Article: Weiss Engineering Minerva DAC Review

[VincentH]

Hi Chris, congrats on finishing this eagerly-awaited review. Your tantalizing hints about this dac's stellar performance sure did work as intended :-).<br />

<br />

Did you also try listening with your Grado RS1 to these HRx recordings through the Minerva, <a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/reference_recordings_hrx_review#comment-3128">as you intended</a>? As an RS1 owner looking for a hi-res DAC I'm very interested in how well the RS1's can reproduce all that hi-res goodness.<br />

<br />

Thx, VincentH<br />

[ggking7]

How much does it cost? Where can it be purchased? Are those RCA outputs?

[znorter]

Hi Chris and congrats!<br />

I was so sure about the conclusions I read now from you, 'cause I fall in love years ago when I listened to a Medea dac plus a very cheap dvd player (around 100 euro/159 usd) during a hifi show...<br />

Weiss products are pro devices for the people that works with audio like Nagra and Sonosax (if they will made a PC devices for us, I think it will be something up, over the stars <br />

<br />

I am waiting for the "Vesta" that is the same product you have without the dac for 2500 euro and this review has powered me to the sky dreaming mode...<br />

<br />

Ciao.<br />

<br />

<br />

Luca<br />

<br />

P.S. Can you say something more about the firewire cables? Do you have found "differences" from 5 to 500 bucks digital interconnects? (Some people says that a mouse or a keyboard remains the same with all cables you add ;-)

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey Vincent - Thanks for reminding me to answer this one! After your suggestion I certainly did listen to all of my headphones with the Minerva in my system. I have HD600s, ue11 Pros, and the RS-1s. All three sound different, but equally as nice. The RS-1s do sound absolutely wonderful with high resolution music like the RR HRx 24/176.4 material. There is really something to be said about the detail you can hear with these cans, a good headphone amp, and a DAC like the Minerva. I am a huge fan of rock music and I absolutely love the sound of rock through the RS-1s. Listening to the 24/96 version of Stone Temple Pilots' album Core through the Grados really took it to a different level. The RS-1s just have that sound to them and with the high resolution material that sound is even better. Seriously. If only the RS-1s felt better on my ears after long listening sessions! Note to self: This is justification for the new GS-1s which are much more comfortable :-)

[jxo]

This is sooo tempting. I travel to Zurich regularly and should stop by Daniel's facilities.<br />

Is the Minerva's buffering settings better tailored to Macs than PCs? Any other aspects of the Minerva that would affect the Mac vs. PC laptop choice?<br />

<br />

Is performance affected by the length of the firewire cable? I may try a 20 ft. length in my listening room.<br />

<br />

Chris: how much were your conclusions affected by the quality of the new HRx tracks? With just the standard rez stuff, how would the tone of your review changed? Is the improvement on 16/44.1 material very substantial? I can't help but think that your overall impression was colored by these amazing new RR releases.<br />

<br />

I hadn't thought about DVD-A at all. What are your ripping tips if they will be played back via iTunes?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi ggking7 - The Minerva is $4950 US retail. There are a number of retailers around and a distributor in most countries. If you give me your location I can get you in touch with the nearest place to listen to the DAC.<br />

<br />

Yes, those are RCA outputs on the back. I use the FireWire inputs and the RCA analog outputs for my review.<br />

<br />

It should also be noted that the Minerva outputs AES/EBU to drive any other DAC. It can also be used as a standalone device without connection to a computer if someone is actually interested in the "old school" method of listening to High-End audio :-)

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Jim - The Minerva does not care is you use a Mac or PC. It only cares about receiving a good audio stream from a computer. Mac and PC users will be equally thrilled by this one.<br />

<br />

FireWire cables do have a length limitation that I can't remember off the top of my head. Someone please jump in with the answer here.<br />

<br />

My conclusions were not swayed by the HRx material. In fact I made sure to discuss standard 16/44.1 music in the review and even mentioned that 16/44.1 performance was equally as important. To be considered the Best DAC the Minerva had to perform with 16/44.1 or else I would never have rated it so high. Very good line of questions though Jim. I was equally concerned and had to demonstrate to myself the quality of standard resolution albums before I raved anymore about this DAC. Fortunately the Minerva is just as good with low resolution as it is with high resolution. If it is in the recording, it is coming out through the Minerva.<br />

<br />

More on the DVD-A ripping at a later date. There are a couple threads around here where the discussion has already begun. I am a little hesitant to open this topic up too much because I have a feeling the record labels wil be all over us for whatever reason. You know how they are.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey hey Luca - I haven't been able to test different FireWire cables yet. so I will withhold my comments on this one. more to come later though :-)

