More of everything...
That is the best way I can think of to describe what I heard yesterday afternoon with the comparison between the Schiit Gungnir Multi-Bit, Yggdrasil, and ModWright Oppo 105 DACs. The more of everything referring to the Yggy. It just stood out between the three, as I mentioned before.
My two local audio friends and I had a very enjoyable afternoon yesterday in our 2+ hour listening session and comparison. They both came away very impressed with the sound of my system with the new to me XRT29 speakers, and all three sources acquitted themselves very well. We all agreed that we would be very happy having any of them in our systems and they all sounded fantastic. That being said, our attention while comparing a few selected tracks kept coming back to the Yggy. I was initially worried about the Yggy being bright in my system based on some of the reviews I've read online. That concern turned out to be completely unfounded.
The Gungnir Multi-Bit sounded very similar to how I remembered it sounding in my system a week ago. Extremely smooth, with excellent microdetail, very good air and space around vocalists and instruments, and very clean in the lower registers that allows it to distinguish between the bass line and other instruments. It still sounded the warmest of the three, with less frequency extension at both the lower and higher ends. Layering and soundstage width were very good, but soundstage depth was not the equal of the other two sources. My friend's Gungnir still doesn't quite have 500 hours on it, and that combined with it being listened to with less than 30 min of warm up probably still is keeping me from having heard it at it's full potential. That being said, I think it is an absolute bargain for the price and I see why several on this forum have bought one for their stereo or headphone systems.
The Yggdrasil showed all of the positive attributes of the Gungnir MB but added several additional very noticeable improvements. The most obvious difference to all of us was the speed of attack of the leading edge of notes, especially with guitar and drum lines, as well as the ability to very precisely place and spotlight instruments in their proper location in the soundstage and easily deal with complex passages in classical music without smearing or losing detail. The Yggy was clearly the winner in terms of detail - vocalists taking a breath, echo and reverb in a concert hall or recording studio, sticks striking the drum, fingers playing and foot pedals on a piano - all very realistic and extremely impressive. All of this additional information and detail comes with no glare or etch at all - while not quite as warm or smooth as the Gumby, the Yggy was still very smooth and I would have no problem listening to it long term.
With all of the consensus the three of us had with the impressive sound of the Yggdrasil, the ModWright Oppo still sounded fantastic and held it's own in almost all cases. The owner of the Yggy even preferred it in a few cases, especially with female vocals as well as overall tonality for piano and stringed instruments, so much so that he is wanting to send his stock Oppo 105 to ModWright to have the tube modified analog stage performed to his unit. The MW Oppo does not have the same level of detail retrieval, speed/attack, and punch that the Yggy has, but it does compete very well with soundstage width and depth as well as frequency extension and a more natural decay of notes. Interestingly to me it doesn't seem quite as smooth and balanced across the frequency spectrum overall, even with a tube stage, and compared to the Yggy you are sitting further back from the performance while you are more up close and personal with the Yggy. With most of the music we listened to, I really liked that difference. More of the performers are there in the room with you with the Yggy. The bass is much faster and has more punch with the Yggy while the weight is almost the same. My overall music preferences lean to classic rock and jazz, with some classical, so the Yggy gave me a new perspective and appreciation with some familiar tracks.
The good news for me, as mentioned before, is that I have the Yggdrasil on loan from my friend until Tuesday, so more listening and comparisons with my MW Oppo are still to come. I was away for a good part of the day today so I wasn't able to do a lot of listening unfortunately. The Yggy has been plugged in non-stop now for almost 28 hours, so by tomorrow it should be completely warmed up and I'll be able to get an even better perspective on it's capabilities and sound quality.
Finally, I want to mention how much fun I had yesterday! It is always terrific to have like-minded audiophile friends over to your place to share listening impressions as well as sharing new music with each other. We all had very similar impressions and thoughts regarding what we heard, and it's always nice to have others confirm what you are hearing. Having audio friends over works much better than when I have my wife come listen to changes I've made or what I think are clear differences and she just tells me that it all sounds good...
I hope my thoughts and impressions are interesting and useful for everyone. I still need to write up my final impressions of my new speakers as well, however I've definitely enjoyed this diversion toward hearing and comparing the Gumby and Yggy.
More to come in the next couple of days with my additional impressions of the Yggy in my system!
