Weiss Minerva Dac

I've heard the Minerva against the Berkeley, both being fed AES/EBU from a very high-quality server. However, the Berkeley was run directly into the amps while the Minerva was run through a preamp. I expect to hear the two compared again in a few days, in a completely different system.

In that first setting, I preferred the Berkeley in every way. But it might be different in a different system.

Update: I heard the Weiss Minerva and Berkeley Alpha DAC again tonight, different system. This time, the Weiss was the hands-down better sounding unit. Fabulous.

Correction -- it was the Medea I heard, not the Minerva. Both DACs were fed by a Slim Devices Transporter via SPDIF. An external word clock was in use with the Transporter. Goldmund monoblock amplifiers diving modified large Tonian loudspeakers.

I think there's some bad info above. For example, the RR HRx recordings are 24/176 and they can be fed with a single AES/EBU cable into a DAC such as the Berkeley.

Also, iTunes does support 24-bit word length.

Why would you need anything above 176?

Also, 24/192 is possible via USB 2.0. I don't believe anyone is doing it yet, but Empirical Audio is planning to. Will require two clocks.