I hve been thinking about buying a Ygg..
Some comments about this thread.
I had, years back bought a $2,400 DAC, highly praised by both Stereophile and TAS.
I returned it as it sounded no better than my old (bought for $250) Adcom DA700.
Up to now, I still use the Adcom.
But I had a chance to try a Marantz SA10 ($7000) for a few day at home.
The Marantz converrts CD data to DSD and decodes it as DSD.
I used another CD player via Toslink and found with this Marantz I could readily hear a difference, mainly in the treble. which with the Marantz is clean and lacking any digital haze. Grungy Rock music vocals are more distinct
I wish I had a chance to compare the Ygg with the Marantz!
(One could buy two or three Ygg with the cash the Marantz costs.
@elizabeth I own both the Marantz NA-11S1 and the original Yggy. Marantz's digital reference series equipment is very underrated from my experience. Too further that thought, I find it interesting that the NA-11S1 still sells new for exactly the same price it did when I bought it 5 years ago, and I don't believe they've updated it hardware-wise, and mine has the same software updates which it receives fairly regularly. The used prices have remained constant at $2200 for years (just below a new Yggy). I've had 2 to 3 quality issues with my Marantz, and it currently doesn't seem to have an effective USB input, which I'm not going to bother sending in for a 3rd time at this point (I'm out of warranty I think). Ironically, my Iggy had issues on all inputs as well (all inputs aside from USB didn't work when it arrived day-1), and also made a round trip for repairs--twice. I want to be sure to point that out, as I don't consider myself a "fanboy" of either brand at this point, even though I love the sound of both of their "top" DACs.
I replaced the Marantz with the Yggy, and moved the Marantz to my second system, where right now I don't feed it directly via USB (since it's again not working), but rather wireless as a Roon endpoint (which all still works). It still sounds fantastic. The Yggy, however, is a little stronger...most notably in the soundstage and "air" and general "big sound." I always found the Marantz gear to be a little more reserved (I had their now-discontinued reference pre-amp for a while which I felt was very musical as you would want, but a tad "reserved"). I would rate almost all other qualities as equal, aside from soundstage, which I found a tad bigger on the Yggy regularly.
The Yggy definitely takes 300-400 hours to sound it's best, per previous posts on this thread. Rather than wait in line for an upgrade and then be without it for awhile, I've ordered a new V2 with the new analog output...not looking forward to those weeks of new burn in, but they will certainly be required. They were required with my last 2 USB board changes alone.
In short, if you like the Marantz sound (which i think anyone who heard it would), you will like the Yggy sound at least as well...but because of the required burn-in you won't hear the best of it in the 2 week review period unfortunately. Sonically it is a slightly more capable DAC by my 1-person assessment, if you don't care as much about DSD and Airplay/Roon endpoint features that the Marantz can do, which the Yggy obviously cannot.
BTW, I've demo'd a well-reviewed $15K DAC recently (wanting VERY much to love it), and while there were things about it that were better than the Yggy, all else equal, there were some things I liked less (not withstanding the 5x cost). Since then, I've instead made about $5K of improvements in front of the Yggy, and the Yggy continues to rise to the level of the equipment before and after it. Most of my equipment is $15-20K pieces, and yet the Yggy is still holding its own amongst gear that good and that expensive (which is not the same thing). I know others on this forum have similarly researched and expensed systems which also still have the Yggy as one of the least expensive pieces in the chain. It will take a lot of $ to handily beat it, so far anyway. How much will be system- and preference-dependent.
