The Schiit Yggdrasil 2 DAC

[matthias]

My Extreme is arriving next week so I'll listen for a while and then 15 day trial a Yiggy. I'm skeptical though.

IMO, the Extreme and the Yggy will be an excellent match.
Please share your impressions.
Thanks

Matt

 

[Lagonda]

Prices of parts for classical amplifiers can be very reduced, the same way those used in DACs. IMHO the rate of depreciation of digital is also due to the very fast moving standards, that are only settling now. The Trinity DAC was a good product with small distribution, no marketing, a typical one man company.

BTW, I am discovering the hard way that expensive current Lamm electronics depreciates more than current expensive DACs ...

Part of that is probably the few people willing or capable of paying for the absolute top products. When the right person gets interested there will be a sale , just like you did You should go all out on turntable, make a partial trade in with Lamm on a new AS 2000 with DDK

 

[spiritofmusic]

IMO, the Extreme and the Yggy will be an excellent match.
Please share your impressions.
Thanks

Matt

Well, Emile runs Extreme w €5k Terminator...so why not Yggy 2?
And with the Holo May KTE around the €5k price and highly regarded, there's a lot of goodness in the €3-5k market.

 

[MadFloyd]

I don’t know if the RR From the Age of Swing was recorded with HDCD, but the 24/176.4 transfer I have of the master tape sounds absolutely incredible through the Yggy, way better than the great 2lp set I still have. The LP Is now just another dust collector.

Joe, is this a commercially available transfer?

 

[kswanson27]

I don’t know if the RR From the Age of Swing was recorded with HDCD, but the 24/176.4 transfer I have of the master tape sounds absolutely incredible through the Yggy, way better than the great 2lp set I still have. The LP Is now just another dust collector.

I just got it and is is in HDCD and sounds great ripped to Roon.

 

[Al M.]

I do find the contention that a top level dac has to be “car priced” illogical. The bits and pieces used are not very expensive at all. If very talented people decide they can manage with a lower profit margin by selling direct, and making money by moving many unit’s instead, it is absolutely possible.

Agreed on selling direct and moving many units bringing the price down.

Here is the reasoning of Mike Moffat, the designer, from the time when the Yggdrasil was still $ 2,300 (it's now a whopping $ 150 -- wow -- more expensive I believe). He said that if their products would sell through dealerships, rather than by direct sale through the web, the price would double to $ 4,600. Yet, he said, if you double the price, you get quarter the sales volume. Which in turn means that they could not get the parts at the discount they currently get because of high sales volume. In the end, this would mean that the Yggdrasil DAC would have to become a $ 6,000 item if it were to sell through dealerships. That's 2.6 x the $ 2,300 price.

 

[Lagonda]

Agreed on selling direct and moving many units bringing the price down.

Here is the reasoning of Mike Moffat, the designer, from the time when the Yggdrasil was still $ 2,300 (it's now a whopping $ 150 -- wow -- more expensive I believe). He said that if their products would sell through dealerships, rather than by direct sale through the web, the price would double to $ 4,600. Yet, he said, if you double the price, you get quarter the sales volume. Which in turn means that they could not get the parts at the discount they currently get because of high sales volume. In the end, this would mean that the Yggdrasil DAC would have to become a $ 6,000 item if it were to sell through dealerships. That's 2.6 x the $ 2,300 price.

And in the top cult dacs, pricing is probably set more by what they can get away with, than actual cost

 

[microstrip]

Part of that is probably the few people willing or capable of paying for the absolute top products. When the right person gets interested there will be a sale , just like you did You should go all out on turntable, make a partial trade in with Lamm on a new AS 2000 with DDK

My analysis of depreciation is comparative to other known brands. And the number of right interested persons is just an indicator of brand popularity.

BTW, I am very happy with my TechDas AF1P. It was the right turntable for me.

 

[Al M.]

And in the top cult dacs, pricing is probably set more by what they can get away with, than actual cost

Well, it's not necessarily just cost of production. It's also the time and monetary effort of research that needs to be baked into the product's price. I work in a biotech company, and the actual manufacturing cost of some products is rather low. But the development cost was relatively *very* high, which needs to be reflected in the price if we are to be profitable in any way. I assume the development costs for reputable DAC manufacturers like dCS or MSB are also high.

