DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 18:37:03 GMT -5
"closed form digital filter", "Adapticlock", "Bitperfect clock management", etc. I get that all of these things mean something, but not without significant education or explanation. I am in no way commenting on the quality of the product. When you reach the product page and you see all of that, it just sounds like marketing talk. Looking up the chips on digikey and elsewhere, it does seem they are using some nice hardware, and probably have a good product, I'm merely commenting on how its portrayed, which is generally how things go with high end audio. I think Emotiva's product portrayal is a bit more direct. "closed form digital filter" is literal. It means it is a digtial filter with closed form math. None of the samples are discarded. NO other DAC on the market does this. "Adapticlock" is a trademark name for their USB anti-jitter resampling system. If you did a little research you could figure this out, and it is no different than any other company giving a trade name to their proprietary technology. "Bitperfect clock management" is, again, literal. What is it you are looking for? |
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 18:37:23 GMT -5
There are really knowledgable people talking good things about the yggy. I don't think Schiit says anything techno-babble either. IMHO I wish this conversation could be in person, the Internet loses some of the nuances of conversation. My point is this... I came from 'the industry' (as in it for about 10 years) and have now been out of it for nearly as long. Being so far removed from it for so long, but still having the general knowledge of high end audio puts me in a unique situation. Most people on the street think Bose is good, right? Most people freak out at the idea of even a $1k amplifier. I'm already conditioned to all of that. However, coming back into it from a completely different industry, it really does look strange from the outside. I find myself thinking "man, was it really like that back when I was selling audio?". So, if I was describing the Schiit, I would basically say "look, everyone is using an ESS Sabre, and AKM, or some other off the shelf chip. You can buy them, they're cheap, and you generally look in the datasheet and use the 'recommended application' schematic to get them working. Most of the magic happens in the chip, and there's not a lot of tuning that can be done. That's why most DACs with an ESS sound pretty similar. We've done something different and used a digital to analog converter chip used for medical application and created a circuit design that allows it to be used for audio. It's more expensive, but we get full control over the parameters, making it easier to sound the way we want, blah blah." Instead, they say: Most DACs simply use the stock digital filters embedded in their D/A converters. But even the most sophisticated ones, using their own digital filter algorithms, don’t have what Yggdrasil has—a digital filter with a true closed-form solution. This means it retains all the original samples, performing a true interpolation. This digital filter gives you the best of both NOS (all original samples retained) and upsampling (easier filtering of out-of-band noise) designs—and it is only available on Yggdrasil. When doctors are trying to diagnose whether you have gas or cancer from MRI results, or when the military is trying to ensure a missile hits an ammo dump and not a nunnery next door, they don’t use “24 bit” or “32 bit” delta-sigma D/A converters. Instead, they rely on precision, multibit ladder DACs, like the Analog Devices AD5791. This allows them the bit-perfect precision they need for critical applications, rather than the guesswork of a delta-sigma. There's a LOT of 'proprietary knowledge' in their description. You know, stuff you need to either be aware of or lookup to know. Even still, a customer can't be expected to understand the nuances of digital filter algorithms, and I found it amazing that they would even talk about that because at least 90% of their customer base will have no business even repeating any of these phrases. That's more my point. This is one of the few industries where they throw all the electrical engineering at you and expect you to understand what it means, and why it makes the air being moved by a speaker cone better than with someone else's bundle of electronic bits. |
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 18:39:04 GMT -5
Sounds like your real issue is that you don't understand the lingo. It's OK, I'm an EE and I had to relearn to understand digital a few years ago too.
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 18:39:29 GMT -5
I'm using a Anedio D2 as DAC and pre. Loving it. Remote with volumn and input . I have a xsp-1 in another system because I have to (ht bypass. ) Works very well. I have other pre's in house but I prefer going direct with the D2 . Very transparent. Which I like Seems like you know what you're doing. I'm just reading along to learn. Good luck I think that's the bigger point. I can literally choose ANY DAC out there and find someone who really enjoys it and things it's the bee's knees. THEN, I can find a review of the same one where someone likes brand X better and it 'blows it away' and brand X is less money. There's a lot of good stuff out there. |
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Post by bub on Aug 14, 2015 18:40:19 GMT -5
It does seem at times the Schiit website does attempt to humor . Actually quite often. I feel it does detract . But then I'm simple minded.
