COMPARISON OF TWO ES9018 DIY-DACS : BUFFALO II AND WEILIANG HD

The Esstech ES9018 is one of the best DAC IC´s available for audiophiles. Nevertheless the converter is not the only part to consider. PCB layout, power supplies, the linestage are crucial as well. Being an audiophile for many years, comparing dacs was always almost a matter of guessing. Differences were absolutely small and with no importance to average listeners. But I have never heard such big difference between two DACs before. The difference -the Weiliang sounds dull compared to the Buffalo-should be still audible despite the fact that the analogue outputs of those Dacs were re-recorded in 16/44.1 using 20 year old equipment and recompressed by youtube. The music was recorded by myself: "Dance of the Water Puppets" by Volker Jaekel. You can see his concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JShfolBkR4I BTW, the Steinway was prepared with chains and ping pong balls. This is why it sounds a bit strange Link to Twistedpearaudio DAC: http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/digital/buffalose.aspx Link to Weiliang (diyhifishop): http://diyhifishop.com/assembled-es9018-32bit-192khz-hi-end-dac-best-price-p-106.html