Hot off the press: Yggdrasil review

The stock Yggy is perhaps the best sounding PCM only DAC in its price range.....very good value. However, a few simple inexpensive mods can take it to another level. These DIY mods can be done in a couple of hours. Please see my website for details: http://www.tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/Schiit_mod.html

With these simple mods the Yggy is more detailed, more air, better stereo separation, lower grain, more dynamic, more pure, etc. etc.

My friend, who did the mods shown on my website wants to send me his Yggy to put my zero feedback class A buffer/shunt regulator power supply on the output along with a much larger power transformer and better diodes. If this ever gets done then he might have a world class DAC.....there are, of course, even more mods that could be done....just the beginning.

Thanks Grannyring....I am afraid it will do no good to anyone. No one wants to tweak....too afraid of hurting it, loosing warrantee or loosing resale value. Of the 250 or so Yggys sold only two people have even taken the cover off. One changed the fuse to good effect and the other, my friend, did all the mods I suggested. If the Yggy were $1000 then more would take a risk. So, we are left with Yggy great for the money but will never be really great unless tweaked and no one will tweak. Its just too bad the Schiit people are not open to tweaks....I could help them make a super version and they could sell it and still retain warrantee and no fears for anyone. Oh well, just the way it is. No one will ever hear how good a DAC it could be...except maybe my friend. Even more expensive DACs will never get modded by anyone. I have never, ever seen a product I could not make sound considerably better. There are many other people that can do the same and with different and similar skills.

My experience is different. I find just having a DAC on will do most of the burn in (67.354689%...he he). The current running through most components in a class A circuit is constant. This constant voltage and current will burn in most power supply capacitors (which take the most time to burn in). The signal path resistors, and filter caps, transistors and tubes and especially the output caps in a tube unit will need to have signal run through them to fully burn them in. But even the output caps in a tube DAC will have high voltage on them....helping them burn in without a signal moving through them.

Having a signal go through the DAC while it is on will improve the sound further but most of the burn in can be done by just leaving it on. You need to have a load on the DAC output when burning in and playing music...this way some current is being modulated through the output stage as it has a load to draw some current with. Just keep your preamp or amp off and play music. Your preamp/amp has a load resistance to ground that helps pull current from the DAC.

BTW, this is the same with all electrical components (sources, preamps, amps). When I first assembled my first set of NCore NC400 amp modules and listened I wondered what the fuss what about....not good sound. Then I just left them on all night and 20 hours later listened again and....what a difference. Now I understood how good these modules were. No music was being played through the amps. However, days of playing music through the amp will bring more improvement. So, in the beginning (first 1000 hours) leave the component on as much as possible and play music through it as much as possible. Speaker cables and speakers need to be played for them to break in. There are some speaker cable burn in devices...but they are costly.

Bigkidz,
What DAC chips are you using and are you using a digital filter? Curious.