Wadia 861

I'm not surprised at all, actually I feel relief.
I had similar experience to but with lower level equipment.
I have bought SONY DVP S9000ES as replacement to my 7 years old cdp Arcam ALPHA 6. It was supposed to be so good!
And cheap (300-400USD) Arcam beats SONY in SACD mode easily too. Even my wife can hear that. SONY is so unmusical.
So good to hear that I not alone. So I loose interest in SACD for a while.

The key to making any of the Wadia players or seperates sound better is to max the digital volume control and run the Wadia into a preamp. The output section of the Wadia SUCKS!! You, at first, think you a hearing an increase in detail and clarity, when, in fact, you're hearing a "Skeletal" presentation. It is devoid of meat, muscle, fat and color. I spent years screwing around with cable changes with a GNSC modded 270/27 combo and only when I ran it thru a preamp did it begin to sound listenable- for longer than 20 minutes. Ultimately, the EMM LABS gear- modified Philips SACD 1000 and DAC 6 make the make ANY of the Wadia gear, including GNSC modified pieces sound Primitive, if not Broken!

Fbhifi,

I have to agree with your comment about running my 861 into a preamp. We were listening, at 1st, thru my friend's Spectral DMC-20 & it sounded really very good. Then we decided to take Wadia up on their reco to run it into the power amp directly. We had to reduce the digital volume to 55 or so (out of 100) and, just like you wrote, the sound was "devoid of meat, muscle, fat and color". In all fairness, per the manual, we should have opened up the unit & reduced the output stage max. level so that our optimum listening volume level would have been in the 75-100 range. We didn't do this & probably sacrificed far too many of the LSBs turning down the volume that much.

Well, the EMM Labs gear is mighty expensive & not affordable by many. Since it is so new, few pieces show up used & when they do, they are still very expensive!

I hope that one day I'll be able to hear the EMM gear. I wonder just how much better it is?? My observation has been that very few people here listen to music & most listen to the sound of their system!

Bomb- You stated "my 861".
I though you unloaded that boat anchor. Trust your ears. I wanted to reply to your follow-up. But Fbhifi has said it all. Hopefully Mr. VMPS will see the light.

I had a Statement 861 from GNSC. Before the upgrade, I listened to many players in many systems. As my ears and taste improved, I began to find the 861 lacking for all the reasons you may read about in these disussions.

I decided to not give up on the 861 and ponied up for the mod. The mod, for me, made the player everything I thought a real high end player should be. I found that I did not need a preamp. I also found that using a preamp less than $6-8k retail after the upgrade was a waste.

If I thought that I was getting a thin sound I would first try warmer ic's like Caras or Wireworld (copper), or perhaps get a tube preamp or amps. The 861 can truly make music. It does require some tweaking though. Good listening!