Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the 204 was how it endowed instruments with physical presence, providing each with its own small, deep soundstage within the overarching one. I swore I could hear and see cymbals flash into view, their indented metallic frames wobbling in the air like saucers. Or that I could hear the drumsticks’ cylindrical shape as its shaft struck a rim. Technique, timbre, tones appeared on a tiny scale. That’s the drug, isn’t it? Discovering new things in our recordings? It’s musical space travel and my system with the 204 was my USS Enterprise.

The harmony vocals on Déjà Vu’s “Carry On” had never sounded this natural, steady, and spatially detailed. In fact, I was surprised that this file sounded this good, because it never had before, even through other components capable of 24/192 playback. I used to think this recording sounded flat, dynamically and spatially, but the 204 showed otherwise by revealing how much dynamic and spatial life I’d been missing.

The Weiss DAC204 allows me to hear deep into recordings. Its presentation has an analog-like flow, but it doesn’t sound analog. Rather, it sounds digital but ultraclean, vivid and pure.

Quality hi-fi is a recipe of matching qualities, as they pertain to the model’s design, construction, function, and sonic attributes. Our hobby isn’t just about sound any more than a novel is just about words. Both recorded music and written words are meant to paint a picture in our minds. The better the audio and writing, the more vivid the picture.

The DAC204 paints vividly indeed. It paints a picture that brings the music on each recording more into focus. It delivers sustained musicality and timbral authenticity. In sum, it sounds like it was designed by a digital guru – a wizard – and made in a place like Switzerland, with mountains and pristine lakes and valleys. I’m sure Krokus would have a blast hearing their music through it.

Robert Schryer, Stereophile, August 2025

Channel separation was superb, at >120dB. The low-frequency noisefloor was very low in level and free from power supply-related spuriae. The Weiss 204 was immune to jitter with all its inputs. Intermodulation distortion was extremely low in level. The noisefloor between odd-order harmonics is vanishingly low in level. The measured performance of the Weiss 204 is state of the digital art.

John Atkinson, Measurements