[Wavelength]

Chris,<br />

<br />

Actually allot of pro developers use Firewire because they use block mode and someone released chips and drivers to make things easy to develop. While without drivers Firewire has ISO Adaptive mode there is little support for the ASYNC mode in Firewire. From what I know Thomas said Microsoft does not support it and I am not sure if Apple does.<br />

<br />

A Firewire dac would not require a driver for ISO Adaptive mode. Unless they wanted some sort of control console of some sort. Most of that is also built into USB as you can specify I think 18 options that the OS supports natively (i.e. no driver required).<br />

<br />

Paul Miller did some studies of Firewire and did find the jitter on ISO Adaptive stuff was really high. It would be the best bet then to add the PLL/VCXO to recover from that high jitter. I take it they are not using Block mode as that would be ASYNC and would not really require extensive recovery?<br />

<br />

Also again USB 1.1 is not limited to 24/96... the spec is open ended and Windows and MAC OSX both support up too 24/210 in the 1.1 specification. Though of course that would require the full 12mbps bandwidth.<br />

<br />

Thanks<br />

Gordon

[PNCD]

I have been using the Minerva in a Windows Vista implementation. The driver console options are slightly different and I am still unclear about the impact (if any) of Vista audio configurations. Interestingly, two Minerva devices show up in the audio output selector for the player applications. ASIO4ALL must be removed, in my experience.<br />

The sound is superb with standard CD and Linn HiRes files. I run an EMM CDSD SE and DCC2 preDAC. I can use the DCC2 as either an external DAC to the Minerva or as a preamp after the Minerva DAC. I prefer the DCC2 DAC for more "air" to the sound. The Minerva's highs are sharp-edged and complex classical music becomes congested, in my opinion. The Minerva is very good and better than any other USB solution I have tried. It is a keeper in my system until the Linn DS technology settles down so that I can untether from the computer.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey PNCD - It's interesting you note the sharp edged highs. I had a similar experience but only with certain recordings. I listened for a very extended period of time and narrowed the issue down to the actual recordings, not the Minerva. When listening to the HRx recordings there was absolutely no sharp edge to the highs and these are full range high resolution recordings.<br />

<br />

Do you have experience with the HRx albums on a Windows PC that you can share with us?

[PNCD]

Chris<br />

I have the HiRes Linn files at 24/88.1 and 24/96 and I have SACD discs via the EMM kit.<br />

In general, I find the high frequency range difficult with digital. Higher sampling rates create a smoother high frequency (if not simply re-sampled), which is one reason I like SACD. In my experience, EMM does the high frequencies of digital very well, as in the best I have heard. The Minerva is excellent and better than all the USB and S/PDIF computer audio interfaces I have tried (4). <br />

BTW, all my files are dbPowerAmp FLAC, least compressed. My preferences may be different with different sources based on my experiences with other audio formats.<br />

Peter

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey Peter - Thanks for the followup!

[VincentH]

Thanks Chris, this was what I was hoping for... now there's nothing stopping me :-) The Minerva is firmly set somewhere in my audio future. Although I'll have to wait a bit before I can afford it. Thanks again for all the great feedback and speed of response, this site and it's community really is a great help and an interesting place to learn.<br />

<br />

I can sympathise with you on the comfort level of the RS1s, although for me the sound justifies just about anything. Just to illustrate, my original (flat) Grado earpads wore out completely, but since they are no longer available here and I find that the new donut shape earpads completely destroy the sound of the RS1s, I now listen to my RS1s -without- earpads. I guess that makes me hardcore Grado ;-)<br />

<br />

PS If you really like the Grado sound and you consider moving from RS-1 to GS-1000, <a href="http://6moons.com/audioreviews/grado/gs1000.html">this GS1000 review which compares it to the RS-1</a> is something to consider - especially this bit: <br />

<br />

<cite>"I can definitely see how someone loving the Prestige or Reference Series may not quite understand the radical departure the GS-1000 represents. For those traditional Grado diehards, I urge to audition the GS-1000 to appreciate the new qualities which John Grado has brought to the table. From there, you can decide whether the GS-1000 is truly an upgrade from the RS-1 or a lateral move."</cite>.<br />

<br />

Greets, VincentH<br />

[znorter]

You wrote:<br />

......Just to illustrate, my original (flat) Grado earpads wore out completely, but since they are no longer available here and I find that the new donut shape earpads completely destroy the sound of the RS1s, I now listen to my RS1s -without- earpads....<br />

