weiss /Berkeley DAC

The Wavelength products have only USB input and neither the Weiss nor the BADA have USB, though the Weiss Minerva has Firewire in.

In one case, it was direct. In the second, I don't remember, but its character was clearly evident in a direct comparison with the Weiss Medea.

If you use a preamp and don't need the built-in volume control, and if you can live without HDCD decoding, I recommend you listen to the Bryston BDA-1. I haven't done a head to head comparison, but I'm fairly confident the Bryston is in the same ballpark for 40% the price. The BADA has, in my two auditions, a fairly strong sonic "character," which the Bryston does not (or has less of, at any rate).

Kent,

The "character" I heard from the BADA is difficult for me to describe, but I would say it sounds as if the music is playing against a background "fabric" that is visible and has a mid- to light "color." In contrast, the Bryston's background is closer to being genuinely transparent or invisible. (Gosh, I hope this makes some sense.) I wonder if this is a shortcoming of the IC output stage in the BADA (vs. the discrete stage in the Bryston).