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Post by brutiarti on Dec 19, 2016 20:24:22 GMT -5
Thanks for the review garbulky . Did you find the raw highs in all different types of music? and also, Does the laid back sound of the dc-1 tries to emulate the natural sound of the multibit rolling out highs?
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stiehl11
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Post by stiehl11 on Dec 19, 2016 20:26:16 GMT -5
That's the problem; what sound should we talk about? The sound you heard originally that was likely the truest representation of what the unit could do? Or after your ears had adjusted to its sonic signature and your brain said all that flowery stuff about it? And, we all know what a pretty picture, a good review, and a higher price tag does to your assessment of gear that you've never heard. After? I'll go with what you heard first, as it's probably truest to what it sounds like; "noticeably harsh" and not "as close to the DC-1" (at more than double the price). That is, unless you made adjustments such as cabling or changed your room dynamics. Then I would go with those observations.
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Post by garbulky on Dec 19, 2016 20:33:18 GMT -5
Thanks for the review garbulky . Did you find the raw highs in all different types of music? and also, Does the laid back sound of the dc-1 tries to emulate the natural sound of the multibit rolling out highs? Hi brutiarti ! I'm not sure what you mean by try to emulate question? Do you mean does the DC_1 sound natural? Yes it does. But the Gungnir sounds more natural. The "rawness" wasn't obvious the whole time. It was a bit subtle. Most of the time I found the tone to be natural to my ears.
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Post by garbulky on Dec 19, 2016 20:43:39 GMT -5
I'll go with what you heard first, as it's probably truest to what it sounds like; "noticeably harsh" and not "as close to the DC-1" (at more than double the price). That is, unless you made adjustments such as cabling or changed your room dynamics. Then I would go with those observations. Look, you're a cool guy, and I still want to hear those cool Phase Tech speakers. But you gotta quit with the lectures man. Ugh. We are both fans of audio in this hobby and I think that's cool. I get where you're coming from. I really do. I get it, you think I'm full of it on so many levels. That's fine. Let's just agree to disagree and more importantly have fun with this hobby! P.S. I'm getting a viola for Christmas!
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Post by brutiarti on Dec 19, 2016 20:46:22 GMT -5
Hi brutiarti ! I'm not sure what you mean by try to emulate question? Do you mean does the DC_1 sound natural? Yes it does. But the Gungnir sounds more natural. The "rawness" wasn't obvious the whole time. It was a bit subtle. Most of the time I found the tone to be natural to my ears. I mean that the DC-1 natural sound comes from rolling out highs (laid back) and is not really natural. Having the oppo 105, i found it to be in the other side of the spectrum, sounds "almost" natural but the little glare is there. Never heard a really natural sound from a digital source, maybe is the way that is supposed to sound? IDK. But definitely i will give the multibit a try and make some conclusions
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Post by garbulky on Dec 19, 2016 20:50:34 GMT -5
Hi brutiarti ! I'm not sure what you mean by try to emulate question? Do you mean does the DC_1 sound natural? Yes it does. But the Gungnir sounds more natural. The "rawness" wasn't obvious the whole time. It was a bit subtle. Most of the time I found the tone to be natural to my ears. I mean that the DC-1 natural sound comes from rolling out highs (laid back) and is not really natural. Having the oppo 105, i found it to be in the other side of the spectrum, sounds "almost" natural but the little glare is there. Never heard a really natural sound from a digital source, maybe is the way that is supposed to sound? IDK. But definitely i will give the multibit a try and make some conclusions Ah I gotcha. Well.... the rolled back treble thing.... it's possible? But I don't know. It sounds quite nice though. The Gungnir sounds more analog than the DC-1, if that helps. But at the same time it doesn't hold back in terms of treble in a way.
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Post by brutiarti on Dec 19, 2016 20:53:05 GMT -5
The Gungnir sounds more analog than the DC-1, if that helps. But at the same time it doesn't hold back in terms of treble in a way. Yep, that's what i was asking. Cool beans!
