Weiss 501 DAC

It's VERY good but not surprisingly, it keeps with its professional recording pedigree. Very high-resolution and potentially too cool (for my taste) in certain systems. It's not a sound for everyone. Home audition before you buy, if you can.

@lordmelton that wasn’t directed at you specifically, just a general note. Happy listening.

The OP isn't asking about bang for the buck, but I suppose it's an inevitable consideration...

The top Holo DAC ($5800+ shipped, as of today) plus a decent network bridge (say a Lumin U1 mini at $2100, a Bricasti M5 at $2500 or an Auralic Aries G1 at $2900) puts you well into, or even well beyond, the price range of some excellent US and European-made DACs. Such as the Weiss.

The Weiss has a great streaming function built-in. Holo/Denafrips do not. Bricasti, Totaldac, Meitner, Sonnet to name a few offer *network-capable* DACs at a price point that is less than or not far above a top Holo/Denafrips DAC that adds a quality separate streamer.

Most of the N.A./Euro names above (not Weiss and not 100% sure about Meitner, but certainly their flagship brand EMM Labs is) are also *upgradeable* so you don't have to sell your DAC or streamer at a loss when further digital advances are made. So in the long-run, are the non-modular, non-streaming Chinese DACs actually a better value?

In the end, find the gear that lets you enjoy your music the way you want to enjoy it, and it'll feel like money well-spent. I just don't buy the cliche that these Chinese DACs are really cheap, and N.A./Euro stuff is way overpriced. One needs to look at the real prices, features, and upgrade (or not) capabilities before jumping to conclusions. And of course listen in your own system to how they sound...

P.S. This may be too obvious to mention on a website whose main purpose is the buying and selling of used audio gear, but if we're talking about relative value, the secondhand markets for the top Chinese DACs and N.A./Euro DACs are VERY different...

For Denafrips/Holo, on the used market, there's minimal haircut. A buyer is paying close to full sticker price. The main advantage buying used there is logistical -- you don't need to wait a month to receive your DAC, and you don't need to spend another month breaking it in. 

For N.A./Euro DACs, the used market provides substantial savings. There was a mint Weiss DAC that sold used for less than $6k. Yes, you do need to be patient for listings to come up, but that makes the value considerations here even more interesting. And of course with products distributed through a dealer network, there will also be demo product available at significant savings if you know where to look.

@melm  Hi yes I agree -- there are always trade-offs. I think the modular nature of some DACs is a very attractive feature, but no it’s not a universally appealing solution. Companies like Bricasti and Ayre have shown over the years their commitment to original owners via upgrades, and I appreciate that. One of my early digital purchases was a Naim UnitiQute, not long before the Naim Atom came out. The Atom was a major advance (I "had" to have it), but it was an expensive (to me) proposition to get the Atom, having just purchased the Qute -- whose value of course tanked when the Atom came out. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a modular product. Or at least a dealer with a good trade-in policy. That experience colored how I feel about boxes, particularly digital boxes, that are not truly upgradeable. So that was my introduction to hifi, and it’s stayed with me.

I did choose the most expensive Holo to highlight the idea, but I think it holds at other price points as well. Take the Musetec at $3100 (the factory price keeps going up), add a decent streamer like the Lumin at $2000+, and you’re not far off the Bricasti M3 + network card at $6500, and you’re above the Sonnet Morpheus/Hermes at $4500 or whatever. I won’t get into the substance of how they sound different, just pointing out that from a price perspective, there is quite a bit of overlap between excellent Chinese DACs and excellent N.A./Euro DACs.

@reven6e makes great points on the Weiss. I haven’t heard the older Weiss DAC, but that’s consistent with what others have told me. I found the current Weiss "musical" (i.e. a pleasure -- when listening, I wanted to keep listening) but yes it’s a cool, analytical kind of pleasure (imagine the pleasure of understanding a cool new scientific experiment, vs. the pleasure of losing yourself in a movie), so system-matching becomes extra important.