DENAFRIPS Terminator and Schiit Yggdrasil Evaluation and Comparison

Hey everyone, just curious what you guys thin of Marv/Purr1n's take on the terminator on S-BAF.

He actually at one point states that the Soekris 1421 dac for $900 is better which clearly shows terminator lacks value. On my discord some users only really value Marv's opinion and feel that all other online opinions about the terminator that are positive are wrong and written by people who don't understand audio.

Now I am not trying to start any confrontation here, I own the terminator, but just curious what you guys think.

@audiofun Did you ever write up that review on the iFi Pro iDSD?  How does it compare to your AMR DP-777SE?  I've been out of the hifi game for several years but have been bitten by the bug again after deciding to try the First Watt SIT-3 amp and being enamored by it.  I was looking at used/new DACs up to around $3k and considered the AMR, Luxman DA-06, McIntosh MDA-1000, MHDT Orchid (+ upgrades), Berkeley Alpha DAC 2, Schiit Yggdrasil A2. 

I have an iFi on the way and settled on it for its very high value and flexibility, especially considering that I won't need a transport and the cables to go with it, but of course I still wonder about those other DACs.

I like a sweet, organic, dense sound but detailed and transparent with realistic imaging, transparency, and 3D soundstage.  Not so much into big bass slam, in your face dynamics, or crystalline highs (though I do enjoy what a good super tweeter brings to the table).  My bedroom system, which I still have, runs an MHDT Havana that's modified with all top shelf capacitors (Duelund, Jupiter, Black Gate, etc) and other components.  I really enjoy it and settled on that over the BADA 2, PS Audio PWD2, etc. 5+ years ago.

eugene81:

Hi, hope all is going well. I am just about to write that one. It is the most difficult review I’ve ever attempted because it does SOOOO much and I wanted to be fair. It won’t be long but what I write is what I actually hear during my listening sessions and comparisons. The Berkeley, I can only speak about the Reference MK 1 which I had on hand, just forget about it. The Berkeley Ref was, well, sorry but it was just bad sounding. Hard, anti-musical just plain bad sounding digital. The Berkeley is beautiful to behold and feels like a solid piece of aluminum sculpture but you couldn’t give it to me free and expect that I would ever hook it up. 

I’ll give you a real quick and dirty run down before I write the full review. AMR DP 777 SE > iDSD Pro > iDSD BL >>> Berkeley Reference Mk 1.

The iDSD Pro playing DSD files ( I have about 800 of them) gets way way close to the AMR 777 SE. It plays DSD files better than I’ve ever heard that format played before.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/driving-gallo-reference-5ls

" Well... I bought the Yggdrasil... because all of the reviews said it one of the top 3 dacs at any price, ranking with the best available. And... though skeptical... I was pleasantly surprised... it is, as they say... "on a whole other level".... cont'd..."

Looking for end game level dac, the obvious choice for price point is the yggdrasil.
I owned it and then went with a "Holo Spring" dac after.

R2R is the dac topology of choice for maximum end game sound,
But I have to agree with the review of this thread.

The Terminator IS ABOVE the yggy .
It seems like an impossibility for those that have not heard better, simply because there are none better that I and most have heard.
The Chord and others are simply a different choice.

The Terminator is the only dac I have heard that was noticeably better.
If I were to give a simple idea, I would describe it as being probably  about 15% better, so you must consider if that type of gain is worthy of the expense of upgrading ...