.

 

[DaveyF]

Stereophile jitter measurements vs. cheaper Altair DAC:

View attachment 33420

"Tested for its rejection of word-clock jitter with a 16-bit J-Test signal, the Schiit Yggdrasil had some problems (fig.11). Although most of the odd-order harmonics of the LSB-level, low-frequency squarewave in the right channel (red trace) are close to the correct level (green line), many components are suppressed, particularly in the left channel (blue), and the two sidebands closest to the spectral spike that represents the 11.025kHz tone are boosted. This behavior was identical with coaxial and optical S/PDIF data and with USB data."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-yggdrasil-da-processor-measurements

Mani.

Those graphs should tell us that the Altair sounds significantly better than the Yggy....question is does it??? How many people buy gear based on measurements like that...

 

[Joe Whip]

Mani is on a quest it seems to kill the Yggy. Doesn't seem to be hurting sales though.

 

[Al M.]

Mani is on a quest it seems to kill the Yggy.

Yeah, looks like it. He pops up everywhere for that purpose.

Doesn't seem to be hurting sales though.

Nope.

 

[amirm]

Those graphs should tell us that the Altair sounds significantly better than the Yggy....question is does it??? How many people buy gear based on measurements like that...

The graph doesn't say that. It says that neither has any audible issues. From engineering point of view however, it shows lack of excellence on Yggy which I think counters what the other online poster had measured. But again, there is no audible problem/difference in those graphs.

The extra distortions of Yggy are masked and at any rate, real music doesn't have that much energy at 11 Khz.

 

[manisandher]

... it shows lack of excellence on Yggy...

Here's another that shows exactly that:



Note here the levels of the respective 50Hz tones. The Yggy's level had to be reduced by 10dB because it clipped with the 0dB tone! The cheaper Altair had no problems with the 0dB tone, and even though this puts it at a disadvantage in a direct comparison, it had much lower distortion than the Yggy.

Stereophile gave the Yggy a Class B rating. Seems about right to me, having lived with one in my system for a few weeks. But many seem to love the way it sounds...

Mani.

 

[DaveyF]

The graph doesn't say that. It says that neither has any audible issues. From engineering point of view however, it shows lack of excellence on Yggy which I think counters what the other online poster had measured. But again, there is no audible problem/difference in those graphs.

The extra distortions of Yggy are masked and at any rate, real music doesn't have that much energy at 11 Khz.

Ok, therefore what would be the point of publishing these graphs...if, as you say, the sound quality of the Yggy cannot be determined by them! Engineering aside..

 

[jkeny]

Ok, therefore what would be the point of publishing these graphs...if, as you say, the sound quality of the Yggy cannot be determined by them! Engineering aside..

Don't you just love people who are so misdirected that they will argue over differences in graphs that they admit have no bearing on audibility
And on the other hand ask for others to show graphs which 'prove' a device performs as intended & when presented with such a graph, argue that is is of no significance as it is not what we listen to.

"Man speaks with forked tongue"

 

[Al M.]

Stereophile gave the Yggy a Class B rating. Seems about right to me, having lived with one in my system for a few weeks. But many seem to love the way it sounds...

Mani.

You can completely forget the Stereophile ratings. They give the NAD M51 an A+ rating, which is ridiculous. When I auditioned it in my system, my then 20-year old Wadia 12 clearly beat it in liveliness, drama and neutrality. The NAD did have better bass. My Berkeley equally beat the NAD in liveliness, drama and neutrality (lack of coloration), was even better in the bass and also beat it in resolution, hands down. But then the Berkeley isn't even in Stereophile's list since they didn't review it. The Yggy may be somewhat better than the Berkeley, but I have to make some more comparisons.

Make no mistake: the NAD M51 is a good DAC, and may please the tastes of many audiophiles. But an A+ component it is not.

 

[amirm]

Ok, therefore what would be the point of publishing these graphs...if, as you say, the sound quality of the Yggy cannot be determined by them! Engineering aside..

Well we have to measure first to know that there is or there is not an audible problem. I know for example there are other Schiit products that have both audible and measurable problems. The measurements objectively confirm the audible problem to be there rather than someone's imagination.