Can't do two things at once . Laugh and learn . Way beyond my pay scale .
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 18:41:22 GMT -5
Sounds like your real issue is that you don't understand the lingo. It's OK, I'm an EE and I had to relearn to understand digital a few years ago too. There's no reason to get personal. It's not about understanding 'lingo', it's about what's necessary for the customer to know, and what is meaningful. In my opinion, if you can't explain something without using proprietary language, you can't explain it. |
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 18:42:07 GMT -5
Either people get Schiit or they don't. It's a smart-ass company for smart-asses like me.  |
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Post by brutiarti on Aug 14, 2015 18:45:01 GMT -5
There are really knowledgable people talking good things about the yggy. I don't think Schiit says anything techno-babble either. IMHO I wish this conversation could be in person, the Internet loses some of the nuances of conversation. My point is this... I came from 'the industry' (as in it for about 10 years) and have now been out of it for nearly as long. Being so far removed from it for so long, but still having the general knowledge of high end audio puts me in a unique situation. Most people on the street think Bose is good, right? Most people freak out at the idea of even a $1k amplifier. I'm already conditioned to all of that. However, coming back into it from a completely different industry, it really does look strange from the outside. I find myself thinking "man, was it really like that back when I was selling audio?". So, if I was describing the Schiit, I would basically say "look, everyone is using an ESS Sabre, and AKM, or some other off the shelf chip. You can buy them, they're cheap, and you generally look in the datasheet and use the 'recommended application' schematic to get them working. Most of the magic happens in the chip, and there's not a lot of tuning that can be done. That's why most DACs with an ESS sound pretty similar. We've done something different and used a digital to analog converter chip used for medical application and created a circuit design that allows it to be used for audio. It's more expensive, but we get full control over the parameters, making it easier to sound the way we want, blah blah." Instead, they say: Most DACs simply use the stock digital filters embedded in their D/A converters. But even the most sophisticated ones, using their own digital filter algorithms, don’t have what Yggdrasil has—a digital filter with a true closed-form solution. This means it retains all the original samples, performing a true interpolation. This digital filter gives you the best of both NOS (all original samples retained) and upsampling (easier filtering of out-of-band noise) designs—and it is only available on Yggdrasil. When doctors are trying to diagnose whether you have gas or cancer from MRI results, or when the military is trying to ensure a missile hits an ammo dump and not a nunnery next door, they don’t use “24 bit” or “32 bit” delta-sigma D/A converters. Instead, they rely on precision, multibit ladder DACs, like the Analog Devices AD5791. This allows them the bit-perfect precision they need for critical applications, rather than the guesswork of a delta-sigma. There's a LOT of 'proprietary knowledge' in their description. You know, stuff you need to either be aware of or lookup to know. Even still, a customer can't be expected to understand the nuances of digital filter algorithms, and I found it amazing that they would even talk about that because at least 90% of their customer base will have no business even repeating any of these phrases. That's more my point. This is one of the few industries where they throw all the electrical engineering at you and expect you to understand what it means, and why it makes the air being moved by a speaker cone better than with someone else's bundle of electronic bits. It is funny that Schiit tell you exactly what they do with their design but NAD takes the opposite side and they don't say how the m51 does the upsampling and never show a picture from the inside, that is more suspicious to me |
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 18:47:17 GMT -5
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 18:49:25 GMT -5
I'm not sure they 'owe it to me' to explain it? I don't really care or want to research how it's done, I just want to find something with the features I require. I guess I don't really care how NAD does the upsampling, as long as the end results sounds good, which does to many people.
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Post by garbulky on Aug 14, 2015 18:49:39 GMT -5
Regarding fake reccomendations. Well, the previous less expensive options I mentioned I have all personally auditioned in a familiar environment or have used in my own home. The more expensive options I mentioned, I'm actually putting my money where my mouth is as they are on my purchase list. They are what I would buy.
The 0db clipping is where if the PCM stream hits a 0db peak which happens more often nowadays due to compression, there is clipping. However, as has been mentioned, it appears that they have fixed it.
Looks like you know what you want. Go for what makes you happy.
So you are an electrical engineer? Jason and Mike from schiit frequently posts in the head fi forum and they have explained what those items mean. Unfortunately it is spread out randomly.
