T+A DAC 200 or WEISS 501

@mbmi Don't blink when referencing Huff, he seems to have move on from the T+A and settled in with the Weiss 204. He has moved on from the Aavik as well.

Here is his review of the Weiss 204 dac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4BXvyLOpY

@dougthebiker 

thanks for that info, I’ve got about 100 hours signal time on both so far. Did you find the DS 2 lost detail as it burned in? My experience with DACs and most electronics is they open up and get smoother, but apparent detail improves. 

I demoed the T+A 200 against my Denafrips Terminator Plus 12th addition. The T+A was much more natural and pleasing to my ears. I put an order in for the T+A, sold the Terminator, and then things took a strange turn. Long story short, I sold all my gear and purchased a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8C's. I'm done upgrading and tweaking.

I have both the T+A 200 and Mola Mola Tambaqui.

I'm still early in my evaluation of the T+A 200, but I can say without question it's bass presentation is quite substantial. I had to dial down my sub's by about 10% to quell the overwhelming boomy sound. I'll be honest I feel the MMT handles low frequency better then the 200, but I might possibly give the 200 the edge as far as far lateral left to right sound field width. When I say this I do mean very isolated far left to far right sounds appear to be coming from Beyond the speaker more so with the 200 then my MMT. However it's not even a question as far as holographics and center image generation the MMT is much more enjoyable in that regard than the 200.

The MMT is 3-5k more expensive then the 200 and to that I say the 200 is a great DAC, and it can handle DSD which is a draw especially with my SACD's.

I was interested in the 501, because of the DSP capability, but I was also very interested in the Meitner DAC MA3.

Now the MA3 and 501 being the roughly the same price I would definitely want to see these DAC's side by side to A/B them, but as interested as I am in these two DAC's, I am not interested in spending another $2,500 above what the 200 has to offer.

@markmuse The PS Audio DS 2 did get better with burn in.  It just never came close to the combo of the T+A 200 with the MP 200.  Nor did it rival the combo of the new Innuos Pulsar with the DAC 200, which was also very good.

The real magic is the combo of T+A DAC 200 plus the MP 200.  A staggering bargain IMO.

BTW, the T+A gear sounded much better in my listening room than at the dealer.  I'm running it into a 9W 300B tube integrated amp and through silver Gryphon speaker cables to GR-Research open baffle NX-Oticas.