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Re: PC Alternative to Wadia?

Posted by MRMB (A) on December 6, 2006 at 09:41:28

In Reply to: PC Alternative to Wadia? posted by JayM on December 5, 2006 at 18:55:02:

I recently moved from a Wadia 861 to a Wavelength Brick Silver USB DAC.

By selling the Wadia, I had a tidy sum left over to partially buy one of the new MacBook duos. As I didn't have a laptop, I got the best of both worlds, a music server by night, a go-anywhere laptop all other times. Please note that before the MacBook, I used an antiquated Dell PII (300 mhz) PC running Windows 2000 with the same sonic results as the MacBook. So, for a USB DAC, one needn't worry about anything havning a state of the art processor. While PC noise can be a problem, it can be resolved.

As my primary media is vinyl, ABSOLUTE sonic parity or improvement (Wadia vs PC audio) wasn't that important. I was seeking to divest myself of a technology that will ultimately go the way of the dinosaurs (IMHO); while my Wadia's value was still very good; being left with a very good to comparable, but MUCH more functional, versatile front-end. I can't tell you how much fun it is to IMMEDIATELY select from 1,000's of tunes, or to create an ad hoc playlist from my listening chair in moments. While I knew it would be a positive, I didn't imagine it would be sooo great a one!

While I didn't get the chance to do a one to one DAC to Wadia comparison, I and my son believe that the Brick is better in all respects -- in our case, a very welcome, pleasant result.

BTW, I, like you, used my Wadia direct, until my wonderful foray back into vinyl (which is another story). I bought a Supratek Chenin preamp for its phono capabilities, and was thrilled by the CD playback improvement -- more musical, more to my liking in every way -- kinda counterintuitive. In this case, more was indeed more. Thus, while the direct vs pre debate is endless, for me it ended with the Chenin/Wadia connection.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Herbie's Audio Lab

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