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DAC Merry Go 'Round- why I stopped at Weiss

This is not a review but will be somewhat long, so I’ll provide the summary up front – I tried a lot of DACs over the last 3-4 years including Schiit, DENAFRIPS, Mojo, Lumin, Luxman, Marantz and a few others, and finally settled on the Weiss DAC 501. Features and ergonomics do come in to play as well in my decision, so the point is I am not stating blankly that the Weiss is better in all regards for all people. For me it was the best in terms of sound quality though, which is the most important to me. I’m writing this for two reasons: one, to try to get the word out on this great DAC which doesn’t have the cult following some of the other ones do, and two to write down some sonic comparisons with some of these other DACs that some audiophiles may find useful. As always, I’ll repeat the caveat that this is in my system, room, with my ears….etc., etc.

Other DACs in the system: Schiit Yggdrassil (Unison, A2), Mojo Mystique V2x and B4B, Luxman D08-U, Marantz SA-10, DENAFRIPS Terminator I and II, Lumin T2. I owned all of these DACs and had lots of time with them in my system, though only 2-3 of them at any one time. Best for the money? Probably the Lumin (especially since it does not require a streamer), and Terminator, with an honorable mention goes to the Marantz if you can pick one up at a discount.

Streamers used: Aurender N200, N20, Lumin U1. (This is not a streamer review but if you have a DAC that uses SPDIF, the N20 is really great especially with its upsampling features). System: Luxman C/M900, Magico A3, Harbeth M40, M30. I downsized my system (M40s were too big for my room so I now have the M30) throughout the process; in doing so I also diversified my electronics to Line Magnetic, Benchmark, and Primaluna - with the Harbeth the Luxman were a bit too smooth and I wanted to downsize my system as well. I was not in a frantic search for the ‘best’ DAC but through these trials was just having fun and trying out different things. Ultimately I did want to find something I could live with permanently.

My methodology was to leave the DACs on all the time, listen to them for long periods of time, then switch, as well as quick A-B’ing from time to time, always level matching. Whilst downsizing my system I found I wanted something with a built in streamer (Weiss is Roon ready, like Lumin, the others require a separate streamer), so this is partially where features played a role in my decision.

Here’s some basic notes about each:

Luxman D-08u - smooth, somewhat dry compared to the Mojo, excellent transport (the Mojo sounded better with the D08 as a transport than it did running with a streamer), excellent mid-range layering, good bass. I also borrowed a D-03x at one point from my dealer, which was good but was way too smooth for my tastes.

Marantz SA-10 – a little more alive than the Luxman, great overall, very good CD/SACD player but I couldn’t get past the fact that it upsamples everything to DSD. Every piece of gear that upsamples to DSD (like the Lumin, which is optional, but the Marantz is not) I do not like PCM upsampled to DSD, it just cuts off some of the high frequency information in my experience. Very smooth high frequencies is the upside of the other side of that coin.

Schiit Yggy – best bass I’ve heard from any DAC; fast attacl, clean and excellent clarity. There was just something about it though that didn’t work for me. It was somewhat sterile. Not as musical overall as the other DACs.

DENAFRIPS Terminators – the TII is as advertised from the TI – a little more detailed and clear while retaining all the musicality/spaciality of the TI. These are great DACs. When I got the Terminator for the first time I was in a stage where I was looking for something to replace my Mojo, which had replaced the Luxman. Nothing could touch the Mojo (I was trying $3-4k DACs just to see) until I found the Terminator, though it does things a bit differently. These DACs throw a great soundstage, are excellent all around. This was the DAC I found best reacted to the N20 capabilities with SPDIF and upsampling (read the Computer Audiophile review of these DACs, I agree completely with him on this. The Terminator using upsampling itself, and fed an upsampled input from the N20 was spectacular). I could have kept the TII and been very happy but still wanted to get rid of the extra box. Though having tried the Weiss I still prefer the sound quality of the Weiss overall.

Mojo Mystique B4B – excellent DAC. I won’t mention the little brother V2x other than to say it is a great value for the money – I tried it to see what the fuss was all about in R2R DACs (this was first DAC I tried after the Luxman), and based on what it did I got the B4B. I believe these handbuilt DACs will go down as classics – 20 years from now they will be like a 60’s McIntosh tube amp and sell for big bucks, they are so exquisitely built. As for sound, it remains the most ‘organic’ sounding DAC of the bunch, great texture and tonality, which is important to me. The highs were a bit truncated for my tastes, not quite as detailed as something like the Schiit or the Weiss. I did prefer the Terminator over the Mojo. The Terminators had more of those audiophile attributes like soundstaging and I thought they were slightly more musical overall.

