an engineer from the Studer labs, an historic name in professional audio.

From the outset the Weiss’s activity has focused on the design of professional equipment for mastering studios. More recently, the company has decided to capitalize on its experience in the field of digital audio for the creation of products targeted at the Hi-Fi market. A line of products has thus been born for signal conversion from digital to analog and, more recently, for audio playback from your computer - but of a high-end class - such as the interfaces FireWire INT202 and VESTA.

The new DAC202, a D / A FireWire converter of reference class with an IR remote control for functions such as volume control, phase and source selection, has digital inputs AES / EBU or S / PDIF (on XLR, RCA, and Toslink) and FireWire ports for connecting to the computer. There are both analog outputs (XLR and RCA) and digital ones; there is also an 1/4" output jack for headphones. The DAC202, says the manufacturer, employs new D/A converters and new analog output stages, with respect to previous versions. Two converters per channel are also used, to improve the signal to noise ratio. Sample rates from 44.1 to 192 kHz at 24-bit are supported; drivers are available both for PC (Windows XP, Vista and 7) and Mac (both Intel and PPC) for hooking it up to your computer.

Again, to ensure higher quality playback from the computer, Weiss offers the Amarra software for Mac OS X on its website for use with its products (although it’s not necessarily required). The developer Sonic Studio (www. sonicstudio.com) defines Amarra as "the computer player for audiophile quality."

It’s quality that you pay for, and Amarra costs U.S.$ 995, but there is an Amarra-Mini version costing U.S.$ 395.