Wadia 121

I think the most comparable piece in terms of price, features and performance is probably the W4S DAC2. There are some direct comparisons over at audio aficionado.com

I just ordered my 121 yesterday so I will report my findings when it arrives and I have had some time with it. Unfortunately I am told it will take almost a month to arrive as it is back ordered. I am buying locally from my dealer, so I am willing to wait, even though I see they seem to be in stock on a certain website I often buy vinyl from.

I am very excited to hear the initial reports on this DAC. One thing I would like to hear more about is the headphone stage. This is one of the reasons that swayed me to buy the 121 over the W4S DAC2 and Metrum Octave.

This is a wonderful sounding DAC I have had the 121 for 2 weeks and loving it.The headphone output is pretty dang good to.

can anyone compare it to the PSAudio DLIII?
also, didn't Wadia have a lot of customer service and reliability issues recently?

I had mine for about 2 weeks now and it sounds amazing. Compared it to several other DACs, both somewhat cheaper and in the same range. Although the W4S was also very good, the Wadia has a soundsignature which best matches my taste.

I did, however, have some problems with my unit. One particular problem is that after some changing of the inputs, the soundvolume is fixed, and at a pretty high level at that. Another problem is that after some use, the volume is just 'gone'. The headphone output is _way_ too high. But my dealer came through and is sending me a new one. Apparently Wadia is aware of (some of) these problems and an upgrade is available. It consists of a new firmware, but also some new hardware as I understand it.