Ypsilon CDT 100 & DAC 100 digital system

Introduction to Ypsilon

Ypsilon Electronics was founded in 1995 by two sound engineers. They each had experience in the field of the reproduction of live music. Maybe it’s their experience in live concerts along with their technical background that contributes to the truly high-end sound they have been able to build into their products.

It was the $90,000 Ypsilon SET 100 hybrid monoblock amplifiers that recently made our dear editor wax on philosophically about marriage, women, and musical ecstasy. So you may wonder if this beautiful $54,000 digital source could move me so. Well, I’ll have to admit from the start only one digital source has ever really moved me to feel involved emotionally in music in anyway like the analogue source does, but the engineers at Ypsilon do welcome that exact comparison in their design goals.

Design Goals

According to the Ypsilon web site, analogue filters color the sound and affect dynamics in a negative way, in fact in such a negative way that the digital industry developed the technology of upsampling. The result is that the sampling frequency of 44kHz is increased to 96kHz or 192kHz, and more effective analogue filters can be used to reject the out-of-band noise. Even when this process is performed by powerful digital signal processing devices, the end result is never like the originally retrieved data. Of course, by not using analogue filters, the DAC's measurements would include the out-of-band noise; but, it sounds more open, with bigger scale and a more analogue-like presentation.

Remember that the basic idea behind DSD technology was to get rid of the digital filters used in PCM. Unfortunately the industry did not embrace it but instead, kept interpolation in one way or another. With the Ypsilon CDT-100 and DAC-100, neither oversampling nor upsampling is used, and a very linear and accurate chipset is implemented. The conversion is accomplished by a specially designed transformer, designed and built in-house. The analogue stage of the DAC 100 is a single-ended class triode transformer coupled at the output. The power supply uses a valve rectifier and choke regulation. All signal and power supply transformers are designed and manufactured by Ypsilon.

They go on to say that by using only the best materials available in the DAC-100 and combining it with CDT-100 the sound can only be compared with the best analogue sources. In fact, the engineers at Ypsilon say it was their love for music that lead them to see if they could build high-end products that would be able to reproduce music in such a way that you would not be able to tell the difference from true live music. A goal they have not reached yet, of course; no one else has either. I’ll tell you this: the exciting thing is that they have spared no expense in trying.

Description

The packing, the shipping containers, the connectors, and the chassis of the Ypsilon transport and DAC scream quality and expensive; and so they are. It’s obvious from the minute you get them that someone cared about the impression these products make. No joke, the Ypsilon equipment looks as exclusive as some of the top high-end equipment on the market. That care also comes through loud and clear when you listen to their products.

The Ypsilon CDT and DAC 100 are both housed on very heavy aluminum chassis that is brushed silver. The look produces a very attractive combination of form and function. The CDT alone weighs a whopping 44 pounds. The transport is mounted in a 3/4 inch block of solid aluminum that sits on four well designed legs, which terminate into solid cones that are in turn engineered with special feet for them to sit into. The display is hung below the aluminum block and the unit is top loading.

The DAC 100, like I pointed out in the design goals, is a non–oversampling DAC which is made like a couple of my favorite DACs. Having said that, I should point out that in no way is the Ypsilon a copy of previous non-oversampling DACs. It is, as much as any DAC can be, its own design. Although having no up-sampling at all, it is designed with multi–bit DAC chips. The power supply uses shunt regulators, while the analog stage uses single-ended class A transformer coupled triodes with tube rectification and choke regulation. The tubes are the high mu, high transconductance, low-noise Siemens C3g NOS tubes.

The DAC 100 has two choices of inputs, either a SPDIF coaxial 75Ω next generation connector or a Neutric 5-pin analog current input. When the Neutric input is used with CDT 100 the digital part of the DAC is disabled and is powered off. So of course, this is the way the designers at Ypsilon want you to use it, which I did for most of the review.

Ypsilon builds all their transformers by hand in house. These transformers are fairly large and designed from what they consider to be the very best available materials. The wiring is all point-to-point with custom extruded silver wire. Then their engineers wind them in what they refer to as a highly technical way for achieving a totally transparent sound, and they have come very close. So let’s get started talking about how the Ypsilon sounded.

The System

I used the Ypsilon CDT and DAC 100 in my reference system downstairs. I simply plugged it into my Audience aR6-T, and and then connected the DAC 100 to my Shindo Monbrison preamp. The other source in the reference system consisted of a Clearaudio Anniversary AMG Wood CMB Turntable with two Clearaudio Satisfy tonearms, and an assortment of EMT, Benz, and Miyabi cartridges. Amplification was my Wavac EC300B driving a pair of Teresonic Ingenium Silvers. The interconnects were Teresonic’s Clarison 24kt Gold cables, and the speaker wires were Teresonic Clarison.


Digital Cable

Ypsilon provides you with a very exceptional analog input cable, but Brian Ackerman of Aaudio Imports supplied me with top-of-the-line, 1-meter Stage III A.S.P. Reference Chimaera 5-pin DIN digital cable ($5,300 per meter) with which to hook the Ypsilon CDT and DAC 100 up. I have to inform you that this digital cable made this exceptional digital source significantly quieter, more powerful, and improved the soundstage.