Lumin T2. This was the first DAC I had of any of these. It is a little rough around the edges perhaps (not as smooth as some of the other DACs) but overall just does everything right. Its features to upsample/downsample, and do other things is an awesome and useful feature set. When I was looking at the Weiss I considered picking up an older Lumin S-1 or even the X-1 which have similar feature sets. Some day hopefully I can compare the Weiss to the Lumins. I would say if you like what the T2 does you’ll love the Weiss, they’re similar in features and sound.

Weiss DAC 501 – I’ll skip the feature set other than to mention its ability to use an equalizer can be really handy and in my experience doesn’t degrade the sound quality. But otherwise just talking about sound quality, this DAC was exactly what I have been searching for. It has the clean-ness and clarity/detail of the Schiit, the musicality and soundstaging (though perhaps just slightly a bit less) of the Denafrips, and is just rock solid in its presentation all around; it doesn’t do anything wrong. The review by the Alpha Audio puts it that every track just seems to ‘sound right’ or the way it was supposed to be heard through the Weiss (though they weren’t sure why), which I agree with. Also. the Sterophile review of this DAC does a better job of describing it than I can and I agree with their assessment. It is detailed while being smooth, musical, clear, and plays with authority. Of all the DACs I’ve owned this was also the first one that was clearly discernable in a much greater way than the others (some DACs can sound somewhat similar, have to listen hard for differences). That is its positive attributes in comparison to other DACs were more obvious.

Honorable mention: I did not own it but my dealer let me try out the Line Magnetic DAC (I forget the model, I think there’s only one), but for $2k this is a ‘wow’ DAC – especially if you replace the tubes (I tried a pair of new Genelex gold lion). When I tried this DAC I was searching for a replacement to the Mojo, and this one came the closest from DACs like the Luxman D-03, Oppo-105, and a couple others I can’t recall.

A bit more about methodology if you made it this far. Testing DACs is not easy. Some say they can hear a clear or ‘huge’ difference between DACs, or one “blows the other away” or is not in the same ballpark, etc. These hyperboles are not the experience I’ve had for the most part. Living with the DAC for a long time, getting over the initial “new toy syndrome”, is paramount, and DACs tested against each other over time reveal true differences in my opinion. One test I do I call the ‘Oppo’ test. Some audiophiles like to denigrate the Oppos but they are great DACs, especially for the money. I will always keep an Oppo in the house (if not just to play DVDs and SACDs!). After living with a given DAC for a while and being duly impressed with it, I would then fire up the Oppo and compare the two, only to find that the Oppo sounded pretty good in comparison, which helps to present a value consideration for the other DACs. For example, believe it or not the Oppo was somewhat similar and close to the Mojo in terms of tonality and some other traits; but obviously you get what you pay for, the pricier DACs are smoother and do other things better.. The Oppo is a bit rougher (as opposed to smooth) and has some compromises that always appear in these comparisons. But with this test I found to use the preamp to switch between the two DACs under consideration and forget about which one is attached to which input, you can really start to hear differences without a lot of the bias coming in. With some of these DACs I could guess about 50% of the time which was the Oppo, some less, some more. The musical selection used often played a big role – some selections sound the same on DACs for some reason, some different.

jimmy2615
greg_f
106 posts
 

@atriya

Have you actually tried the SPDIF or the AES output of the Lumin U2, the Hifi Rose RS130 or the Eversolo DMP- A8? I would be interested to hear which one you prefer. Also the Innuos Zen does not have SPDIF or AES outputs, only the ZenMini has.

 

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
492 posts
 

@atriya I am positive a different streamer can improve the sound quality of the 501, I just don't know how much one has to spend for this to happen. 🤔 If it is the form of the Antipodes K50, K41, Aurender N20, Playback Edelweiss, Grimm, that 432evo that is often pushed by one outfit here, or Innuos Pulsar, I think I still have some lower hanging fruit to pick first. If a noticeable improvement over the well-engineered streamer in the Weiss can be had for a mid-line streamer price- Aurender N200, Zen mk3, Lumin, Auralic or the Rose you suggested I guess there is only one way to find out: we get one and try it! And yes that is the reason I queried some of the owners of this wonderful DAC to see what their experiences are. There are also plenty of other options here that are not mentioned much on this website but are popular in Europe: Naim, Linn etc. 

And then there is the option to spend 2-3K and get the more recent Sabre chips inserted in this unit. I know at least one owner here who stated that it wasn't the best money spent- correct me if I am wrong @jjss49 

Choices in life are good, but sometimes it makes it difficult. I just searched "streamer" on hifi shark and got 2296 for sale. Overwhelming. 

Perspective here though: I am getting wonderful fidelity- if my music never gets better than what I have now I am still very happy and fortunate, but alas, I am an audiophile, this is my hobby, so I will keep plugging along. 🎶

 

atriya's avatar
atriya
19 posts
 

@greg_f @mclinnguy I haven't actually tried any of the streamers yet, so all this is just speculation, and hoping to find someone who has tried a few and can advise if they outperform the onboard streamer in the Weiss.