Also when I pay for high-end products I expect great sound + great engineering. It is like buying a luxury car and expecting the body panels being aligned. Poor measurements show lack of engineering knowledge, proper test equipment, or not caring in general. I don't want to support such entities when there are others that get it right.

 

[DaveyF]

Well we have to measure first to know that there is or there is not an audible problem. I know for example there are other Schiit products that have both audible and measurable problems. The measurements objectively confirm the audible problem to be there rather than someone's imagination.

[

Also when I pay for high-end products I expect great sound + great engineering. It is like buying a luxury car and expecting the body panels being aligned. Poor measurements show lack of engineering knowledge, proper test equipment, or not caring in general. I don't want to support such entities when there are others that get it right

Surely we need to listen first to determine if there is an audible problem?? What if we measure first ( as you suggest) and we see no problem...and then we listen and YIKES---the piece sounds like schiit (pun), LOL


Poor analogy, IMHO. Looking at the measurements of tube gear--and particularly tube gear of the past, the measurements would indicate a car with badly aligned body panels....YET the car performs far better than another car of the same period that has perfectly aligned body panels and we are calling that car-- solid state- circa 1970 etc,LOL

 

[DaveyF]

Don't you just love people who are so misdirected that they will argue over differences in graphs that they admit have no bearing on audibility
And on the other hand ask for others to show graphs which 'prove' a device performs as intended & when presented with such a graph, argue that is is of no significance as it is not what we listen to.

"Man speaks with forked tongue"

+1000
Huge.........LOL

 

[jkeny]

Well we have to measure first to know that there is or there is not an audible problem. ....

Classic cognitive dissonance from someone who shows measurements which say nothing about audibility.

I would suggest the reason that "you" have to measure first is because you are so prone to your own bias weakness (as you have admitted many times) that you are afraid of exposing your bias flaws yet again & so you use measurements as the psychological crutch for this condition - it's safer & less embarrassing to say that all things sound the same (unless you can see a measurement which allows your bias to have free reign).

You really need to learn how to listen - all I can diagnose is that your MS training has skewed your listening abilities. You continually talk about the shock & embarrassment of 'learning' how wrong your perception was when faced with 'tests' - your examples of teaching the kids about eq, etc. are anecdotes from someone who is uncomfortable with their sense of hearing & don't understand auditory perception

 

[Al M.]

Classic cognitive dissonance from someone who shows measurements which say nothing about audibility.

I would suggest the reason that "you" have to measure first is because you are so prone to your own bias weakness (as you have admitted many times) that you are afraid of exposing your bias flaws yet again & so you use measurements as the psychological crutch for this condition - it's safer & less embarrassing to say that all things sound the same (unless you can see a measurement which allows your bias to have free reign).

You really need to learn how to listen - all I can diagnose is that your MS training has skewed your listening abilities. You continually talk about the shock & embarrassment of 'learning' how wrong your perception was when faced with 'tests' - your examples of teaching the kids about eq, etc. are anecdotes from someone who is uncomfortable with their sense of hearing & don't understand auditory perception

You may have a point here regarding measureements and audibility, and regarding Amir's biases towards giving measurements more importance than they may deserve.

Yet I very much applaud Amir for revealing his bias weaknesses when it comes to listening. I wish all audiophiles were as honest as he is about this. I have made errors in listening judgments many times as well, so yes, it is good to be aware of your potential biases and to admit them.

Attacking Amir on this particular point is really all the wrong way to go from where audiophiles should go, if they want to be a bit more honest with themselves.

 

[Al M.]

And regarding a recent point that Amir made about exact matching of loudness levels: he is absolutely spot on with that. Recently I also did some DAC comparisons, and more often than not differences that I heard were due to the fact that I had not been matching volume levels for each recording as precisely as I should have (it was difficult in that particular setup). Once I did, most (not all) perceived differences vanished.

 

[jkeny]

While you may have a point here regarding measurments and audibility, I very much applaud Amir for revealing his bias weaknesses when it ccomes to listening. I wish all audiophiles were as honest as he is about this. I have made errors in listening judgments many times as well, so yes, it is good to be aware of your potential biases and to admit them.

Attacking Amir on this particular point is really all the wrong way to go from where audiophiles should go, if they were a bit more honest with themselves.

