Schiit Reference Sytem review: Freya into Yggdrasil, into Vidar
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up.701900/page-1130#post-13245036 See the above link for some comments from Jason Stoddard (Feb 8, 2017) relevant to Stereophile/Atkinson remarks about Yggdrasil. |
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up.701... @ghosthouse Thank you!! |
@ghosthouse The 20 bit thing is not on the whole a big deal. I think Stereophile was wrong to say that. However to truncate or simply round the 24 bit incoming data shows total ignorance of 20 years of best industry practices for reducing bit depth. A designer who doesn’t have a clue about audio industry digital signal processing should not be designing audio digital converters, IMHO. |
@shadorne Thought you might find the following excerpt from https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/reviews/schiit-audio-yggdrasil-multibit-dac-review/ interesting. ------------------- The "Yggdrasil is the world’s only closed-form multibit DAC, delivering 21 bits of resolution with no guessing anywhere in the digital or analog path." According to Schiit Audio. Let’s dive into that statement a bit. Many audio enthusiasts will immediately see the 21 bit number assume this DAC is inferior to other DACs that claim 24 or even 32 bits of resolution. Several manufacturers today advertise the fact that their DACs feature multiple 32 bit DAC chips per channel. Making a judgement on a DAC’s superiority or inferiority based on the number of bits advertised is foolish. For example, a 24 bit DAC has a theoretical maximum SNR of 144 dB, but the best current DACs can only obtain an SNR of 124 dB or 21 bits due to the noise floor of the components. In addition, human hearing has a dynamic range of about 120-130 dB. What’s more, DACs have what’s called Equivalent Number of Bits (ENOB) to signify the actual resolution of the DAC. A closer look at many 32 bit DACs reveals they actually have an ENOB of 19.5. Can you see why making judgements about DACs based on specifications is ridiculous? Readers may be asking themselves, what happens when I play a 24 bit recording on the Yggdrasil if it only supports 21 bits? The reality is that 24 bit recordings don’t have 24 bits of resolution / information. It’s possible to select 24 or even 32 bits as the output resolution for the Yggdrasil in Audio Midi. The truth is that it doesn’t matter on any DAC. Note 1: Vinyl playback has about 12 bits of resolution, CD has 16 bits. Note 2: The Yggdrasil doesn’t support DSD. ------------------------- |
