This is a follow-up to my brief experience with the Whest DAP.10. I say brief because I ordered the unit several weeks ago from Audio Advisor, and when I received it on the 7th of this month, it was not working. It is in fact on the way back now to Audio Advisor, and I expect that they will refund my money when they receive the unit.
When I turned on the DAP.10, it came on the very first time with a loud hum, which quieted down after about five seconds. Suddenly, a foul smell of burnt electrics filled the room, and music came out of the left channel only. I heard some crackling and popping from the right channel, but it quickly went silent. As you can probably guess, I was not too pleased, having just spent $1749 to see if the DAP.10 could take my system to the next level. I was highly encouraged to try the unit because I too have an Audio Aero Prima CD player like Robm1 above. Unfortunately, however, I never got the chance to experience the capabilities of the DAP.10.
That same day, I wrote to James at Whest Audio--the manufacturer of the DAP.10--with a request for his input on the possible reasons for the failure of the unit. I told him that I thought he would want to hear directly from me about the experience, and that I wanted to answer the several requests I had offer an evaluation of the unit, but I had no intention of badmouthing his product. How could I when I did not even get the chance to hear it? I told him that I understand the difficulty in bringing a product to market, let alone maintaining its favor with the public. Incidentally, this was not the first time I had experienced the immediate failure of a component. Last year, a highly respected audio company sent me a preamp that failed the first night, waking us up to the nasty smell of toasted internals. I contacted the company, and they immediately rectified the problem. Whest Audio, for some reason, has chosen a different tact.
In the 10 days since receiving the unit, I have written James three more e-mails. Sadly, I have not received any response from him. I guessed that perhaps they were on vacation, at CES, or just plain out of the office. But I figured that they would have made arrangements for someone to respond. Every other dealer/manufacturer with whom I have corresponded over the past couple of weeks did so in a timely fashion, even when e-mailing in the middle of CES.
I thought about ordering another unit, and spoke to another dealer about it. He offered a fair price for the DAP.10, but without the 30-day trial period provided by Audio Advisor. However, when I wrote him about my problems with the unit, I did not hear back from him either. Perhaps my request for his input concerning the product failure was not clear enough.
Following all of these events, my wife absolutely refuses to consider ordering another DAP.10, whether on a trial period or not. We are still considering upgrading our source, but unfortunately the DAP.10 will not be on our list of options.
I only hope that I eventually hear from James, as he seems a very cordial man with a viable product. It stressed me to even consider posting the details of my experience with the DAP.10/Whest Audio, but this is ultimately a place of learning. So there you have it.
All the best,
Howard
