Wyred 4 sound Dac 2 vs Grace m903

[Matsaly]

Anyone have any experience with these units? I'm primarily interested in running the s/pdif rca output from my Sooloos music server into these units and using their DAC output.

 

Thanks,

 

Matsaly

 

[REShaman]

My experience is only with the Wyred 4 Sound Dac2 which I have had for over two months. It's my first external dac and from my profile below you can determine what the system I am using is composed of. My Dac is reviewed by several well regarded people in the industry. If you go to the Wyred website you can find links to those reviews. I am sure you can find reviews for the Grace. I am reluctant to offer anything but my direct experience which is the Wyred Dac delivers a beautiful SQ, clarity, mid-range and highs, excellent bass as well. I have read where some end users who are familiar with more expensive Dacs find the Wyred Dac2 good for the price but one can get better for more. Isn't that always the case. I have chosen to budget for a certain range of equipment which together produce an extremely enjoyable rendition of music. That's about as objective as I can be with my limited experience. Mean well in any event. Good fortune with your research.

 

Edit: I use a very good USB cable from my Mac Mini to the Wyred 4 Sound Dac2. It's a Synergistic Research Tesla Tricon USB. I believe that gives my experience a great advantage to what comes out the other end. The Wyred Dac2 has its own volume control but I choose to use my Wyred Preamp for that and the combination is highly enjoyable to my ears.

Best,

Richard

 

[bhobba]

I have had a WFS DAC 2 for over a year now. I was originally quite critical of the DAC but two things changed my mind. First it does improve quite a bit with burn in - but even after that to my ears it still had problems such as thinness, a cold top end, a bit of glare, and some sibilance issues. But by far the greatest improvement came when I fed it with an Audiophello 2 or Off-Ramp. It is an entirely different beast that way - all the issues I had such as a cold top end, sibilance, thinness etc gone. It is really a lovely DAC using those sources.

 

Guys out my way here in Australia have been doing a lot of experiments with feeding DAC's from true low jitter sources and that includes quite a few Saber based DAC's. To be blunt the claims made by the manufacturers of the SABER chip that it is jitter immune is hogwash. To really unlock the potential of a SABER based DAC you need to feed it via a true low jitter source. The internal USB implementation of the WFS is substandard and you will need a better source like the Audiophello or Off-Ramp.

 

The word however is getting out. In The October issue of TAS the BelCanto DAC3.5 and W4S DAC2 were compared driven from an Off-Ramp and Steven Stone could not hear any difference. The Off-Ramp driving BelCanto DAC3.5 was compared to the Weiss DAC202 using Firewire and Steven Stone could not hear any difference. He concludes (correctly IMHO) that the digital source is more important and it is a myth that DAC's are so good now to be immune to jitter.

 

I was blaming the WFS guys for the issues I had with their DAC - but really its not their fault - they actually believed what they were told (ie the SABER is Jitter immune) but it now turns out to be hokeum.

 

I also have to tell you the Metrum DAC when fed that way is better than the WFS. As recently as yesterday I did a comparison with some other guys to confirm it. But there is not a huge amount in it.

 

I believe the results you will get will depend to a large extent on exactly how good a source the Sooloos music server is. I would recommend using something like a Mac Mini as source with a device like the Audiophello. I suspect that suggestion (and perfectly understandable BTW - I would react the same way myself) will go down like a lead balloon as you probably don't want to get rid of the Sooloos.

 

Don't really know anything about the Grace.

 

Thanks

Bill

 

[all300b]

Did the SABRE designers actually claim something crazy like "jitter immunity?" This sounds like an advertising pitch from companies who use their chip.

 

What's interesting is that these DACs employ quite different approaches to the computer input. But I would guess they employ very similar circuits for the S/PDIF input. What this "equivalency" shootout suggests to me is that differences in the approach to the computer input still have a significant impact on the sound, and that these differences can be negated when the input is "standardized."

 

Excluded from the "shootout" is the impact of the most important part of the DAC- the output stage. Wonder what he would hear if he subbed in a DAC with a cost-no-object output stage (Wavelength, Aesthetix, etc...) I'm not just partial to tubes either- when Pass or DarTZeel make a DAC I'll be lining up to hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

[One and a half]

The differences between the two units:

 

- Volume Control is digital for W4s, Analog for the Grace

 

- 192/24 requires a driver for W4S, native OSX drivers for the m903 (theyscon for Windows x64 or 486)

 

- Grace m903 has headphone amp as well as a handy unbalanced analog input.

 

As for sound quality, anything that uses native drivers is a plus. Now that's on paper. If you are prepared to wait, Chris has the Grace m903 for review.

 

The m903 has been in my system for about 7 months now, still sounds brilliant, especially with OSX. For your SPDIF input, the m903 is a no-brainer.

 

[bhobba]

Hi All300B

 

Yea that is what they claimed and it was supposed to be more than hype.

 

Of course the output stage makes a big difference but high quality makers like WFS, Wiess etc use top notch ones so much so that when fed correctly it looks like it is really hard to tell differences. Don't know if that would apply to valve compared to SS output stages though.

 

Oh and I forgot to mention if getting a computer etc is a bit too expensive the Audio GD Digital Interface at $190.00 is a good option:

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net.au/index.php/audio-reviews/digital-source-reviews/item/283-audio-gd-digital-interface-%20-class-a-psu

 

Thanks

Bill

 

[KDinsmore]

I've had the W4S DAC2 for 6 months. It is a delight. Keep in mind it can be upgraded in the future. For instance the I2S HDMI which will be coming round the bend here at some point and is supposedly jitter free. So far only PS Perfect Wave transport has the connect. But in the future W4S will offer and mod for other players (computers? I hope)

 

The Grace certainly is a cool looking affair. So much in the box though makes me nervous. For a monitor it has to be killer.

 

[wthrelfall]

In this 4/21/11 post: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Grace-Design-m903-Async-USB-192k#comment-79114, under the heading of "OSX and m903" you spoke about problems with white noise when switching sample rates. I would be very interested to learn about your experience with this problem since that time, with OSX, Windows, and (if you have tried it) Linux and MPD.

 

The feature set of the m903 really appeals to me, but based on your earlier post, I'm worried about "blown tweeters"

 

Thanks...

 

[One and a half]

The "OSX and m903" was written in April 2011 and the software players in use at the time have undergone many revisions.

Even with severe crashes/beach balls on any of Decibel, Fidelia, Pure Music, or Audirvana, the white noise issue has not surfaced at all. The muting function must have worked, cause if there is no signal to the DAC, the software or lack of it, seems to send out a mute to the DAC and it remains silent.

The firmware for the m903 is as shipped from February 2011, no changes made there. So the white noise generator seems to have disappeared which is a blessing.

 

The only strange noises I hear now are random ticks from playing DSD on Audirvana plus, once again a function of the software, as playing the same file from Audiogate is faultless.

 

With the revisions occurring with the Mac OSX players this year, they have found the edge over Foobar2000 and I am listening to the mac again. Because the players (Decibel Audirvana) are memory based, they don't seem to suffer the stuttering effect I get with Foobar that reads the same files from a NAS. The stutter vanishes when the files are on the local SSD, so there's something there to note.

 

The warning from Grace Design still applies, it's a habit now to switch on the amp last, so if your'e habitual, then this is not a concern either.

 

I haven't tried Linux or MPD to compare and would be unlikely to do so. Have enough drama with two OS, let alone a third!

 

The m903 is still going well, for the money it has a great feature set, wish it could be built as a portable. Very happy with it as it is now.