Weiss DAC205 DAC Review

[Waxx]

This gives the impression that it's a current product <https://weiss.ch/products/highend-hifi/dac205/#information> and that it's "pro quality". Whatever is the case, the performance and features do not justify such a high price. Perhaps a lot of money was wasted on 4 converters per channel, and wouldn't a "pro" device have Chord-level filtering?

This is a 2010 device, that is still sold, but not a new device. It was good at it's time, not exellent. And Weiss has always been way to expensive. It's Swiss, and like many Swiss audio brands (Nagra, FM Acoustics, ...), the price is too high for what it is.

But Weiss used to be a much used convertor for mastering studio's in the early decades of digital music, and outside Prism, there was no one near that quality. In the meantime a lot changed off course, like you can see...

 

[HarmonicTHD]

There is always the discussion whenever @amirm measures discontinued equipment (see also the BBC speaker review ):
Should the standards (engineering and pricing) applied from the time when it came out or should today‘s be applied when assessing the product?

I guess it depends what your objectives as a buyer are.

 

[AudioSceptic]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/1702452144179-png.333892/

if it truly had 8 or even 4 you would see them?

Dunno. I'm hoping someone here would know. ;-)

 

[AudioSceptic]

There is always the discussion whenever @amirm measures discontinued equipment (see also the BBC speaker review ):
Should the standards (engineering and pricing) applied from the time when it came out or should today‘s be applied when assessing the product?

I guess it depends what your objectives as a buyer are.

If *any* product is still being made and sold it should be judged by current standards, regardless of when it was first produced.

 

[computer-audiophile]

In the meantime a lot changed off course, like you can see...

In fact, you have to categorise it historically. It would perhaps be useful to include the date of market launch. Comparing this old DAC with today's cheap DACs from China, for example, makes little sense, imo. The latter are also unlikely to find favour in the pro audio world.

 

[Waxx]

If *any* product is still being made and sold it should be judged by current standards, regardless of when it was first produced.

If it's still made and the company make high quality claims like Weiss does with this one, it surely should. But if it's sold as a vintage style product, it may be different.

 

[AudioSceptic]

In fact, you have to categorise it historically. It would perhaps be useful to include the date of market launch. Comparing this old DAC with today's cheap DACs from China, for example, makes little sense, imo. The latter are also unlikely to find favour in the pro audio world.

This is still made and sold. It's not even sold at a reduced price to reflect its age.

 

[AudioSceptic]

If it's still made and the company make high quality claims like Weiss does with this one, it surely should. But if it's sold as a vintage style product, it may be different.

I don't see how this sort of thing sells as "vintage". It's not as if it has hi-end build, or the sort of legend built-up over decades of the LS3/5a, LP12, etc. It's just (or should be) a functional box.

 

[splitting_ears]

Your guess is as good as mine as to why we have such high levels of intermodulation distortion.

This test from another device (Moondrop Dawn) shows how going from 0dBFS to -0.5dBFS would give much cleaner intermodulation results. Perhaps this DAC too can't handle such (valid) levels when fed with anything other than a single tone?

 

[Dave-Oh]

I think this is a much older design from around 2005-10. It came a few years after the Benchmark Dac 1 and like it was not a USB Dac because USB Dacs were not yet "a thing" inasmuch as everyone was still playing the silver disks and using their old CD players or dedicated CD turntables and outputting to stand alone DACS like the Weiss over Spdif and/or AES/EBU. At the time, Weiss would have been at the absolute pinnacle of DAC performance.

Even today it looks really good--almost as good as a lot of $200 USB Dacs from Topping, Schiit and SMSL which is high praise indeed for such a venerable offering.

Right. It’s fine to compare products from different eras but why then trash them by today’s standards?

 

[TonyJZX]

i dont think swiss products are "sold at a reduced price to reflect its age"

Right. It’s fine to compare products from different eras but why then trash them by today’s standards?

but even by the standards of the day this isnt every good and especially so for that money

 

[Lambda]

nothing from that silver box tells me a $2k story. Mystery it is!

Have you not seen the "made in Switzerland" print?

Your guess is as good as mine as to why we have such high levels of intermodulation distortion.

How can an DAC be that bad if it otherwise performs ok?
i would love to see some investigation on this... maybe other IMD, Multi/dual tone tests.

 

[JayGilb]

They also sell a model named: dac204 which is the same unit with usb inputs. That model sells for $3500.

Thanks for another review Amir.

 

[TonyJZX]

yeah that's just 'taking this piss' (a local idiom)

$2,6k and then $900 extra for usb...

 

[dasdoing]

now we need to see results of the contemporary version

 

[voodooless]

There is always the discussion whenever @amirm measures discontinued equipment (see also the BBC speaker review ):
Should the standards (engineering and pricing) applied from the time when it came out or should today‘s be applied when assessing the product?

It says 2023 right there on the PCB.

However, it is not fair to compare products like this with consumer level gear like Topping, SMSL, etc…. as, proven track record of reliability, flawless driver development, and ultra-short turnaround support infrastructure outweigh bleeding edge technical performance in professional settings.

So far, on ASR, there is no proven track record. We had two Weiss products now, and both had some clear issues. And regarding driver development: they use the exact same drivers as almost everyone else does from Thesycon.

 

[TonyJZX]

even if it performed as well as say an SMSL SU-1 you would probably get a lot of raise eyebrows here anyway

 

[JustJones]

Dunno. I'm hoping someone here would know. ;-)

According to Vintage King which still sells this DAC they claim 4 per channel operating in parallel. It's 2 channel so I guess 8 chips?

Stereo 24-bit/192 kHz D/A converter featuring four D/A converters per audio channel operated in parallel for enhanced signal to noise performance

 

[voodooless]

According to Vintage King which still sells this DAC they claim 4 per channel operating in parallel. It's 2 channel so I guess 8 chips?

It's one chip with 8 channels. It can be used in various configurations.

 

[AudioSceptic]

According to Vintage King which still sells this DAC they claim 4 per channel operating in parallel. It's 2 channel so I guess 8 chips?

I got the "4 per channel" from Weiss's own website so would expect that to be correct.