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
OK, FINALLY... my M2Tech HiFace is going to be delivered today. I can't wait to try it out and report its capabilities. I will keep you posted.
Audiofun, if you're going to use the RCA version of the M2, I can't resist putting in another plug in for Moray James digital cable...I'm sure he'd send you one to audition. It beats anything I've tried from Kimber Illuminati to Harmonic Tech and based upon the music for pleasure review of the M2, the cable interface may make a significant difference. I heard an M2 (albeit not with high rez)a few weeks ago and was impressed. Look forward to your review.
Well, I have the Hiface (BNC version) and while I hear great promise, mine unfortunately has the clicking/popping issue which I thought this latest batch was supposed to address. I do hear a great deal of promise with the unit, I have contacted Mike Garner at Tweek Geek and he is all over it, getting back to me last evening after 10pm EST within 15 minutes of my email....NOW THAT'S SERVICE!!!

I will keep you all posted.
Ok, it appears that for some reason unbeknown-st to the makers of the Hiface (their words)some macs still have the clicking and popping problem. They are working on a new driver.

New things, I have finally given up on Amarra, it simply destroys very fine detail that iTunes easily renders. I have lived with it for about 6 months now and I have decided to move on. I did love the fact that it could switch my midi sampling rate on the fly and bypass iTunes SRC mechanism...but the sound trumps those features... BUT!!!!

I found Pure Vinyl and it seems nearly perfect. It bypasses iTunes and switches the midi settings, is only $229.00 has a 64 bit core, allows one to record and has built in 64 bit RIAA processing for archiving vinyl. Finally, it sounds better than Amarra to these ears. The low level information I mentioned earlier (and at the very start of this thread when speaking of my Amarra trials) is present once again.

It can also be used as a memory player, which I think sounds best and sort of negates the need for expensive SSD drives. It will buffer your music (in my case, from my 1TB NAS over wifi) to the internal memory of my mac mini and then play it from there. Sometimes there is a slight delay, but in Hybrid mode, it launches another thread and starts to preload the next track so it is nearly seamless.

The ONKY thing I have found that Amarra does better is related to 'remote' on my iPhone/touch. The realtime file playback timing information is veryv ery smooth when using iTunes alone or when using iTunes with Amarra. Not so with Pure Vinyl, first you have to turn it on in the preferences and then it is jumpy and can make the music skip a bit. They need to address this, but it is a minor annoyance and I leave it off for now.

So there you have it, between the Hiface and Pure Vinyl (about $410.00 (Pure Vinyl is slated to go up to $299.00 with the next full release) I can play ALL my files all the way up to 24/192khz... The Hiface will pass 32 bit information should you have any.

Oh, one last thing I love about the Pure Vinyl, it reads your midi setting upon start up and uses that number to base up sampling on (should you turn upsampling on, I prefer it off but it is very good, just not as good as no upsampling to me) for instance: say most of your' files are 44.1 I think it would be smart to pick 88.2khz as the midi setting. Now with upsampling on, PV will upsample everything below 88.2 (which will probably be mostly 44.1 stuff) to 88.2 (even order math) anything 88.2 or greater will be player as NATIVE S.R. with no upsampling involved. So if you are a fan of upsampling this is the golden ticket...or egg ... or goose or whatever it is thats golden and good :)
Clarification: I wrote:

Sometimes there is a slight delay, (concerning the use of Pure Vinyl in memory mode)....

I was referring to the time between the start of the next song, NOT during song playback which would be totally unacceptable :)