I've never done it just because I've never needed to as I listen exclusively thru a 300B tube headphone amp. But Warren Chi in his review said he used the balanced XLR connections in the rear of the unit with great success.
Weiss Engineering DAC50x (DAC501 and DAC502) Review
- Thread starter warrenpchi
- Start date
gnomen
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2015
- Posts
- 326
- Likes
- 260
DSP options.
I have just completed setting up the DSP options on the Helios and here is a follow up report. I used the buttons on the remote to store the global presets as follows:
1 Factory reset all. This restores the pristine state.
2 DS surgical -3dB. Useful for occasional "Essie" material, particularly TV voices, and on, e.g., a recording of a Bach Passion too closely miked.
3 DS smooth -3dB. Useful for the occasional over-bright production.
4 Vinyl +4dB. Smooths the sound, makes it slightly fuller, rather like purchasing a different but equally good DAC. Except there is no changeover cost!
5 Loudness 80dB. I have tried using this for late night listening but can't say I have noticed much difference. Maybe I need to adjust the settings.
6 Dynamics -3. Again, for late night listening where I don't want sudden loud noises. But classical music without dynamic range sounds awful.
7 DS Smooth + Vinyl + HouseCurve Room EQ + EQ low shelf. This the the hamburger "with the lot". Just a fun setting really.
8 Room EQ (using HouseCurve). Explained more below.
9 EQ low shelf +7dB at 35Hz. I wanted a lift in the deep bass, which I know my speakers can reproduce. Still assessing this one.
For the Room Equalisation I used an iPhone App called HouseCurve, which you can find on the App store. It was recommended on the Roon forum where there are pages of information about how to use it with Roon EQ. For me, it provided a useful sweep of room resonances, identifying two significant spikes and about three smaller ones. I was able to adjust the Weiss to keep everything within a +/- 3dB envelope. Provided you trust the iPhone microphone, the App is quite nifty. It pinpoints the frequencies associated with outlier frequencies very easily, for example. The result does sound clearer sometimes, but unless the source material contains frequencies which activate those spikes, the difference is not always that noticeable.
I have not adjusted EQ for headphone listening, partly because I have yet to connect my Focal Utopias to the new DAC. (They are mostly used in the second system, in my Study.) After getting re-acquainted with Weiss again, I would quite like to have a 501 in the second system but that needs must wait for funds to be re-accumulated!
Robert
I have just completed setting up the DSP options on the Helios and here is a follow up report. I used the buttons on the remote to store the global presets as follows:
1 Factory reset all. This restores the pristine state.
2 DS surgical -3dB. Useful for occasional "Essie" material, particularly TV voices, and on, e.g., a recording of a Bach Passion too closely miked.
3 DS smooth -3dB. Useful for the occasional over-bright production.
4 Vinyl +4dB. Smooths the sound, makes it slightly fuller, rather like purchasing a different but equally good DAC. Except there is no changeover cost!
5 Loudness 80dB. I have tried using this for late night listening but can't say I have noticed much difference. Maybe I need to adjust the settings.
6 Dynamics -3. Again, for late night listening where I don't want sudden loud noises. But classical music without dynamic range sounds awful.
7 DS Smooth + Vinyl + HouseCurve Room EQ + EQ low shelf. This the the hamburger "with the lot". Just a fun setting really.
8 Room EQ (using HouseCurve). Explained more below.
9 EQ low shelf +7dB at 35Hz. I wanted a lift in the deep bass, which I know my speakers can reproduce. Still assessing this one.
For the Room Equalisation I used an iPhone App called HouseCurve, which you can find on the App store. It was recommended on the Roon forum where there are pages of information about how to use it with Roon EQ. For me, it provided a useful sweep of room resonances, identifying two significant spikes and about three smaller ones. I was able to adjust the Weiss to keep everything within a +/- 3dB envelope. Provided you trust the iPhone microphone, the App is quite nifty. It pinpoints the frequencies associated with outlier frequencies very easily, for example. The result does sound clearer sometimes, but unless the source material contains frequencies which activate those spikes, the difference is not always that noticeable.
I have not adjusted EQ for headphone listening, partly because I have yet to connect my Focal Utopias to the new DAC. (They are mostly used in the second system, in my Study.) After getting re-acquainted with Weiss again, I would quite like to have a 501 in the second system but that needs must wait for funds to be re-accumulated!
Robert
Last edited:
gnomen
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2015
- Posts
- 326
- Likes
- 260
Well, this is a quiet thread compared to the Chord threads, which are always churning along with tweaks, complaints and suggestions. I guess happy listeners have nothing to post about -- no news is good news, so to speak. Not much more to add re my experiences at the moment. I have settled on using the room EQ as my basic listening setup now that I am more familiar with it. Otherwise, I am happy to join the ranks of happy listeners and get back to beautiful music. Cheers!
Last edited:
gnomen
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2015
- Posts
- 326
- Likes
- 260
Just wondered if anyone has tried the EtherREGEN or similar with their Weiss? I'm asking because I am re-arranging the ethernet connections in my house and cautious less it changes the SQ in any way.
Last edited:
chesebert
18 Years An Extra-Hardcore Head-Fi'er
- Joined
- May 17, 2004
- Posts
- 8,887
- Likes
- 4,041
Just run your dac on a separate switch (dlink, tplink whatever). If you are OCD add a linear PSU to the switch. Ethernet is inherently transformer coupled (that means galvanic isolated) and the signals are fully balanced.
Last edited:
gnomen
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2015
- Posts
- 326
- Likes
- 260
Thanks Chesebert. I realise ethernet quality is one of those topics that divides the "bits are bits" tribe from the "but it sounds different" tribe. Not a debate I really want to be in, having just chosen to go back to a simple, one-box solution which sounds great.
I did some reading on the EtherREGEN and similar, and what strikes me is that the reports of audible differences are with relatively inexpensive DACs. Perhaps any effect depends on how well the designer has engineered the ethernet interface for the DAC in question. So I asked here to see if any Weiss users were in the second "tribe" and felt the need to take further steps. I probably could have asked a similar question on the DAVE forum or the dCS forum. If the answer is "no" then I would conclude it is a none-problem.
I have now direct wired the Helios to the router. I expected it would sound the same, neither worse nor better. But unexpectedly it sounds a bit flatter and a tiny bit coarser. Now, after a few days, it sounds fine. So was I imagining it?
I did some reading on the EtherREGEN and similar, and what strikes me is that the reports of audible differences are with relatively inexpensive DACs. Perhaps any effect depends on how well the designer has engineered the ethernet interface for the DAC in question. So I asked here to see if any Weiss users were in the second "tribe" and felt the need to take further steps. I probably could have asked a similar question on the DAVE forum or the dCS forum. If the answer is "no" then I would conclude it is a none-problem.
I have now direct wired the Helios to the router. I expected it would sound the same, neither worse nor better. But unexpectedly it sounds a bit flatter and a tiny bit coarser. Now, after a few days, it sounds fine. So was I imagining it?
Users who are viewing this thread
