Weiss versus Auralic


Hi,

New to the Audiogon forum but I have been looking to purchase a dac and I need some advice. My friend has the Weiss 202 and it is very good sounding but when we tried the Auralic ARK MX + dac against the Weiss I could not hear a difference. Why are the Weiss and Auralic dac so close in sound but so different in price? Any insight would be helpful.

hottamale
What was the system you tried the DACs with? Can you please give some more details, as from personal experience the Weiss is hands down better than the Auralic. Auralic lacks the overall smoothness and high-end presence the 202 can offer. It is a bit artificially edgy. 202 is a bit edgy too compared with statement DACs like MEDEA+ but much more neutral than Auralic.
We tested the Auralic on my friends system; MacIntosh pre and power, custom media server, top Dynaudio speakers with Purist cabling, around $100k.

We found neither dac to be edgy or artificial sounding. We did find the Auralic sounded better when ran balanced and preferred the decay on the top end slightly more on the Weiss. The Auralic had better dynamics and was slightly more live sounding than the Weiss but never bright. It was half a dozen too six in regards to which dac was better and my friend that owns the Weiss even agreed that the Auralic was slightly better in some areas.

Are there any other dacs you could recommend at $2000 that could compete that close with the Weiss?