My only Weiss is Hifi

[blueixus]

As this my first visit to the forum I would like to congratulate Chris on this excellent site.

I am moving to completely computer based audio partly because it is convenient but secondly because I have always preferred Vinyl to CD. Is this a contradiction? No, because I can at last transfer my vinyl to High Res Files (96KHz/24bit and above) and enjoy hugely increased ease of access.

My problem is I am not a naturally Computer orientated person so I need some help.

I am just about decided on a Weiss DAC2, I am sold on the sound and also the Firewire option.

There is a very interesting DAC made by a German company called Aqvox.de but it does not have the firewire option. These people also make a very smart phono stage (I said I liked Vinyl) and some controversial ‘Audiophile’ USB cables.

My question is what software to use on my PC. All my music files are AIFF, these work with itunes but at what sample rates are they actually playing.

I currently have a Lynx L22 soundcard, which has been great for transferring my vinyl and has 192kHz/24 bit capability, but is itunes secretly down sampling some of my 176 & 192/24 files?

Any help would be gladly received!

 

Kind regards

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

HI blueixus - Welcome to Computer Audiophile. My recommendation is to use MediaMonkey and the wave_out plugin. Direct the wave_out plugin directly to your Lynx card and you'll play back at 24/96 if that's what you rip your vinyl to.

 

iTunes on a PC is not the best application. It may or may not be up or downsampling depending on the rest of your PC Audio configuration. MediaMonkey and wave_out will work great.

 

[zerung]

Blueixus,

There are so many people interested in buying the DAC2, including moi. I wonder if it would be possible for Daniel Weiss to entertain some group buy on his product?

 

[blueixus]

I am told by UK dealers there is not a lot of margin in it! It priced as a pro audio item and they work on much less margin that consumer audio dealers, I have dabled in the consumer side myself selling crossovers, given it up now.

 

The Dac2 looks enticing but I am concerned about connectivity via firewire. I understand it uses Firewire400 and needs ideally a Texas Instruments Chipset.

 

My problem is I want to use itunes, Chris suggested I try MonkeyMedia as I run PCs and to be blunt it blows away itunes from a listening quality perspective, but IMHO has a less than intuitive user interface and the remote via itouch is very trickey.

 

So now I am thinking the Mac route with itunes might be better but new Macs come with Firewire 800 and I have no idea what Firewire chipset.

 

So my plans of a Dac2 might be put on hold.

 

I am also considering an AudioNote Dac with a USB interface. I think these can only be built as kits (with USB) but they are quite excellent value and sound truly glorious to my ear. The people at AudionoteKits are also fantastic to deal with.

 

Confused I am!

 

Best regards

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

The new MacBook white version comes with FireWire 400 and it's only $999. Also the MacBook Pro models with FireWire 800 work perfect with FieWire 400 DACs. You just need the cable with FW800 on one end and FW400 on the other.

 

[flatmap]

Yes, there are so many options!

 

Just to share my experience, I started out with my intel-based PC (running XP) but this was a bit fiddly for my level of competence -- so I switched over to a used mac. I installed iTunes, ripped to AIFF, and am content. To be clear, I have friends with XP configured properly, using ASIO4ALL, etc and they are getting great sound through their high end dacs.

 

I'm using usb out to my total bithead headphone amp (built in dac) and I've set up my external HDDs (one for the music library and one for daily backup) via firewire. I do a lot of headphone listening and I like this setup. I like the iTunes interface and I routinely sync files to my iPod so I can listen at work.

 

My next step is to get a better dac and I'm looking for one that will cope with 24/96 files. Since my HDD's are all firewire, I'm most inclined to stick with usb for the dac.

 

[weiss2496]

I wonder if it would be possible for Daniel Weiss to entertain some group buy on his product?

 

Haven't done that yet - and I don't like to upset our distributors / retailers. But I could think of a compensation plan... so if there is a group forming let me know.

 

As for a player program - I also like iTunes from a GUI perspective, the problem is the sampling rate switching, which is solved with the upcoming Amarra on Mac platforms, but on PC platforms iTunes leaves much to be desired in that respect. I am currently looking at the JRiver player running on a Vista64 system. What are the comments on that player?

