Weiss Minerva Dac

Hi Alexsee,

Yes (single) spdif coax and optical are limited to 96/24 whereas (Dual) AES/EBU maybe spdif too are capable of MAX 176K! Whereas the Minerva is capable on firewire @ 192KHz!!.

Other USB dac's that I've seen are mostly capable of 44.1K and a few for eg. Bel Canto DAC3... make 96/24 possible, principally they are capable of 211/32 please correct me if I'm wrong.

Best Regards,

Satyam Bachani.

exactly. except for the Weiss Minerva, most of these so called "true 24/176 or 192 DACs" don't utilize digital connectors that are even capable of this high native sample rate (& none of these DACs mentioned hv dual AES/EBU, SPDIF, Toslink inputs), so how in the world are they "true 24/176 or 192 DACs"??

you might also wish to look into yr music s/ware's audio resolution. as far as i'm aware, not all s/ware will do 24 bit (e.g. iTunes, etc. will only do 16 bit max). this is not related to what bit rate you actually "lock" yr computer:DAC at... if yr music s/ware's unable to feed 24 bit data to yr computer, then yr computer will not be feeding 24 bit data to yr DAC.

anyway, with regards to the Weiss Minerva, i hv previously compared this DAC at 24/176 against Weiss Medea doing 24/88. downstream components consisted of Gryphon's top-of-the-line components & Gryphon Atlantis speakers. to me, Medea still sounded much better despite Minerva having a higher native sample rate. guess specs may not always tell the whole picture?!

01-14-09: Alexsee
this is all a bit confusing...

aren't AES/EBU, SPDIF Coax, & Toslink cables limited to 24bit 96kHz bandwidth, & USB 2.0 cables limited to 24bit 48kHz bandwidth?

how does one feed raw 24bit 176kHz (&/or 196kHz) data into these DACs with just a single cable?

Hello Sir [Alexsee] !

You are correct;
SPDIF & AES/EBU cannot carry more than 24/96.
Hence, top end Transport & DAC's [Esoteric & dCS] use 'dual' connections. Left & Right from Transport to DAC. Even Chord has 2 cables & that too can only transmit 176 Khz.

Basically, to send 24/192 from a transport to a DAC either a 'firewire' has to be used or a 'proprietory' cable like what is used by Accuphase.

However, all those DAC's [Teac / dCS / Accuphase] cannot accept digital inputs from a computer, since no computer sound card gives you 2 digital outs [192 KHz sampling].

USB too cannot support sampling frequencies of 192 Khz.

Basically, one needs to get 3 things sorted out.
A - Digital out from a 'source' [computer or CD Transport] @ 192 Khz.
B - DAC that can accept 192 KHz & 'lock' @ that rate.
C - Word Clock [master / slave]

Yes, the HRX recordings from RR are from a 'different planet' Just too good. No CD / SACD can come close to it ! All must hear them. Keith Johnson has done a great job !! Bravo !!

hi Schwinnindia, i agree with yr 3 pts & would like to add another 2:

D - media software needs to be compatible with high def audio files;

& most important of all...

E - there needs to be more titles/albums properly remastered in high def audio formats (no point investing in all this gear to listen to the same 10 CDs over & over).

anyway, i've not managed to hear RR's HRx, but do hv quite a number of RR's discs - which are also very good but prob nowhere near HRx (in a proper setup).

btw, is anyone currently using the Lynx AES-16 24/192 digital I/O? what kind of cables/connectors does this btw the I/O & the DAC?