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Comparisons - Sabre three ways: With Sabre chips also inside the $750 Eastern Electric MiniMax DAC and $1.000 Peachtree Audio iDecco, comparisons were inevitable. The iDecco in fixed mode wasn't even in the same league as the DAC2. It sounded patently opaque and hooded, as though having to break through cloud cover or sticky carnival cotton candy. I frankly didn't expect a performance delta of such magnitude. But it was plain. The DAC2 knocked out the iDecco cold the moment the referee stepped aside. Such prose is usually in bad taste and overly dramatic. Here it was straight to the point and relevant. When a man is down, you don't keep hitting him. Nothing more needs saying. There's more to DAC performance than sporting the currently approved chip.


As a 2010 release, the MiniMax shocks with its choice of TI 2707 USB transceiver which won't even do 24/96. The MiniMax needs an OEM hiFace or similar. Alex Yeung admits lack of USB experience on his part and announces an update for the next version.


That said, not everyone—yours truly included—embraces PC audio just for its still very limited catalogue of hi-rez files such as 2L, HDTracks, iTrax, Linn & Bros. currently offer them*. That's precisely Wyred's contention too and why their $999 DAC1 subtracts this feature. As a 16/44 USB converter, the MiniMax trumped the iDecco by completely bypassing its opacity. It wasn't as resolved or resolute as the Wyred and voiced for a darker denser aesthetic in line with previous MiniMax components. Yet it performed well ahead of the Peachtree unit and given its price at half the Wyred's, offers very impressive results which its feature review will detail. Its analog-domain attenuator will be a real boon for midnight whisper sessions where serious attenuation in the digital domain turns lossy.

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* Mark Waldrep of AIX Records (and the iTrax site) warns that many hi-rez download sites upconvert and double samples to numerically achieve HD audio which then is no better than the original Redbook files they used as sources. The important thing in this particular game is to identify which record labels actually recorded/mastered in true 24/96 resolution or higher. We've been here already with SACD reissues

DAC2 vs. Minerva: The Weiss DAC2 ($3.000) is identical to the very well-reviewed Weiss Minerva ($5.000) save for the face plate and control knobs. The since discontinued Minerva was replaced by the DAC202 ($6.440) to give the Weiss consumer catalogue a distinctive model which adds features and circuit improvements over the predecessor. Frederic Beudot on staff had reviewed the Minerva version.


Because our assessments overlap as completely as seems possible for two opinionated listeners—Esoteric C-03, Wyred4Sound STP-SE, FirstWatt F5, Yamamoto A-08S, Zu Essence, ASI LiveLine/HeartSong are a few examples of jointly reviewed and/or owned equipment—the DAC2 became my obvious cost-effective choice when I transitioned from legacy digital to PC audio earlier this year. It's been a fantastic performer. I haven't looked back once on my former 4-piece Zanden stack or the Peychev-modified Esoteric UX-1 universal deck. While clearly not the ultimate—the steeper stickers of dCS, Chord & Co. should buy advances as should the Minerva's replacement—the Weiss is my current reference. That term signifies nothing but that which I'm used to.

More fully featured and half its price, the Wyred proved its equal nearly but not quite. Both shared exceptional lucidity as the overriding attribute or 'house' sound. That's like entering a vast but perfectly lit room to instantly see everything. This lit-up visual nature of very high detail is augmented by very powerful low bass and jumpy dynamics which emphasize the small-range fluctuations in the deliveries of vocal or instrument performers. Very much unlike Wyred's take on ICEpower in their best-selling ST-500 switching amp I recently reviewed, the DAC2 is about speed, resolution, energy, life and air over mass, density, warmth and comfortable darkness. That's the general trend.


The prime difference between Weiss and Wyred was directness as a function of incisiveness. If you envision the soundstage as a very thick wooden slab from which a master craftsman extracts all performers by first grosser then finer chisels and finally files and sandpaper, each consecutive phase of his work brings the musicians more out of the wood. If we take this visual to its ultimate conclusion, they'd eventually separate from the slab altogether to stand as discrete entities in free space. No hifi I've heard goes that far. But, the Weiss went a step further with its 'outing' process into three-dimensional space. The Californian wasn't quite as extricated and crisply crystallized. This made its rendition a tad mellower, softer, warmer and rounder.

If you can, envision this difference overlaid on an otherwise identical perspective. That'll give you the gist. It would be inaccurate because no actual forward movement was involved but the action itself was that of sitting five rows closer to stage. This creates less ambient texture and instead, more viscerality. Harmonic energy is stronger, transients are sharper and tension increases. By comparison, the Wyred moved 'backwards' into something a bit warmer and mellower. Still with the wood slab, the Wyred would be a somewhat softer wood which doesn't hold the same sharp edge as a fine-grained very hard variety.

To say it differently, the DAC2 diverged from 'absolute' neutrality similarly to how its stable mate STP-SE preamplifier does when compared to a proper passive like the Yamamoto or source-direct drive. Something thickens a bit and simultaneously, focus steps down one click without involving any blurriness. Only when you chance across a component that 'goes up a click' do you appreciate the new version as being even sharper and more crystalline. I will say that the Weiss level of exposure requires a high degree of ancillary refinement to come off unblemished. In that sense, the Wyred is just a tad more forgiving or tuned for hifi. In our sector, the starker more naked approach of pro audio is less routine and routinely less welcome. (The greater directness of the Weiss 'took out the preamp' when compared to the Wyred. The actual preamp used on both was the Esoteric C-03 set to zero voltage gain.)


