Weiss 501 DAC

what scott (@verdantaudio) says is right

but i will note i have personally found bluebird distinctly unresponsive to retail customers/end users in the past, maybe they have cleaned up their act in the present day...

After running the Weiss 501 DAC for over a year, Tom at Big Ear in Tempe suggested as good as the Weiss is as a standalone, it could use some help from a quality preamp.  So, with unchecked sanity, I plugged in a Luxman C900u and he is/was correct.

Found used, the Luxman cost/performance issue could easily be called into question.  But, the improved performance is there.  Quantifiable in percentage gain, no.  Suffice to say it's shiny and sounds gorgeous.  It comes down to defending the cost of the one month stay in Switzerland.  Not really cost effective to others, and why should we care as they may have spent 10K on a Super Bowl weekend.

I’m wondering if anyone has compared the internal Weiss streamer to having an external streamer like a Grimm M1

I tried several external streamers and preferred direct to Weiss in every case. In the big Gustard R26 thread at head-fi, most preferred direct to R26.

I have found the Antipodes K50 and Oladra are a step up from the internal streamer.  If you have an external server, K22 as an endpoint would likely be a step up.