The closed form digital filter is what they spent all this time to acheive. The parts cost on the Yggdrassil is around $400 just for the DAC chip. The filter costs as much as their SChiit bifrost to build. In comparison similarly priced Dacs have just the dac chip cost like $20.
"
Funny convo at TheShow: a reviewer asked Mike "what digital filters will Yggy use?"
Mike: "The right one."
"No, I mean is it slow roll off, apodizing, etc--"
Mike cut him off, "It's the right one."
"Well, some people like a choice of different filters--"
Mike groaned. "This isn't a fashion show. This isn't a popularity contest. Yggy uses the only closed-form digital filter and retains the original samples."
The reviewer seemed confused. "But what about other digital filters--"
"This isn't Burger King. This is math."
"What if someone likes something else?" the reviewer pressed.
"That's fine. We'll continue using the right filter," Mike told him."
Here's a more concrete example of the filter
"The below are the claims of the Digital Filter/Interpolator/Sample Rate Converter in the Yggy:
1. The filter is absolutely proprietary.
2. The development tools and coefficient calculator to derive the above filters are also proprietary.
3. The math involved in developing the filter and calculating has a closed form solution. It is not an approximation, as all other filters I have studied (most, if not all of them). Therefore, all of the original samples are output. This could be referred to fairly as bit perfect; what comes in goes out.
4. Oversimplified, however essentially correct: The filter is also time domain optimized which means the phase info in the original samples are averaged in the time domain with the filter generated interpolated samples to for corrected minimum phase shift as a function of frequency from DC to the percentage of nyquist - in our case .968. Time domain is well defined at DC - the playback device behaves as a window fan at DC - it either blows (in phase) or sucks (out). It is our time domain optimization that gives the uncanny sonic hologram that only Thetas and Yggys do. (It also allows the filter to disappear. Has to be heard to understand.) Since lower frequency wavelengths are measured in tens of feet, placement in image gets increasingly wrong as a function of decreasing frequency in non time domain optimized recordings - these keep the listener's ability to hear the venue - not to mention the sum of all of the phase errors in the microphones, mixing boards, eq, etc on the record side. An absolute phase switch is of little to no value in a non time domain optimized, stochastic time domain replay system. It makes a huge difference with an Yggy
5. This is combined with a frequency domain optimization which does not otherwise affect the phase optimization. The 0.968 of nyquist also gives us a small advantage that none of the off-the shelf FIR filters (0.907) provide: frequency response out to 21.344KHz, 42.688KHz, 85.3776KHz, and 170.5772KHz bandwidth for native 1,2,4, and 8x 44.1KHz SR multiple recordings - the 48KHz table is 23.232, 46.464, 92.868, and 185.856KHz respectively for 1,2,4, and 8x. This was the portion of the filter that had the divide by zero problem which John Lediaev worked out in 1983, to combine with #4 above AND retain the original samples.
This is what the competition offers:
5. Frequency domain optimization FIR filters with Parks-McClellan optimization. The development tools for these types of filters can be downloaded for a price range of free to $300 on the internet. Parks-McClellan is the goto filter optimization for audio design. These filters are derived with no closed form math; only successive approximation. The original samples are lost. The output is approximated. An educated guess. This optimization is ubiquitous in the front end of delta sigma dacs as well as standalone digital filters. While there is no inherent phase shift within Parks-McClellan filters, there is no optimization of phase either. The listener is left with what remains from the mixing boards, transducers, brick-wall filters, etc which can and usually do destroy proper phase/position information. Finally, it is processor efficient and economical to implement. Read cheap.
Any avoidance of the Parks-McClellan pablum requires a lot of original DSP work. Am I a prophet who received the tablets from God or some other high-end audio drivel. Hell, no. I was the producer and director of this project and worked with Dave Kerstetter (hardware-software), John Lediaev (Math), Tom Lippiat (DSP Code), Warren Goldman (Coefficient Generator and development tools) for a total of 15 or so man years. These folks either taught math at The University of Iowa, Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, worked at think tanks like the Rand Corporation – you get the idea. We did this for no money - What we all had in common was that we loved audio. All other audio pros were interested in Parks-McClellan and pointed and laughed at us. That's the way it happened.
It was worth it, every hour, day, and year. So go for it if you want. For what it is, it is not a lot of money.