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stiehl11
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Post by stiehl11 on Dec 19, 2016 20:57:19 GMT -5
I'll go with what you heard first, as it's probably truest to what it sounds like; "noticeably harsh" and not "as close to the DC-1" (at more than double the price). That is, unless you made adjustments such as cabling or changed your room dynamics. Then I would go with those observations. Then why ask?! Was it to snark, maybe? Look, you're a cool guy, and I still want to hear those cool Phase Tech speakers. But you gotta quit with the lectures man. Ugh. We are both fans of audio in this hobby and I think that's cool. I get where you're coming from. I really do. I get it, you think I'm full of it on so many levels. That's fine. Let's just agree to disagree and more importantly have fun with this hobby! P.S. I'm getting a viola for Christmas! I don't think you're "full of it". And, we don't always disagree. But, if you knew that it needed a week of constant playing to sound on par (which as others have said and will tell you, doesn't need to be with SS gear), then why not just let it do it and while not listening to it? By listening to it "break in" you colored your review. I did something similar when I bought a pair of Airmotiv speakers back when they were introduced. I took an early listen and they didn't sound the way I was hoping. I plugged them up and ran them 10 hours a day for at least a week (can't remember exactly how long) before sitting down and listening to them. I did it because I didn't want my initial reaction to bias my opinion of the speakers (I wanted to believe). And, I knew that if I listened to them break in my expectations would likely change to be more accepting of them. They did break in, and they did sound better. But, eventually I chose a different path for that room. You're welcome to hear my Phase Techs any time! I feel they're the best at their price point and you won't find a bad review of them. They just don't have the market (and marketing) presence that other, more popular, brands out there have. BTW, congrats on the viola! Enjoy!!!
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Post by garbulky on Dec 19, 2016 21:09:48 GMT -5
Then why ask?! Was it to snark, maybe? Look, you're a cool guy, and I still want to hear those cool Phase Tech speakers. But you gotta quit with the lectures man. Ugh. We are both fans of audio in this hobby and I think that's cool. I get where you're coming from. I really do. I get it, you think I'm full of it on so many levels. That's fine. Let's just agree to disagree and more importantly have fun with this hobby! P.S. I'm getting a viola for Christmas! I don't think you're "full of it". And, we don't always disagree. But, if you knew that it needed a week of constant playing to sound on par (which as others have said and will tell you, doesn't need to be with SS gear), then why not just let it do it and while not listening to it? By listening to it "break in" you colored your review. I did something similar when I bought a pair of Airmotiv speakers back when they were introduced. I took an early listen and they didn't sound the way I was hoping. I plugged them up and ran them 10 hours a day for at least a week (can't remember exactly how long) before sitting down and listening to them. I did it because I didn't want my initial reaction to bias my opinion of the speakers (I wanted to believe). And, I knew that if I listened to them break in my expectations would likely change to be more accepting of them. They did break in, and they did sound better. But, eventually I chose a different path for that room. You're welcome to hear my Phase Techs any time! I feel they're the best at their price point and you won't find a bad review of them. They just don't have the market (and marketing) presence that other, more popular, brands out there have. BTW, congrats on the viola! Enjoy!!! Thanks! It's supposed to get here in 24 hours. I'll believe that when I see it UPS! The gear should have been broken in before a week I assume. As for the week long warm up, even though, yes it is frustrating, I found the experience interesting. I don't think it really detracted from the review process. I thought it made it a bit more complete.
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Post by fr8dog3510 on Dec 22, 2016 2:16:37 GMT -5
Thanks for the review! I recently replaced my DC-1 with a Schiit Saga and Mimby. To my ears this combo sounds better than the DC-1. I could have lived with the DC-1 for a long time, but wanted to get some Schiit. I had my eye on a Bifrost a couple of years ago, but purchased the DC-1.
I'll probably end up with the Schiit Vidar, Freya and Gumby. Just getting my feet wet with the gear from Schiit. The company history and made in the USA were also factors.
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Post by garbulky on Dec 22, 2016 11:52:06 GMT -5
Thanks for the review! I recently replaced my DC-1 with a Schiit Saga and Mimby. To my ears this combo sounds better than the DC-1. I could have lived with the DC-1 for a long time, but wanted to get some Schiit. I had my eye on a Bifrost a couple of years ago, but purchased the DC-1. I'll probably end up with the Schiit Vidar, Freya and Gumby. Just getting my feet wet with the gear from Schiit. The company history and made in the USA were also factors. Nice! Tell me more about the Saga. Do you find it transparent? What differences between the MIMBY and SAGA vs DC-1 do you notice? For me the differences were the tone and the general size of the sound.
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Dec 22, 2016 13:29:06 GMT -5
Interesting impressions. How long did you let it warm up before testing? Mine took three hours to reach thermal stability. Now I follow Mike Moffat's recommendation and never turn any of my multibit DACs off.
Gungnir MB is my preferred headphone DAC right now. The Yggdrasil will give you that last bit that you perceive as missing, and I prefer that as my DAC in my two loudspeaker systems.