You miss the point which I hinted at in the very last text of my post "don't understand auditory perception". This is the very essence of the problem - auditory perception is not designed to spot small differences in the moment which have no significance to our survival - yes it will quickly bring to consciousness any auditory threat signals no matter what we are engaged in but these threat signals tend to be of a gross nature.

Expecting auditory perception to be able to immediately spot what are inconsequential (in the moment) differences in sound is like testing a Ferrari as an off-road vehicle - it will fail

However, small differences can become consequential in longer term listening i.e when our auditory processing has extracted a pattern from the signals that are being processed & it's this pattern that is embedded in long term memory & can later be compared & recognised as different to a new sound. How many times have people reported hearing something not quite right in their systems that they were familiar with (the patterns had been established through long term exposure) & discovering what was causing the problem sound?

So. let me ask you which form of listening is this hobby about?

This focus on short term A/B testing is a pile of sh1t designed by misinformed, misdirected people who are not really interested in or knowledgeable of auditory perception.

 

[jkeny]

And regarding a recent point that Amir made about exact matching of loudness levels: he is absolutely spot on with that. Recently I also did some DAC comparisons, and more often than not differences that I heard were due to the fact that I had not been matching volume levels for each recording as precisely as I should have (it was difficult in that particular setup). Once I did, most (not all) perceived differences vanished.

What about the bias introduced by the order of listening as Amir even admits to
If you always listened to DAC B second you would have favoured it due to the usual change in attention/focus that accompanies such form of A/B listening.
And, btw, randomising the presentation order doesn't overcome this - it just hides it - the fact is that a change in attention/focus will change what we perceive & likely lead to masking of subtle differences in A/B listening scenarios.

 

[Al M.]

You miss the point which I hinted at in the very last text of my post "don't understand auditory perception". This is the very essence of the problem - auditory perception is not designed to spot small differences in the moment which have no significance to our survival - yes it will quickly bring to consciousness any auditory threat signals no matter what we are engaged in but these threat signals tend to be of a gross nature.

Expecting auditory perception to be able to immediately spot what are inconsequential (in the moment) differences in sound is like testing a Ferrari as an off-road vehicle - it will fail

However, small differences can become consequential in longer term listening i.e when our auditory processing has extracted a pattern from the signals that are being processed & it's this pattern that is embedded in long term memory & can later be compared & recognised as different to a new sound. How many times have people reported hearing something not quite right in their systems that they were familiar with (the patterns had been established through long term exposure) & discovering what was causing the problem sound?

So. let me ask you which form of listening is this hobby about?

This focus on short term A/B testing is a pile of sh1t designed by misinformed, misdirected people who are not really interested in or knowledgeable of auditory perception.

Yes, I agree with you, probably contra Amir, that long-term listening tests are important. They also reveal, as you seem to allude to, which differences to listen to in the first place, something that may not be apparent in short term A/B tests. However, I would not dismiss out of hand the valuable information that short term A/B tests can offer as well -- espcially when you are familiar with components after long-term listening.

 

[jkeny]

Yes, I agree with you, probably contra Amir, that long-term listening tests are important. They also reveal, as you seem to allude to, which differences to listen to in the first place, something that may not be apparent in short term A/B tests. However, I would not dismiss out of hand the valuable information that short term A/B tests can offer as well -- especially when you are familiar with components after long-term listening.

Sure, we all do short term A/B listening at some point or other - to try to pin down some differences in an exact way - some short snippet we can point to & say "there's an example of the difference" but this doesn't always materialise. What do we do then dismiss our perceived overall difference or put it down to the test is not right, our analytic ability is not sufficiently honed, etc.?

This is where the great divide happens - some choose route one - dismiss (& because auditory perception is a brain processing task, they interfere with this processing & no longer can perceive any difference) - others put it down to an inability of the tests to capture the difference perceived ordinarily.

 

[Al M.]

Sure, we all do short term A/B listening at some point or other - to try to pin down some differences in an exact way - some short snippet we can point to & say "there's an example of the difference" but this doesn't always materialise. What do we do then dismiss our perceived overall difference or put it down to the test is not right, our analytic ability is not sufficiently honed, etc.?

This is where the great divide happens - some choose route one - dismiss (& because auditory perception is a brain processing task, they interfere with this processing & no longer can perceive any difference) - others put it down to an inability of the tests to capture the difference perceived ordinarily.

You are making good points here, of course.