"
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 18:53:07 GMT -5
Either people get Schiit or they don't. It's a smart-ass company for smart-asses like me. what does your system consist of? what DAC did you try before the yggy? |
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 19:00:04 GMT -5
Regarding fake reccomendations. Well, the previous less expensive options I mentioned I have all personally auditioned in a familiar environment or have used in my own home. The more expensive options I mentioned, I'm actually putting my money where my mouth is as they are on my purchase list. They are what I would buy. The 0db clipping is where if the PCM stream hits a 0db peak which happens more often nowadays due to compression, there is clipping. However, as has been mentioned, it appears that they have fixed it. Looks like you know what you want. Go for what makes you happy. So you are an electrical engineer? Jason and Mike from schiit frequently posts in the head fi forum and they have explained what those items mean. Unfortunately it is spread out randomly. The closed form digital filter is what they spent all this time to acheive. The parts cost on the Yggdrassil is around $400 just for the DAC chip. The filter costs as much as their SChiit bifrost to build. In comparison similarly priced Dacs have just the dac chip cost like $20. " Funny convo at TheShow: a reviewer asked Mike "what digital filters will Yggy use?" Mike: "The right one." "No, I mean is it slow roll off, apodizing, etc--" Mike cut him off, "It's the right one." "Well, some people like a choice of different filters--" Mike groaned. "This isn't a fashion show. This isn't a popularity contest. Yggy uses the only closed-form digital filter and retains the original samples." The reviewer seemed confused. "But what about other digital filters--" "This isn't Burger King. This is math." "What if someone likes something else?" the reviewer pressed. "That's fine. We'll continue using the right filter," Mike told him." Here's a more concrete example of the filter "The below are the claims of the Digital Filter/Interpolator/Sample Rate Converter in the Yggy: 1. The filter is absolutely proprietary. 2. The development tools and coefficient calculator to derive the above filters are also proprietary. 3. The math involved in developing the filter and calculating has a closed form solution. It is not an approximation, as all other filters I have studied (most, if not all of them). Therefore, all of the original samples are output. This could be referred to fairly as bit perfect; what comes in goes out. 4. Oversimplified, however essentially correct: The filter is also time domain optimized which means the phase info in the original samples are averaged in the time domain with the filter generated interpolated samples to for corrected minimum phase shift as a function of frequency from DC to the percentage of nyquist - in our case .968. Time domain is well defined at DC - the playback device behaves as a window fan at DC - it either blows (in phase) or sucks (out). It is our time domain optimization that gives the uncanny sonic hologram that only Thetas and Yggys do. (It also allows the filter to disappear. Has to be heard to understand.) Since lower frequency wavelengths are measured in tens of feet, placement in image gets increasingly wrong as a function of decreasing frequency in non time domain optimized recordings - these keep the listener's ability to hear the venue - not to mention the sum of all of the phase errors in the microphones, mixing boards, eq, etc on the record side. An absolute phase switch is of little to no value in a non time domain optimized, stochastic time domain replay system. It makes a huge difference with an Yggy 5. This is combined with a frequency domain optimization which does not otherwise affect the phase optimization. The 0.968 of nyquist also gives us a small advantage that none of the off-the shelf FIR filters (0.907) provide: frequency response out to 21.344KHz, 42.688KHz, 85.3776KHz, and 170.5772KHz bandwidth for native 1,2,4, and 8x 44.1KHz SR multiple recordings - the 48KHz table is 23.232, 46.464, 92.868, and 185.856KHz respectively for 1,2,4, and 8x. This was the portion of the filter that had the divide by zero problem which John Lediaev worked out in 1983, to combine with #4 above AND retain the original samples. This is what the competition offers: 5. Frequency domain optimization FIR filters with Parks-McClellan optimization. The development tools for these types of filters can be downloaded for a price range of free to $300 on the internet. Parks-McClellan is the goto filter optimization for audio design. These filters are derived with no closed form math; only successive approximation. The original samples are lost. The output is approximated. An educated guess. This optimization is ubiquitous in the front end of delta sigma dacs as well as standalone digital filters. While there is no inherent phase shift within Parks-McClellan filters, there is no optimization of phase either. The listener is left with what remains from the mixing boards, transducers, brick-wall filters, etc which can and usually do destroy proper phase/position information. Finally, it is processor efficient and economical to implement. Read cheap. Any avoidance of the Parks-McClellan pablum requires a