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Post by monkumonku on Dec 22, 2016 13:32:43 GMT -5
Interesting impressions. How long did you let it warm up before testing? Mine took three hours to reach thermal stability. Now I follow Mike Moffat's recommendation and never turn any of my multibit DACs off. Gungnir MB is my preferred headphone DAC right now. The Yggdrasil will give you that last bit that you perceive as missing, and I prefer that as my DAC in my two loudspeaker systems. If the Yggy is better, then why would the Gungnir be your preferred headphone DAC? Or is it because you have one of each and the Gungnir is good enough for headphones?
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Post by garbulky on Dec 22, 2016 13:54:54 GMT -5
Interesting impressions. How long did you let it warm up before testing? Mine took three hours to reach thermal stability. Now I follow Mike Moffat's recommendation and never turn any of my multibit DACs off. Gungnir MB is my preferred headphone DAC right now. The Yggdrasil will give you that last bit that you perceive as missing, and I prefer that as my DAC in my two loudspeaker systems. There was a noticeable difference in sound from cold to say a day or two. Then there were very small very slow incremental improvements and I would say for everything to even out would for me have been about a week. Interestingly the differences started out in the treble and moved down in to the mid range very slowly. When it got to the mid range it warmed up the sound a bit making it sound closer to the DC-1 in terms of sound - though it still sounds different in the way it does sound. How does the Yggy do with portraying the size of the room in the soundstage? With the DC-1 in balanced mode I am able to hear approximately the size of the room/hall. Does the Yggy do that? I'm not saying the gungnir CAN'T do it as I haven't heard it in balanced mode but the single ended mode that was the difference I noticed in terms of detail.
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Post by sahmen on Dec 22, 2016 14:08:31 GMT -5
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Post by sahmen on Dec 22, 2016 14:42:25 GMT -5
How does the Yggy do with portraying the size of the room in the soundstage? With the DC-1 in balanced mode I am able to hear approximately the size of the room/hall. Does the Yggy do that? I'm not saying the gungnir CAN'T do it as I haven't heard it in balanced mode but the single ended mode that was the difference I noticed in terms of detail. Okay, nowadays, I listen to the Yggy mostly through the stereo speakers in my main rig, whereas the DC-1 is located in a smaller rig servicing my laptop, for mostly headphone listening. Although I do use the Yggy-rig occasionally for headphone listening, it is far more practical for me to use the DC-1 rig and my laptop combo for everyday casual purposes while I work on my laptop, but this arrangement is dictated solely by convenience and practicality, rather than the quality of sound produced by each rig. It has been a long time since I heard the DC-1 through speakers, and giving how fuzzy audio memory can be, you have to take what I am going to say with a grain of salt: With those caveats out of the way, I can say that I hear spatial cues of depth, width, and height a lot more easily from the Yggy soundstage, as compared to the DC-1's. For example, if the mixer wants to convey the illusion that a kick of the drum is occurring behind the sound of the saxophone, or the hand-clap of the singer, it is easier for the Yggy to convey the illusion of each sound's positioning in a more 3-d layout within the soundfield as opposed to the DC-1... It is not that the DC-1 cannot do 3d ever. The DC-1 can convey the sense of a wide airy soundstage, when called upon to do so, except that it sort of blurs 2d and 3d in a way that does not make as clear the distinction between front and back, near and far, if you know what I mean.... Also, FWIW, you're more likely to see the expression "holographic soundstage" in Yggy reviews than in DC-1 reviews, and lest I forget, YMMV
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Post by Boomzilla on Dec 22, 2016 14:58:26 GMT -5
And a more generic question, if I may... The Schiit high-end DACs are not DAC/preamps - meaning you need some volume attenuation between the DAC and the power amp (probably a preamplifier). Assuming that remote volume control is a necessity, what preamps do all of you use to listen to your Schiit DACs? I know that garbulky's using his Emotiva Stealth DC-1 as a preamp. What other (remote) preamplifiers have the rest of you found to be Schiit-friendly?
