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.

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).

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.