Nits: Each time I disconnected the DAC2's USB cable from my iMac to remove it from the list of available sound device options and then reconnected it, the computer would enforce a shutdown, presumably to reload Wyred's drivers. Upon reboot, I could shuttle back and forth between multiple sound devices ad infinitum and without hiccups - as long as the wired Wyred connection remained intact. This behavior shouldn't affect the average civilian who installs a component once and then leaves it alone. Even so, it would be lovely if a software upgrade could exorcise the crash prompt with OSX. As an aside, Amarra 2.0 can't switch sources without reloading either. Amarra defaults to whichever source was selected when it was launched. If you thereafter reassign the iMac's output to a different device, it will be muted in Amarra but play the moment you switch Amarra to iTunes. Once you reload Amarra, the actual device selected in the iMac's sound device output menu will also play in Amarra. Sonic Studio still has some code fixes to write.

Doing the math: The value assessment of this assignment has progressed to a predictable conclusion. Being so close in performance to an established $5.000 benchmark—the Weiss Minerva won UltraAudio's Select Component distinction and a Blue Moon award from us—and bundling greater functionality for just $1.500 doesn't, in this context, make Wyred's DAC2 an actual giant killer. It does very much make it a killer value in high-performance digital however.


As regards a more precise standing, let's remember that the category of separate D/A converters is once again exploding with options. Arcam has implemented proprietary dCS technology for async USB. Gordon Rankin of Wavelength has launched proprietary code to make 24/192 async USB compatible with Windows XP and 7 and authored a $900 USB/BNC link. There's Audiophilleo, Antelope and the next generation of M2Tech devices. In short, it's impossible to remain on top of this reemerging and rapidly adapting segment. What's more, modifiers incapable of authoring their own production machines continue to pounce on promising new products which become short-lived opportunities to hawk boutique parts. Such hungry operators routinely sell up their services by selling down the the stock machines as "very good but." It's the nature of that particular beast.


Given personal exposure as well as being this site's news room administrator, I'm quite confident that for now, Wyred's DAC2 is one of if not the commercially available machine to beat at the $1.500 mark. It's clear that Cullen Circuits has strategically leveraged their extensive OEM experience with digital sources. That's paid off. Perhaps scaled down from prior work on the STP-SE preamp, the DAC2's analog output section and particular mix of proven parts also make for excellent direct drive if one can use the on-chip attenuator only in the upper portion of its range.


On that subject, I recently exchanged emails with John Chapman, designer of the purist Bent Audio Tap-X passive preamp with 61-step autoformers and comprehensive remote. During work on his OEM preamp modules, Chapman has occasionally compared them to the amp-direct bypass test involving modest amounts of digital attenuation. He too reports terrific results from that scheme. It's still anathema to most audiophiles but deserves to be seriously investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Final word: With a 21.5-inch 1TB iMac selling at $1.499, the addition of the same-priced Wyred DAC2 makes for a remote-controlled modern music source that not only slaughters legacy digital on convenience, it should sonically outperform any $3.000 CD player you care to name. That future really is here now. Why not get with it?


As the prior data density example for true 24/192 files showed, PC audio allows access to music material which was recorded with up to 10 times more data than 16-bit/44.1kHz CDs. Unless your current player incorporated a 24/96 or higher USB/Firewire digital input, you cannot take advantage of such material. The iMac (or equivalent) with the DAC2 can. Then it adds far superior interactivity for what in this context is a 'transitional high-end' price. That's real reason to celebrate, ain't it?

Quality of packing: Good.
Reusability of packing: A few times.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Easy.
Condition of component received: Flawless.
Website comments: Easy to navigate, complete information.
Human interactions: Very responsive and apparently very keen on customer service.
Pricing: A superior value.
Final comments & suggestions: The ideal way to get into async 24/192 USB with preamp functionality and a full complement of socketry which only lacks a word sync in but even that can be 'cloned' with an external Firewire-to-S/PDIF device that becomes master clock (like the Weiss DAC2 in this review).

Manufacturer's response: Thank you very much for your review and comparisons. We are very pleased to hear that you enjoyed the DAC as much as we do and greatly appreciate the Blue Moon Award. We will add it to the wall right next to the STP-SE award. We tried very hard to provide as much value and purity with the DAC-2 and believe we have done very well. The DAC-1 will be available with a 24/96 USB interface very shortly as well. I think many readers will find your feedback very helpful in their decisions. You are correct, the USB driver for the DAC does not like to be toggled. We do not normally experience OS crashing or blue screens if the device is disconnected or terminated after the media player is shut down. Also, it is very important to not disconnect the AC power from the DAC while it is communicating with the computer. In most cases, the end user shouldn't have any similar problems when using the DAC-2 as their device.

Thank you very much for your well-spent time and passion for audio,
EJ Sarmento and the W4S team!
Wyred4Sound website
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