lot of original DSP work. Am I a prophet who received the tablets from God or some other high-end audio drivel. Hell, no. I was the producer and director of this project and worked with Dave Kerstetter (hardware-software), John Lediaev (Math), Tom Lippiat (DSP Code), Warren Goldman (Coefficient Generator and development tools) for a total of 15 or so man years. These folks either taught math at The University of Iowa, Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, worked at think tanks like the Rand Corporation – you get the idea. We did this for no money - What we all had in common was that we loved audio. All other audio pros were interested in Parks-McClellan and pointed and laughed at us. That's the way it happened. It was worth it, every hour, day, and year. So go for it if you want. For what it is, it is not a lot of money. " I'm not an EE myself, I'm a project manager in electrical engineering. I'm the business guy that annoys all the EEs. ;-) Also, the chips cost $100 in singles, from Digikey. If they're getting them for $400 (for 4), they're doing it horribly wrong. They're most likely getting them for a hell of a lot less, probably closer to $200 - $275 for all 4. Granted, that's still damn impressive for a ~$2k retail though. |
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Post by brutiarti on Aug 14, 2015 19:02:27 GMT -5
I'm not sure they 'owe it to me' to explain it? I don't really care or want to research how it's done, I just want to find something with the features I require. I guess I don't really care how NAD does the upsampling, as long as the end results sounds good, which does to many people. I guess you are contradicting yourself. If you don't care how they do things, just ignore how Schiit describes their product and give it a listen |
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DYohn
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Posts: 18,340
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 19:02:34 GMT -5
[what DAC did you try before the yggy? How far back do you want to go? In my HT over the last five years I've had DACs from Scott Nixon, Wavelength (two of them), Emotiva (two of them), Benchmark, Ayre, Rega and audio g-d. The Schiit blew them all away. In my main 2-channel system I use an old but much loved Kora Hermes II, and the second Yggdrasil will replace it. In my headphone system I use a Wavelength Proton. |
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 19:05:16 GMT -5
[what DAC did you try before the yggy? How far back do you want to go? In my HT over the last five years I've had DACs from Scott Nixon, Wavelength (two of them), Emotiva (two of them), Benchmark, Ayre, Rega and audio g-d. The Schiit blew them all away. In my main 2-channel system I use an old but much loved Kora Hermes II, and the second Yggdrasil will replace it. In my headphone system I use a Wavelength Proton. what does your 2-channel system consist of? |
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Post by bub on Aug 14, 2015 19:05:28 GMT -5
I don't have a clue about the Yiggy. I did read the head-fi posts Maybe a thousand of them from 10 posters. I did transfer over to the review Yiggy posts also . Again about 10 guys. Each counting the hours till it had 100,200 etc hours. Most said it sounded good but there were returns . A lot of reading and very little information other then concerns about turning it off
I took Gar's advise with the DC-1 and leave my DAC on all the time ( 8 watts ) but if I'm gone for a while it seems to take 20 minutes to get back up to speed .
It seems I have some qualities of a smart ass. I can be irritating. But I accept I know very little in the overall scheme of things .
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DYohn
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Posts: 18,340
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 19:08:34 GMT -5
How far back do you want to go? In my HT over the last five years I've had DACs from Scott Nixon, Wavelength (two of them), Emotiva (two of them), Benchmark, Ayre, Rega and audio g-d. The Schiit blew them all away. In my main 2-channel system I use an old but much loved Kora Hermes II, and the second Yggdrasil will replace it. In my headphone system I use a Wavelength Proton. what does your 2-channel system consist of? Sure. DeVore Orangutan 96 loudspeakers, Shindo Cortese amp, Leben RS28 pre, NorthStar 192 CD transport, Squeezebox Touch, Kora Hermes II DAC. And you? |
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Post by cowanrg on Aug 14, 2015 19:10:43 GMT -5
what does your 2-channel system consist of? Sure. DeVore Orangutan 96 loudspeakers, Shindo Cortese amp, Leben RS28 pre, NorthStar 192 CD transport, Squeezebox Touch, Kora Hermes II DAC. And you? That's some pretty esoteric stuff, you must have had to hunt to track all that down :-) My system is outlined in the first post of this thread. |
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DYohn
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Posts: 18,340
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Post by DYohn on Aug 14, 2015 19:12:55 GMT -5
I've been working in and around this industry since the early 1970's. It's easy to find what you want when you know people (especially high end dealers in Manhattan.)
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