Having said that, I guess there are some high end manufacturers who are all too happy to pick a more or less run-of-the-mill DAC implementation, put it together with a beefy power supply into a costly chassis, and sell it for big bucks.

 

[Lagonda]

My analysis of depreciation is comparative to other known brands. And the number of right interested persons is just an indicator of brand popularity.

BTW, I am very happy with my TechDas AF1P. It was the right turntable for me.

I thought you went back to SME, i’m not keeping up

 

[Lagonda]

Well, it's not necessarily just cost of production. It's also the time and monetary effort of research that needs to be baked into the product. I work in a biotech company, and the actual manufacturing cost of some products is rather low. But the development cost was relatively *very* high, which needs to be reflected in the price if we are to be profitable in any way. I assume the development costs for reputable DAC manufacturers like dCS or MSB are also high.

Having said that, I guess there are some high end manufacturers who are all too happy to pick a more or less run-of-the-mill DAC implementation, put it together with a beefy power supply into a costly chassis, and sell it for big bucks.

I’m sure most of these smaller high end companies don’t have large research departments, they have one or 2 talented guys trying circuits out, or programmers writing code, til they find something that sounds better, What does that cost ?

 

[PeterA]

Prices of parts for classical amplifiers can be very reduced, the same way those used in DACs. IMHO the rate of depreciation of digital is also due to the very fast moving standards, that are only settling now. The Trinity DAC was a good product with small distribution, no marketing, a typical one man company.

BTW, I am discovering the hard way that expensive current Lamm electronics depreciates more than current expensive DACs ...

You can put an expensive DAC in any system. Those incredible Lamm amplifiers cannot drive just any speaker. Different potential size of customer base.

 

[Al M.]

I’m sure most of these smaller high end companies don’t have large research departments, they have one or 2 talented guys trying circuits out, or programmers writing code, til they find something that sounds better, What does that cost ?

I thought dCS at least had quite an extensive research effort, relatively spoken, but I may be mistaken.

 

[Lagonda]

I thought dCS at least had quite an extensive research effort, relatively spoken, but I may be mistaken.

Dsc does a lot more than audio, more products are paying for research and general expenses . Ortofon manufactures an develops hearing aid applications. Find some of the factory visits for audio companies, you will rarely see a lot of people. Fremers visit to some of the Swiss companies where very telling

 

[microstrip]

I thought you went back to SME, i’m not keeping up

Yes, after the EMT 927 and before the TechDas ...

 

[microstrip]

You can put an expensive DAC in any system. Those incredible Lamm amplifiers cannot drive just any speaker. Different potential size of customer base.

I am not just addressing the ML3 - even the M1.2R did not get a single manifestation of interest!

 

[Lagonda]

I am not just addressing the ML3 - even the M1.2R did not get a single manifestation of interest!

Probably not the best time to sell anything expensive right now

 

[microstrip]

I thought dCS at least had quite an extensive research effort, relatively spoken, but I may be mistaken.

Yes, see https://www.monoandstereo.com/2016/01/the-dcs-story-in-depth.html and https://www.hifiplus.com/articles/m...what-changes-were-made-to-the-dcs-vivaldi-20/.

The first link tells us a detailed narrative about dCS since they start doing developments in analog to digital conversion for RADAR in the 80's.

 

[microstrip]

Probably not the best time to sell anything expensive right now

Yes, but at less the cj GAT or the VTL advertisement created a lot of messages in my mailbox.

 

[ack]

Well, it's not necessarily just cost of production. It's also the time and monetary effort of research that needs to be baked into the product's price. I work in a biotech company, and the actual manufacturing cost of some products is rather low. But the development cost was relatively *very* high, which needs to be reflected in the price if we are to be profitable in any way. I assume the development costs for reputable DAC manufacturers like dCS or MSB are also high.

Having said that, I guess there are some high end manufacturers who are all too happy to pick a more or less run-of-the-mill DAC implementation, put it together with a beefy power supply into a costly chassis, and sell it for big bucks.

Judging by my own experience with voicing and modifying my Alpha, which has literally been years, I can appreciate the "development" effort that goes into building great products. Sometimes, I could have just thrown my hands up in despair. So I don't have a problem per se with the high cost of products where significant effort has gone into them; and they are not all developed like that.