Weiss 501 DAC

@metaldetektor

Your point about the many functions of the Weiss compared to the single function of an Asian DAC is well taken. Having an all-in-one unit will be attractive to many audiophiles.

However, you picked about the most expensive Asian DAC for comparison. Also whether the Weiss functions actually are as good as the suggested alternatives is another question. There are also less expensive excellent alternatives. Moreover when you go the all-in-one route you are stuck with the upgrades that company makes available at the price they choose. Many, like me, will always choose separates. A major technology advance in those functions, or the most cost-effective advance, may not come from the maker of your all-in-one component.

You have to first of all understand that Daniel Weiss is a well known and respected name in pro audio. Even though he has an “audiophile” line of products addressing the home user, the company is heavily invested and primarily focused on pro audio. Their 202 was a Minerva in different clothes. 
 

And although I have never heard a 501, because I had a 202 I would like to share a few thoughts. Like some of the better pro audio DACs, 202 had all but the kitchen sink. Great preamplifier, amazingly transparent and detailed DAC, a headphone amplifier which was so good that I sold my not inexpensive Violectric straight away. Daniel continues to support his products with regular firmwares for years, sometimes adding significant functionality (the processing power is available under the hood). It absolutely wiped the floor with my second generation Benchmark, which sounded raw and unrefined by comparison. But it was still a Minerva and, while indeed an amazing monitoring tool with say an HD800, musical enjoyment was not its primary focus. And I would expect 501 to be much the same. 
 

If I would need a fairly compact DAC for say a computer rig with an excellent USB interface, a great headphone amp etc - Weiss would be high on my list of candidates. For my main system I would look elsewhere, unless you have a valve preamplifier, a class A amp, laid back speakers (Sonos Faber,  Harbeth etc). In that  scenario I think a Weiss would work very well indeed. 

I have mixed feelings about Asian products. Buying from China is NOT a blessing. It can take weeks to see your purchase, you risk a handsome customs bill, your box can be lost or damaged on arrival. Which leads to the next issue: customer support. Some companies are better than others but never expect the kind of support you get from a, say, dCS dealer. Bad English (if not Google translate), generic troubleshooting, blame the problem on your system or network or user input or or. Eventually, if a RMA is agreed, you have to pack, send back to China at your own expense, risk more clashes with customs (I had to send a linear power supply back twice. Each time it was returned I was hit with a customs invoice). The software support varies from poor to abysmal. Never buy promises. Assume that your product will never see any meaningful updates. Buy what you see, not the hype, your hopes or expectations. 
 

Mr Weiss on the other hand will answer your emails personally within a day or two. The Chinese hardware might be good. The price might be keen. And you might be lucky not to need support. But if you do it could be slow and painful. 

@melm  Hi yes I agree -- there are always trade-offs. I think the modular nature of some DACs is a very attractive feature, but no it’s not a universally appealing solution. Companies like Bricasti and Ayre have shown over the years their commitment to original owners via upgrades, and I appreciate that. One of my early digital purchases was a Naim UnitiQute, not long before the Naim Atom came out. The Atom was a major advance (I "had" to have it), but it was an expensive (to me) proposition to get the Atom, having just purchased the Qute -- whose value of course tanked when the Atom came out. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a modular product. Or at least a dealer with a good trade-in policy. That experience colored how I feel about boxes, particularly digital boxes, that are not truly upgradeable. So that was my introduction to hifi, and it’s stayed with me.

I did choose the most expensive Holo to highlight the idea, but I think it holds at other price points as well. Take the Musetec at $3100 (the factory price keeps going up), add a decent streamer like the Lumin at $2000+, and you’re not far off the Bricasti M3 + network card at $6500, and you’re above the Sonnet Morpheus/Hermes at $4500 or whatever. I won’t get into the substance of how they sound different, just pointing out that from a price perspective, there is quite a bit of overlap between excellent Chinese DACs and excellent N.A./Euro DACs.

@reven6e makes great points on the Weiss. I haven’t heard the older Weiss DAC, but that’s consistent with what others have told me. I found the current Weiss "musical" (i.e. a pleasure -- when listening, I wanted to keep listening) but yes it’s a cool, analytical kind of pleasure (imagine the pleasure of understanding a cool new scientific experiment, vs. the pleasure of losing yourself in a movie), so system-matching becomes extra important.

P.S. This may be too obvious to mention on a website whose main purpose is the buying and selling of used audio gear, but if we're talking about relative value, the secondhand markets for the top Chinese DACs and N.A./Euro DACs are VERY different...

For Denafrips/Holo, on the used market, there's minimal haircut. A buyer is paying close to full sticker price. The main advantage buying used there is logistical -- you don't need to wait a month to receive your DAC, and you don't need to spend another month breaking it in. 

For N.A./Euro DACs, the used market provides substantial savings. There was a mint Weiss DAC that sold used for less than $6k. Yes, you do need to be patient for listings to come up, but that makes the value considerations here even more interesting. And of course with products distributed through a dealer network, there will also be demo product available at significant savings if you know where to look.