Weiss DAC204 Review and Measurements

That’s pretty impressive of the dac204 to hit that mark, albeit higher price. I hope you can whisper some influence into the upcoming singularity from schiit. Looking to join team delta sigma.

 

I am not here to argue about little points and I was trying to clear the way bout this thread instead of petty arguing when I was getting contradicted at every turn.

Look, not only do I live in Nashville, but I have also worked pro audio retail here (and one of my clients was Taylor Swift's producer when he had a home studio and before Taylor made it big (Nathan Chapman)) as well as been to many studios around here, both large and small. I have even been to the producer's home studio more than one occasion where Lucinda William's recorded Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. I have friends with home studios around here and I know people who work in the industry. I am also VERY aware of Vintage King and they are one dealer that does not carry everything like Sweetwater or Sam Ash. They are very particular about the brands they carry. I just found it interesting that they would carry such high priced equipment for such their niche clientele.

I do get what you are saying and what I think mostly you are talking about are amateurs or pro-ams that think they are pros. And maybe the level of gear here is different because of the increase studio competition is around there. But also you can trust when certain artists look for certain gear. A friend's home studio almost got rented out by Beck just because she has a Trident 80B console and Beck only records or mixes on a Trident 80B. Beck's assistant called to confirm and apparently her studio is now on Beck's "studio list" when he needs a studio around Nashville. Even incompetent AR guys look for stuff like Neve, API, Neumann, Uri, 1076, 1081, 512, 312, 80B, LA-2A, 1176, U47, KM84, and so on. All those name and numbers are very significant to any pro-audio person. Some of my non-audio friends used to joke that when we start talking audio gear it is like we are talking about robots from Star Wars (R2D2, C3PO, R5-D4, IG-11, etc.), but I digress....

I could go on about the caliber of "home studio" you can find around here and I am not saying anyone client is looking at a studio gear list for a Weiss DAC, but they really are Weiss is is quite making a name for themselves and now being sold by VK. All of these home studio guys question their rigs everyday, even moreso than any of us do, because their livelihood is on the line. "Do they have enough great gear to get great mixes?" I know this because I talked to them and try to sell them gear.

But basically it boils down to you either trust what I have to say, or take it with a grain of salt and move on. I am not saying I know everything, but I do know some stuff and you can either respect that or not. I don't want to go around having to prove myself at every turn. So think what you want, I know what I know.

Now let's clear the air so we can talk more about the Weiss DAC.

PS - I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in the Recording History - Production & Technology, with a minor in Mass Communications in case anyone were unaware. I know people that went the short way out by going to Full Sail or SAE, but I went the full 4-year college route.

 

Please just know that some people know that they are talking about sometimes. I try really hard to post relevant info here and not BS. I’m the last person to BS anyone.

Really, all you have to look at Weiss is their other products to know they are more catering to pro audio and Hi-Fi. The DAC204 is listed in both the pro-audio and hi-fi section of their website.


Just checking out their website shows they have way more pro-audio products. I would more expect to see a Weiss DAC1 that has multiple AES inputs and rack mounted in a high end studio or mastering studio, or one of their other pro-audio products, like their ADC, their 501 lunch box mic pre, their EQ1 mastering EQ, or their dynamics processor, the DS1-MK3. Their product line is mostly pro-audio with a few crossovers to hi-fi.

And the pro market is weird. Sometimes these guys love one box because they feel it does something special no other box does and they feel they have an advantage or secret no one else

I get the DAC204 is an expensive box that feels cheap. It does look pretty basic on the inside for such a pricy DAC that is also marked to pros. I look forward to checking it out.

PS - I sold many Benchmark DAC1 to serious home studio guys back in the day. Now they are all over Reverb.

 

The Benchmark DAC1 was the ATH-M50 of the dac world back then.

 

Fair enough. I agree it does look like a cheap box with some cheap switches and a bunch of LED's to show the incoming bit rate. It actually reminds me of these cheap Chinese DSD boxes that were sold through eBay a few years ago under many different names:



The DAC204 does seem to have some robust looking regulators (two LT1805's and one LT1185) as well as discrete looking output. There are three op amps, two of them likely are DC servo's.

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The Modius board is even more sparce with USB power for all of it, meaning a few on board switchers for DC-DC conversion. As well as op amps for output. You can probably change the op amps on the Modius for different flavors, it will still be limited by the PSU. However, for the price, you can buy 17+ Modius(s) [Modii?] for the price of one Weiss DAC202.

I only wanted to point out that Vintage King sold them and their reputation is more in-line with pro-audio and just because they may have sold some, does not mean it hits the mark.

 

I said, “discrete looking output” because I saw them transistors too.

Good grief.

