Bidat vs Perfect Wave vs Weiss and others


This is thread I started a while ago and promised in February i would start doing some real world comparative testing using the Bidat (Plus Mod) as the ref. The units under test are to include in no specific order the MSB Platinum Dac, the Weiss Minervera and the Playback Design player. I posted this under the follow-up of the original thread and it is there is you do a search under Digital for "ps audio perfect". I can't understand why it did not 'promote' to the top of the digital section as it did in the past whenever there was a new contribution, so I have started a new related thread with the first entry of my fun (and I hope edifying comparative experiences).
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Ok, I just got a broken in Weiss Minerva (several hundred hours at least). It has been in my system burning in for about 18 hours (18 hours since arriving in my home, time to come to thermal equilibrium). I have done some comparative listening to the Museatex Dcc-1 (a rarely known digital preamp 19 bit dual differential type) using glass Tos on both and then glass on the DCC1 vs a very expensive (can't name it yet as the manufacturer has not released it...sorry :( ) Firewire on the Weiss. I have a Mac Mini (2007 model) 2.0 ghz Core2Duo with 4Gig of ram running Leopard (although this model can only see 3.01 gig of that (I used 4gig as the memory transfer is optimized when the mem modules are the same). I also have a 1TB NAS (all over wifi). I am of course going to reserve final judement until a bit later.

I will be comparing the Museatex Bidat with the Plus Mod later this weekend. As a teaser, I will go on record and say that honestly at this point I don't agree with the stellar reviews concerning the Weiss Minerva.

It is resolute, almost technicolor but just to give you a short glimpse of what I am hearing, I could imagine a well healed vinyl person listening to Holly Cole on vinyl and then listening to the Weiss (playing the same in CD format) and saying "this is why I will never leave vinyl". Now that may sound harsh, but this is a hobby and I don't have a dog in the race, I am just reporting my ears findings.

I listened to a few high resolution files 176.4/24 and 96/24 but what I heard was a really clear highly resolved soul-less rendition of the music. It never ever made me smile or relax into the music the way the DCC-1/Bidat or even my former (when I actually spun cd's...wow time flies) stellar Dynavox Dynastation 2 (the finest CD player I have ever heard).

In a nutshell (at this point) it just sounds like digital and that aint good in my camp because I am not forgetting about the gear and just listening to the music. I don't like syrupy or dark, I have heard plenty of players try to use that trick to sound musical. No, I look for something that is more elusive and few their be that find that magical combination when forging through the nether regions of the digital domain. I will continue listening to see if the Weiss surprises me :)

More to come...
audiofun
The Absolute Sound Golden Ear was awarded by Anthony Cordesman and not Peter Breuninger as previously posted. There was some confusion because of pre-publication posting of the information.
I receive the Diverter HR today. I am using it with my Mac mini, pure music 1.8a ( soon to be 1.82 soon as i download it:) my Graaf Modena and MFA Ref passive attenuator. The Dac is the MSB Power Dac. I am using a Grover huffman RCA spdif cable and a standard USB cable. The sound out of the box was quite good, if a bit thin. The thinness almost immediately went the way of the dinosaurs (about 20minutes of play/power-up time) and it is now sounding very full and full of information retrieval. I find that it is better than my "real" glass Toslink from the Mac mini to the MSB. The glass Tos is very very very good and rivaled my former very expensive FIM RCA spdif cable which I still think may be the finest spdif cable i have ever heard.

The Locus Design Cynosure cable will be in my possession sometime next week and will replace the generic USB cable now employed.

The unit is beautiful and has a dot matrix display which indicates the sampling rate.

I have it burning in for the next 5 hours and will do a little more listening tonight. I was told by Josh at Sonicweld that it will need to run in at least a week to really open up.

I sold my EVO some time ago and may get another in order to do a head to head comparison. At this point a comparison would be from memory only but I would say it appears to be (at this point) at the very least every bit as resolute as my former EVO. That is big for two reasons. My EVO was more run-in and I was using my former FIM gold spdif from the EVO to my MSB.

This may not seem like very much info but please standby; as the unit breaks in I will report my findings but it certainly appears tobethe real deal! I feel I made a very good decision.... Oh and HRx recordings?!? Sound spooky good!
Tos with a real glass cable sounds awesome in my system. Most people commenting about the sound of Tos are possibly basing that on one of two thing; regurgitating what they have read or heard from others or they have listend with a plastic fiber Tos cable. I have directly compared my "real glass fiber" Tos to my former $1.7k FIM Gold digital out of the John Wright nodded Bidat and my MSB Power Dac. While I agree that as far as bandwidth goes (6.xMHZ for Tos if memory serves) Tos is the lowest on the totem pole, in my system it was fully 97% of the coax connection.

I did compare the glass fiber to the plastic fiber and the plastic is horrendous and completely unlistenable, but the glass will shock you.

Now having said all that :) I use the Diverter HR now so the point is moot, but blanket statements seldom cover all the permutations thus my pontification on the Tos connection.
Interesting to read this old thread about the venerable bidat vs. some newer dacs. I don't think that I will ever sell my wrighted bidat. Its wonderful and bests every other dac i have tried in my system when fed by the cec tl 1, which I can't imagine selling either.