Wadia 151 PowerDAC: One of those WTF moments

[Diapason]

It's ok Tony, too much organ practice ruining my ears or something.

Anyway, Wadia 151. Damn fine piece of gear.

[sima66]

Intervention! Quick!

No worries.......just "One of those WTF moments"!!! :)))

[DaveF]

Simon, quite clearly you werent using the right 'grounding products' in your system.

[jaybee]

I thought it would be!


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[Diapason]

Thinking about this more overnight, and yes I've obviously overstated my case a little (!) but there is an element of the can of worms here. Nige "cheekily" asked could I just downgrade and not lose sound quality and he's right, I'm not going to do that. I also can't deny that god and the devil are in the details and in the subtleties, so it's easy to say that things sound similar because, on some level, of course they do. It's the same feckin' song, same feckin' notes, why wouldn't systems sound similar!?

Here's the problem:

[quote="nige2000"
anyway said it before if disbelievers want to come down hear my system id be happy to host
im sure i could rig up some test comparisons
[/quote]

For some reason, it's no longer this easy for me, and I'm not sure why. Time was I could listen to a system for a short amount of time and, rightly or wrongly, attempt to make a judgement about the various components. But recent-ish trips to Tony's and DaveF's have left me a little bewildered. As much as I'd like to make sensible comments on different DACs or sources or amps or whatever, I just can't make meaningful distinctions in the shorter term that I'm sure of after I leave. Basically, all I hear are the speakers, how different they are to my own, what they're doing well or not, and I find that the signature of the speakers swamps everything else so much that I just don't trust my thoughts elsewhere. It's not that I can't hear differences per se, it's just that I'm not entirely sure they're not a) imagined, b) entirely specific to the system and music involved in the moment, or c) worth worrying about. Yes, c) is dangerous thinking.

So now I'm at home, testing out a 400 Euro piece of equipment in place of 5-figure gear and, so it goes, all I really hear is what my speakers are doing. And they're doing it well, much like they always do. It sounds like my system, it's a familiar sound, it's "normal" with only a few slight and subtle differences. Hence the "am I mad to have bought all this other stuff?" moment.

[nige2000]

Thinking about this more overnight, and yes I've obviously overstated my case a little (!) but there is an element of the can of worms here. Nige "cheekily" asked could I just downgrade and not lose sound quality and he's right, I'm not going to do that. I also can't deny that god and the devil are in the details and in the subtleties, so it's easy to say that things sound similar because, on some level, of course they do. It's the same feckin' song, same feckin' notes, why wouldn't systems sound similar!?

no doubt the sq difference never makes a track unrecognisable, i don't want nor mean to be confrontational but the "components sound similar" talk took me by surprise
i couldn't let it go:)

anyway said it before if disbelievers want to come down hear my system id be happy to host
im sure i could rig up some test comparisons

For some reason, it's no longer this easy for me, and I'm not sure why. Time was I could listen to a system for a short amount of time and, rightly or wrongly, attempt to make a judgement about the various components. But recent-ish trips to Tony's and DaveF's have left me a little bewildered. As much as I'd like to make sensible comments on different DACs or sources or amps or whatever, I just can't make meaningful distinctions in the shorter term that I'm sure of after I leave. Basically, all I hear are the speakers, how different they are to my own, what they're doing well or not, and I find that the signature of the speakers swamps everything else so much that I just don't trust my thoughts elsewhere. It's not that I can't hear differences per se, it's just that I'm not entirely sure they're not a) imagined, b) entirely specific to the system and music involved in the moment, or c) worth worrying about. Yes, c) is dangerous thinking.

id agree to the most part
going to a meet up listening trying to find differences in sq between several components, tracks that you may or may not be familiar with on someone else's system and with all the distractions that does be at these things can be very difficult especially if your not sure on what to zone in on a decision cannot be clearcut unless there is huge differences
in CA most of the differences is in noise floor, micro detail and timing control
however testing at home is much easier

as for fix everything at the speaker level thing,

everything is in a chain so the transport can only output the quality, detail, noise and jitter that is in the cd, track/player that is inputed, the transport can never output better quality than it received only different quality levels of worse
same story with the dac, preamp, amp - speakers

could be a easy sorted theory with a visit

[Diapason]

could be a easy sorted theory with a visit

We'll definitely do this at some stage soon.

But I'm staying away from the rabbit hole!!!

[jaybee]

I'd have to say, in my experience, (probably since Joe asked us what we thought of those totem speakers) I've been able to hear speakers more easily than anything else.... to the extent that until the kids are old enough not to poke everything they see I'm going to get rid of the multiple boxes in favour of an integrated and the only thing preventing me from getting the wadia is the purely digital media focus, as I have found vinyl to be the key to a rejuvenated interest in this mad hobby!




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[nige2000]

could be a easy sorted theory with a visit

We'll definitely do this at some stage soon.

But I'm staying away from the rabbit hole!!!

cool look forward to it

[Rocker]

What is the price of this box. Even a ballpark figure will be enough, thanks