 

Grace is the most common 8 channel clean pre. You get 8 channels in 1 rack unit. Millenia is the other.

Weiss made the de rigeur digital mastering gear that ran on arrays of DSP chips more powerful than a PC until the 2000s. There was nothing cleaner than the EQ1 and DS1 until the 2010s. Now you can buy plugin ports of everything for 500 bucks total and those are very common. The hardware Weiss made his name on was all digital. There was no analog and I've never even heard of anyone having a modern Weiss converter outside of Goldensound and you.

The Apollos are middling and prosumer. The Pro UAD converter was the 2192, designed by the guy who founded Burl.
The Apollo has nothing in common with the Apogee Symphonies other than using ESS chips.

Almost everything you named is a distortion machine and isn't used in classical music or post production anymore. They are valued by modern music producers who want to make distorted music far more distorted than the past music made on that equipment. They're just not used in clean recording anymore because they're all outdated and pretty much just distorted. There are no consoles with modern opamps. There are racks of remote pres and digital recorders with pretty good clean pres that aren't nearly as clean when pushed as the remote pres.

An 1176 is far more distorted than almost any converter nowadays but some cheap prosumer converters have a distorted or phase shifted high end from the electronics and poor anti-alias filters. API more distorted than a lot of prosumer stuff too.

For these pop records with vocals hit hard by an 1176, any talk of better masters, better mixes, better pressings is at least severely misguided or let's put it more bluntly, retarded. There's no way to make Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, Bruce Dickinson, Taylor Swift, and such sound any better. The damage was done to the signal before it was even recorded to tape or into the converter. The best thing the consumer can do is to get a version that's not further crushed by a digital limiter or clipper.

Neumann mics aren't even used in classical music and post production much anymore because of their pushed, i.e. distorted, midrange. So many instruments and voices sound like crap coming through them and it's not the instrument, amplifier, person, or electronics it's the mic. Not that cheap condensers are any better but western manufacturers have made midpriced condensers for 1000 or so that are far cleaner than the classic Neumann type mics.

This stuff and their ersatz is used to make cartoonishly distorted pastiches of a dead industry.

There are no AR guys left anymore. They were all cut. The labels sign based on social media followings and even the bigger indie labels have manufactured their own "influencers" instead of finding and signing new artists.

 

I know people with the Dangerous and Burls. I've talked to only one guy who had the higher end AVID converters that are rebranded DAD / NTP interfaces that AVID firmware locks the cards for. He had the DAD branded one to use over thunderbolt. I guess in Europe, the DAD / NTP equipment is far cheaper but here it's more expensive to buy into it than Lynx, Apogee, and Dangerous.

 

And the people who work on the records often get paid more than the artists for the record. The artists on most independent labels get only copies of their record to sell at shows like guys selling mixtapes out of the trunks of their cars. The artists otherwise have a hard time undercutting the label and distributors while still breaking even with shipping. If they do not play live and then aren't a metal band, it's very hard to move your copies. There is no money post streaming services. Those are mostly scams.

 

Yes they name drop SSL, Neve, API etc but SSL pretty much doesn’t exist anymore, Neve makes outboard gear, and API mostly sells consoles to the educational market to teach kids on gear that doesn’t exist anymore and is totally unsuitable for many styles of music. A Lynx Aurora N or any modern upper end interface with modern opamp circuits, any daw, any Interface pres better than the pga2505/2500 with the built in pads that kill detail to get it into +/- 5v chips, and the 500-600 Weiss bundle from Softube will wreck any console ever made for functionality and cleanliness. Console stuff mostly sucks or is extremely limited compared to outboard and they didn’t have good small smt, low power consumption stuff to cram in back in the day.

Classic meme outboard also pretty much sucks and often creates more work. The 1176 into la2a combo for vocals lauded by gearslutz and boomer producers for decades has a ton of distortion and on vocals requires a ton of automation to correct the compressors pumping around the audio. An Aphex 661 that’s like the Compellor combined with the 651 Expressor doesn’t but you cannot flex an Aphex compressor made with cheap, accurate ICs from the late 90s and 2000s even if it’s just better because anyone can buy one for a couple hundred bucks off of reverb or forum classifieds.

 

I guess the country record industry is mostly the same as it ever was...AR guys/gals and radio promoters glaore..the whole gambit basically. They certainly have fewer artists and one AR person and one radio promoter might be representing more artists, but that is the way it goes. Some recording schools have done more to beef up their live sound classes/trek. With digital consoles, fiber lines, and line arrays, live sound has had a renaissance in the past 20 years and these schools are getting these new kids up to speed. A good friend teaches live sound at Belmont University here in town. (Side note, Belmont is right next to "Music Row" here in Nashville and the biggest feeder school for the recording industry in business and they purchased famous Ocean Way studios that sits on Music Row.)