 

And regarding the Firewire800, Chris is right, most FW800 implementations are compatible with FW400. So called multilingual variants.

 

Daniel

 

 

[babybear]

Hi Daniel,

 

Has there been any new progress in a bundling deal of Amarra software with any of your hardware products that you can share with us?

 

Thanks very much

 

[weiss2496]

It is going to happen - I am just waiting for Sonic Studio to get a "personalized" version to us. Should not take long anymore I am told. I will announce it here of course.

Retail for the software will be US$ 1495 as it seems right now and it will need a Weiss Firewire based hardware to work with, comes with an ilok dongle and is available only directly from us or from Sonic Studio and their dealers. Kind of restrictive, but that is how it is.

 

Daniel

 

 

[Voltron]

That is certainly an exciting prospect Daniel! Will the connection for both audio and the interface with Amarra be through the FireWire then? Is it possible to utilize FireWire and AES connections at the same time to separate the data?

 

[babybear]

HI Daniel,

 

That is very exciting news indeed!

 

So, Amarra SW can be purchased with the Weiss AFI1 which can then be used to interface with an external DAC via AES/EBU and the Amarra SW will provide auto sample rate detection on a MAC up 24/192? Is this correct?

 

 

 

 

 

[weiss2496]

Will the connection for both audio and the interface with Amarra be through the FireWire then?

 

I am not sure what you mean - the Amarra is a software which runs on OSX and uses iTunes for playing compressed (lossy or losslessly) file formats. Uncompressed formats (e.g. WAV) it plays by itself. In all cases it makes sure that AudioMidi (i.e. the Weiss Firewire device) is set to the sampling rate of the file playing.

 

Is it possible to utilize FireWire and AES connections at the same time to separate the data?

 

Can you explain further?

 

Daniel

 

[weiss2496]

So, Amarra SW can be purchased with the Weiss AFI1 which can then be used to interface with an external DAC via AES/EBU and the Amarra SW will provide auto sample rate detection on a MAC up 24/192? Is this correct?

 

Yes, that is correct.

 

Daniel

 

 

[mp]

All else being equal, $1495 seems to be a high price for auto sample rate detection.

 

Does the Amarra provide any other benefit?

 

[Voltron]

Thank you for your quick response and sorry for my question being unclear. I was wondering about the connections between the Mac and the Weiss hardware, and also what Weiss hardware would be used. I had in mind a DAC2 or a DAC1 mk.2 with the FireWire option. I therefore was wondering if you simply connected the Mac to the DAC2 with a FireWire cable and that was all that was needed to play music from the computer with Amarra running on it in conjunction with iTunes. The alternative question was whether you could use some form of AES card in the Mac, like a Lynx, and then output the audio through AES into the Weiss DAC, and I was not sure if that would also require a FireWire connection.

 

Now that the poster above mentioned the Weiss AFI1 interface, I am wondering if something like that will be required or if the DAC2 alone would work with Amarra. Maybe the easiest question is to ask for a couple of examples of what Weiss products could be used with Amarra software and in what configuration(s). Thanks in advance.

 

[weiss2496]

Does the Amarra provide any other benefit?

 

It has an equalizer built in plus a gain control of course. What's more has to be seen. The price is set by Sonic Studio, we do not have any influence on that.

 

Daniel

 

 

[weiss2496]

Amarra will work with all Firewire enabled devices from us, i.e.:

 

The Minerva D/A Converter

The DAC2 D/A Converter

The Vesta interface

The AFI1 interface

The ADC2 A/D Converter

 

The firewire is the only link required for these units and each unit can work on its own with Amarra.

 

For a DAC1-MK2 or a Medea D/A Converter (which have only AES/EBU inputs) one can use the Vesta or the AFI1 to connect them to the computer and thus to Amarra.

 

For those wondering about the ADC2 A/D Converter in the list above - the ADC2 can also act as a Firewire to AES/EBU interface and thus it makes sense to list it with Amarra. The main purpose of the ADC2 of course is to get analog into the computer via Firewire.

 

Daniel

 

[Voltron]

Perfect, thank you for that list. You also confirmed another question I have had, which is whether the ADC2 can act as a Firewire to AES/EBU interface. Thanks!