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Post by garbulky on Dec 22, 2016 15:22:05 GMT -5
How does the Yggy do with portraying the size of the room in the soundstage? With the DC-1 in balanced mode I am able to hear approximately the size of the room/hall. Does the Yggy do that? I'm not saying the gungnir CAN'T do it as I haven't heard it in balanced mode but the single ended mode that was the difference I noticed in terms of detail. Okay, nowadays, I listen to the Yggy mostly through the stereo speakers in my main rig, whereas the DC-1 is located in a smaller rig servicing my laptop, for mostly headphone listening. Although I do use the Yggy-rig occasionally for headphone listening, it is far more practical for me to use the DC-1 rig and my laptop combo for everyday casual purposes while I work on my laptop, but this arrangement is dictated solely by convenience and practicality, rather than the quality of sound produced by each rig. It has been a long time since I heard the DC-1 through speakers, and giving how fuzzy audio memory can be, you have to take what I am going to say with a grain of salt: With those caveats out of the way, I can say that I hear spatial cues of depth, width, and height a lot more easily from the Yggy soundstage, as compared to the DC-1's. For example, if the mixer wants to convey the illusion that a kick of the drum is occurring behind the sound of the saxophone, or the hand-clap of the singer, it is easier for the Yggy to convey the illusion of each sound's positioning in a more 3-d layout within the soundfield as opposed to the DC-1... It is not that the DC-1 cannot do 3d ever. The DC-1 can convey the sense of a wide airy soundstage, when called upon to do so, except that it sort of blurs 2d and 3d in a way that does not make as clear the distinction between front and back, near and far, if you know what I mean.... Also, FWIW, you're more likely to see the expression "holographic soundstage" in Yggy reviews than in DC-1 reviews, and lest I forget, YMMV Very good useful impressions. So when I said room dimensions, I actually meant the impressions of the size of the room. I found the Gungnir to do admirably as far as placing instruments and voices in 3d space. Do you find the Yggy can also portray the impression of say a big hall in a concert or a smaller room. Like if a piano was placed by a wall and there was a singer in the middle of the room, you could sometimes tell that piano is against a wall. Singer is not against the wall. Or if you watch a video For instance Scott bradley's postmodern jukebox on youtube, I find their impressions of the room size are quite good. When I watch the video, I feel that the acoustics in the recording match what I am seeing in the video.
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Post by monkumonku on Dec 22, 2016 15:27:37 GMT -5
Okay, nowadays, I listen to the Yggy mostly through the stereo speakers in my main rig, whereas the DC-1 is located in a smaller rig servicing my laptop, for mostly headphone listening. Although I do use the Yggy-rig occasionally for headphone listening, it is far more practical for me to use the DC-1 rig and my laptop combo for everyday casual purposes while I work on my laptop, but this arrangement is dictated solely by convenience and practicality, rather than the quality of sound produced by each rig. It has been a long time since I heard the DC-1 through speakers, and giving how fuzzy audio memory can be, you have to take what I am going to say with a grain of salt: With those caveats out of the way, I can say that I hear spatial cues of depth, width, and height a lot more easily from the Yggy soundstage, as compared to the DC-1's. For example, if the mixer wants to convey the illusion that a kick of the drum is occurring behind the sound of the saxophone, or the hand-clap of the singer, it is easier for the Yggy to convey the illusion of each sound's positioning in a more 3-d layout within the soundfield as opposed to the DC-1... It is not that the DC-1 cannot do 3d ever. The DC-1 can convey the sense of a wide airy soundstage, when called upon to do so, except that it sort of blurs 2d and 3d in a way that does not make as clear the distinction between front and back, near and far, if you know what I mean.... Also, FWIW, you're more likely to see the expression "holographic soundstage" in Yggy reviews than in DC-1 reviews, and lest I forget, YMMV Very good useful impressions. So when I said room dimensions, I actually meant the impressions of the size of the room. I found the Gungnir to do admirably as far as placing instruments and voices in 3d space. Do you find the Yggy can also portray the impression of say a big hall in a concert or a smaller room. Like if a piano was placed by a wall and there was a singer in the middle of the room, you could sometimes tell that piano is against a wall. Singer is not against the wall. Or if you watch a video For instance Scott bradley's postmodern jukebox on youtube, I find their impressions of the room size are quite good. When I watch the video, I feel that the acoustics in the recording match what I am seeing in the video. When I use my Bimby, I realized that the piano player's shoe wasn't tied.
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Post by garbulky on Dec 22, 2016 15:32:28 GMT -5
Very good useful impressions. So when I said room dimensions, I actually meant the impressions of the size of the room. I found the Gungnir to do admirably as far as placing instruments and voices in 3d space. Do you find the Yggy can also portray the impression of say a big hall in a concert or a smaller room. Like if a piano was placed by a wall and there was a singer in the middle of the room, you could sometimes tell that piano is against a wall. Singer is not against the wall. Or if you watch a video For instance Scott bradley's postmodern jukebox on youtube, I find their impressions of the room size are quite good. When I watch the video, I feel that the acoustics in the recording match what I am seeing in the video. When I use my Bimby, I realized that the piano player's shoe wasn't tied. I know which musicians in the orchestra aren't wearing jammies
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