<br />

I think here you can get all for your Grado...<br />

<br />

http://goodcans.com/HeadphoneStore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8<br />

<br />

In the headphone forums this about bowl or nor bowl is an "old" question that also Mr. Grado (son) has contribuited to explain: there are 2 way of listening with the RS1...<br />

<br />

;-)<br />

<br />

<br />

L.<br />

<br />

P.S. I am thinking, thanks to this thread, about the sacd (Emm Labs.) and the highs from the computer/dac sys:<br />

you are talking about one of the best digital machine "old school" and this firewire dac+pc.<br />

Maybe (maybe) what is "superior" is the dac of the Emm; the transport (pc vs policarbonate) maybe (maybe) does not make still the difference.<br />

I am so curious to try (it means to read...sob...) a very alternative to the Emm like the Naim CDX (hard disc + good dac).<br />

I repeat myself saying that that you find in the high range probably is the Weiss typical sound: when compared to the best of ALL (Prism Sound!) digital world and...whole world ;-) this you have noted is what engeneers said often...<br />

[kana813]

Chris- Here's some hirez files to try on the Minerva. ;-) Dan<br />

<br />

<br />

"I thought some folks here might find this of interest.<br />

In an effort to see if I could hear a difference in the "engines" of four different editing/mastering apps I have, I created four files.<br />

<br />

The original recording (an outtake from a recent session) was created by some software/hardware I'm beta testing. To my ears, it is the best sounding "recorder" I've heard to date. The original files are mono (separate left and right files), 24-bit, 96k in AIF format. (The tools do 192k too but for this project, I chose 96k.)<br />

<br />

The original recording is unedited. This is the output of the recorder, from the moment I pressed the red button until I pressed "stop".<br />

The peak level of the original was around -12.3 dBFS. (I leave lots of headroom when recording.)<br />

<br />

I imported the original into each of the four programs. No edits were performed. Then, within each program, I did a gain adjustment of +12 dB and saved the result.<br />

<br />

I'll say more later in this thread.<br />

For now, anyone that wants to download and listen can do at: <br />

Here are the links:<br />

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.com/zdaw1.aif<br />

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.com/zdaw2.aif<br />

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.com/zdaw3.aif<br />

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.com/zdaw4.aif<br />

<br />

If you right-click on the links, you should have an option to download<br />

the files to your hard drive.<br />

(This link is temporary. I will be removing it from the site at some point in the future.)<br />

<br />

Listen to the files, hopefully with a system that will not change the sample rate or word length - so you know you're listening to the files and not to any artifacts introduced by the playback.<br />

<br />

Do you hear any differences? If so, please describe them as best you can.<br />

<br />

Invariably, some are going to "measure" the files. I already know what you're going to tell me about one of them. It is a bug I discovered while doing this test and I've already spoken with the developer about it. It should not be audible so I wouldn't worry about it at this time. I will create another test as soon as the developer fixes the issue and sends me the new version of the software (which I am also beta testing - in fact, I beta all of these).<br />

<br />

The purpose here is just for fun. (Measurers, please keep this in mind.)<br />

There isn't any "right" and "wrong" in this test, only what you (do or don't) hear.<br />

<br />

And hopefully, you'll enjoy the music along the way.<br />

<br />

Have fun!<br />

<br />

Best regards,<br />

Barry<br />

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com<br />

www.barrydiamentaudio.com"<br />

<br />

Posted on:<br />

<br />

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Crooked-Path/?yguid=332166746<br />

<br />

[skates]

Hi Chris:<br />

<br />

I reside in Eastern Pennsylvania. Is there anyone around my vicinity to demo the Minerva?

[The Computer Audiophile]

There is such a limited number of distributors right now. Check out this page for the list. You may get one of them to ship you a floor unit or something to checkout for an extended weekend or something.<br />

<br />

http://www.weiss-highend.ch/distributors_northamerica.html

[weiss2496]

Mike Slaminski, our US distributor is currently out of country, he'll be back by 6th of July. <br />

Mike became only recently our distributor and is working on a dealer network. <br />

Daniel<br />

www.weiss.ch

[Lizard_King]

Nice Review. What is the cost of this unit?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey Liz thanks. The cost in the US is $4950.

[Lizard_King]

Too much $

[The Computer Audiophile]

If you're looking for something a little cheaper you may want to check out the Weiss Vesta. This will allow you to pull 24/192 from your compute and into the DAC of your choice. It is about half the price.

[ggking7]

I've still got my eye on the Wavelength Proton. Should be out next month at $900. 24/96 though.

[skates]

Where in the US can this be purchased? Direct from the importer?