Btw my Weiss is already the "4ch" version. I had the older version in for demo before my purchase, and I do feel the 4ch is an improvement, though I never heard them side by side.

jimmy2615 OP
440 posts
 

For those interested, there’s a review of the newer Weiss Helios DAC (their “flagship”) in Soundstage Australia.  Of note, the reviewer compares all of the current Weiss DACs’ overall sound qualities (including the 500 series 2 channel vs 4 channel).  It’s one person’s opinion of course, and taken FWIW from published reviews.  What I really like about it though is the way he compares them using a spider web chart.  Very interesting, and in my view a better way to compare sounds than the usual melee of adjectives and hyperbole! 

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
492 posts
 

I'll provide a link for that review: Helios 

I know a fellow who owned all three of these units at the same time, and did a good comparison of them- I hope @mistercrash doesn't mind me posting this from another forum: perhaps he could comment here and see if he agrees with the reviewers impressions?  Wondering also if he has compared any streamers into the Weiss? 

 

I ended up ordering a Weiss Helios. I got it earlier this week, and I decided that I was going to set up the ultimate blind test of the Weiss DACs this weekend:

1. I ordered a passive XLR switch from Amazon. 3 sets of inputs and 3 sets of outputs.

2. I ordered a few sets of Grimm TPR XLR cables. All were the same 2m length and used the same Grimm TPR cable with Neutrik connectors. I already had a pair straight from the manufacturer but ordered two more from Geistnote. Each set had one cable with a black ring and one with a colored ring (blue, orange, or red).

3. I hooked all three up to the same network switch using Blue Jeans Cat6 ethernet cables and plugged them in using generic power cords. I plugged one set of XLR cables into each DAC and connected them to the switch.

4. I used a pair of Grimm SQM cables to output from the switch to my Mjolnir Audio KGSSHV amp. I used my Stax SR-007MkI headphones to listen.

5. I made sure all DACs were using the latest firmware and bypassed DSP. They were all set to headphone output with no attenuation.

6. I tried running a few sample songs in Roon and adjusted the volume of the DACs until they seemed comparable. This meant turning the Helios down to -7.5 dB and turning the 4ch down to -1.0 dB. Fortunately, Roon allows you to group streamers together, so I could send the same song to all of them simultaneously. This volume adjustment was done by ear so there may have been some variances and it wasn't possible to match the volume at all frequencies. Having done this, I stopped for the night.

7. The next day, I unplugged the inputs to the switch and asked my wife to plug them back in whatever order she wanted. I left the room while she did that. She also put a towel over the switch so I couldn't see which cables were connected to which input.

8. I loaded up Roon, grouped all of the streamers together, and started playing music. I tried listening to songs all the way through, then switching inputs, but I also switched inputs on the fly when I wanted to hear differences in particular passages. For the purposes of my notes, they were simply #1, #2, and #3.

#1 was very clear and clean with a ton of detail. It seemed to handle complex passages very easily and had a great handle on the bass. Highs could be sparkly but were never strident. It felt full and immersive. It was definitely the most forward sound of the three but wasn't overbearing.

#2 was not as detailed as #1. In particular, the bass notes seemed a little less well-defined and sounded slightly more muffled. It was still pleasant to listen to, but I found that I didn't like it as much as #1.

#3 was very close to #1, but was a hair short. Again, it was very detailed, but it was slightly softer in the lower registers (though it was better than #2 was). It had a direct and balanced sound that was impressive.

Overall, I found that I liked #1 > #3 >> #2. None of the sounded bad, but #1 and #3 definitely sounded better to me than #2 did.

I called my wife in to get her thoughts as well. While she had plugged the XLR cables into the switch, she didn't know which cable corresponded to which DAC (and she doesn't care about gear so I don't believe she would have an expectation bias). I left her to listen and a few minutes later, she came out of the room and said that she preferred #2. When I asked her why, she said that it sounded the clearest. This may have been the first time that she and I had a different ranking of results when I set up a blind test.

Having gathered her opinion and mine, I removed the towel and revealed which was which:

#1 was the DAC501-4ch
#2 was the DAC501
#3 was the Helios

Now for the caveats:

1. I bought the Helios new (which is the first time I've bought a new, non-demo, non-open box audio piece in 17 years). While I did run it a little bit over the week, it doesn't have more than 30 hours on it. Perhaps it needs more time to break in.

2. From past experience with the Weiss DACs, the digital volume control does not sound as good as the analog volume control on the headphone amp. Digital volume controls are lossy, so enacting them can cause the sound to suffer. The Helios had the highest level of output and required a -7.5 dB adjustment to match the levels of the other two, which I believe was a notable handicap. The DAC501-4ch also required a slight -1.0 dB volume reduction, but it wasn't nearly as substantial as the Helios.
 

 
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