And agreed the stuff I listed was for pop/country/rock. All that stuff is colored as hell. Classical recording is a different animal altogether. Man, Millenia's pres are so clean.

Most studio websites will have a "Gear List" page. At least most of the smaller to mid-size ones. I think not for bragging, but to just list their info so clients know what they are getting into. Although around here, if someone wanted a specific piece of gear, most anything can be rented for a price. My buddy used to work in gear rental and we had access to a bunch of it for our own home studio when we did some recording. (Yes, we may or might not have had some API's and LA-2A's hooked up to a But the ones without a gear list already have a reputation don't need to list one.

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So to clear up...the DAC204 is marketed for audiophiles and to the pro-audio circles with retailers in both carrying the DAC204. Now, I will say, I should have led with that. My apologies. I messed up and led the discussion awry. I can only guess that VK has sold moved some units to some "pro" customers. Either way, it does remain to be seen how this DAC is worth of being in a studio setup of any kind.

 

Outside of independent records, records by wannabes who want to be pop stars, bluegrass and older artists, and Chris Stapleton (the only big artist who still tries to make big budget cleanish records now that Daft Punk quit), they make the same dreck as everybody else.

the stuff is used because most artists cannot play. They do not have a good tone. They are making the same dreck as everybody else. So where the 1176 gets in the way of Michael Jackson and Bruce Dickinson, and vintage pres got in the way of Motörhead (who eventually just used Grace), it’s used to cover up bullshit artists and recordings. Put on No Sleep to Hammersmith or Thin Lizzy Life with John Sykes and most of these modern bands, they just suck. They don’t have playable arrangements. For the metal and weirdo electronic I mostly end up working on, there’s no way most of it would be playable live or over a shitty club pa. They don’t even have workable, audible tones without feedback or tons of eq or magic tube equipment to push and aren’t good enough players to play with lower gain on their guitars. Modern high gain amps are mostly really bad, even the og 5150 is often barely usable and fizzy so if you you do not have a surgical eq, it can be unusable after a pedal. Then you can go watch Ahmad Jamal or to keep it metal, Emperor, live vids on YouTube and it sounds perfect, nothing is too fake, all the studio bs just got in the way of the musicians and music, and these modern millennial and zoomer guys? They mostly just suck or play like robots and are incapable of playing with other musicians. Who will hate on digital computer music bullshit now that Steve Albini is gone? These guys are incapable of just showing up, shutting up, and playing their songs like an old Motown or hardcore band.

live sound is either perfect or abysmal. Most of the people involved in it are failed music industry people, musicians who would otherwise be working at guitar centers, apologists for way more bullshit than even loud distorted pop, and literally deaf. I know people that will literally show up at venues to with small mixers, recorders, etc to bypass the the Behringer and digico crap. Waves sound grid at bigger ones where it can take latency because what’s on the live sound boards is f'ing useless and often uses direct form filters without ramped parameters so if you turn the knobs too quickly, you get zipper noise or pops. The apologists for crap at all levels of the live sound industry, people who know nothing, and cannot produce usable recordings. The only reason they’re able to function is stage noise, alcohol, the pas often being rung out in advance for them, and the human brains filtering out most of the bs. Half of them will try to mix jazz or metal drums like a rap 808.

 

as a random person sticking their head into the window, this thread is learning. (non sarcastic) thank you to purrin, azimuth, and psalm.

I could not agree more. Unfortunately, at least for the small and medium venue type of stuff I like, it's usually abysmal 75-80% of the time and only perfect 20%.

Which leads me to my next thought - not to dump "penguin's wishlist" onto you guys (and other people who may be knowledgeable about this stuff), but I have always been curious about the following (perhaps in a separate thread):
1. Am I really just at the mercy of the venue or gear used by whoever when I go to anything live music? i.e. there is nothing I can do as a spectator?
2. Just out of curiosity, is there any way to generally coax great sound out of a live setup (interpret the question as you will I guess)? I (unsurprisingly) haven't noticed a correlation between live sound being perfect / horrible and the "amount" of equipment used (at least stuff visible to me as a spectator). Some very bare bones setups have produced some of the best live music I've heard before.

 

I typically find that music-minded earplugs are key to tolerating garbage-sounding live setups. I use these:

Amazon.com: Etymotic Research ER20XS High-Fidelity Earplugs (Concerts, Musicians, Airplanes, Motorcycles, Sensitivity and Universal Hearing Protection) - Universal Fit, Standard/Large/Foam Tips : Health & Household

Legit would not be able to survive some venues without them. Unfortunately for me the one venue locally that actually sounded good and was one place I could get away with listening without these had their philanthropic funding yoinked and they closed. Still guts me.