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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
rei_iii
5 posts
 
Audiofun,
Have you tried different digital filters for your Power DAC? There are six downloadable filters from www.msbtech.com/support/supportHome.php to play around with. It can be a pita to upload the filters, but I think it is worth a try.
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
Rei_iii I have all the filters in a playlist in itunes called "Custom Filters" and I can change them at will. I have worked with all of them extensively :) At the end of the day, I think it sound overall best with the default filter (probably why they made it the default :).
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
Vetnik: Which driver verison? Because I have dealt directly with Marcos via emials and they acknowledge that the driver is NOT bit perfect, it drops the LSB. Now the new beta driver for Snow Leopard according to Marcos has solved that problem, also they are working on the new driver for 10.5.X to solve the acknowledged pop/clicks.

No need to shout, I don't think I chimed in on whether or not the Hiface is async or not. My MSB renders that moot as it discards the incoming clock, buffers the data and uses its own clocking scheme to the dac, much like any good memory player.

Either way asynch or not, it sounds FAR better than any usb to dac direct connection I have tried...dropped bit and all, so I can only imagine what it will sound like with the corrected driver.
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
Vetnik: My bad I see you were directing you intensity at Earflapp.
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
This from the Tweek Geek site. I started thinking about the fact that the HiFace has 2 precision clocks on board (2.5ppm) and the slight delay in the interface of iTunes when using the HiFace led me to believe it is in fact Async. This is what I found:

28) Does the hiFace work in asynchronous mode?

Sure, the transfer of data over the USB bus happens in a totally asynchronous fashion, with respect to their retransmission to the DAC, in short packets which use all the available bus bandwidth. Actually, hiFace is master in the transmission from PC to interface. As it uses its low jitter oscillators to time the S/PDIF transmission, line jitter is totally uncorrelated to data transmission from PC to interface.
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