Weiss Dac2/Minerva?


I'm thinking of picking up the Dac2, anyone using one? I like the firewire inputs for connectivity with my Mac mini & the higher rez possibilities as well. The reviews all sound great too. The Dac2 is of course the lower priced version of the much more expensive Weiss Minerva.
I'm currently using my Wadia 860X as a dac through it's digital inputs. It's fed by a Mac mini, which sends the signal via usb to an Empirical Audio Freeway 2, then RCA spdif into the Wadia's inputs.
Thanks!
heymikey
I have EMM SE separates and Minerva. One for SACD the other for hires and uncompressed dedicated music server.
In my opinion the Weiss is a better bet because of the interface. Shoe-horning low-jitter and hires into USB is tough and fundamentally limited in terms of bandwidth. It has taken a lot of expensive and complex technology for Wavelength DCS and others to make this work reasonably well. Firewire was designed as a networking protocol for media flow: audio and video. It is a better platform now and in the future. The Weiss, in particular, provides a huge amount of input and output flexibility (unlike Linn DS series) plus a great DAC, if not 'world class' whatever that is.
PNCD, can you give us a sound quality comparison of the EMM dac (non SACD) and the Weiss?
I can't to be honest. I understand that these forums are full of golden-eared critiques of various components and combinations, but I do not work that way.
Both are very good. Listening to CDs ripped to FLAC through Minerva I do not miss the CD played through the EMM combination. HiRes sounds superb through Minerva, just as good SACDs sound through EMM.
My point to you was that the Minerva offers a very good package of qualities: digital in and out plus analog, including Firewire and HiRes. Not preventing you from using a different DAC later. It is very good and the support from Daniel has been superb.
About a month ago, I got a home demo of the Minerva, fed from my IMac running the Apple OS & iTunes.

Frankly, I was disappointed.

The sound did not match that of my CD player, which is nothing esoteric... an Electrocompaniet EC-1 Upsampling... :-(