msb Ilink vs. wadia 170i ipd docks

Hi Usarmyvet,

What's your real name? Mine is Justin. Just like to be more personal.

Okay, the reason the engineer didn't give me the amount is because he was not the one who designed the 170i. That guy was out of the office yesterday. I am hoping to know by today.

I too spoke with MSB and got the same info about the msb. They also gave me misinformation about the Wadia. I don't blame them it's just part of the business. My experience has been that almost everyone fudges their numbers. I am going to take what Wadia tells me with a grain of salt. The same goes for MSB.

At the end of the day all you can trust is your ears. You like the MSB better and I like the Wadia. Who is right? Both of us. People like different sounds. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many audio companies.

Nrostov,
my compliments for taking so much trouble in finding out the info from both Wadia & MSB. You certainly have gone above & beyond all other members who have participated in this thread.

>> They also gave me misinformation about the Wadia. I
>> don't blame them it's just part of the business.
Yes, it is unfortunately the truth in this country! It just plain sucks!
From where I come from, no negative advertising is allowed - You want to sell your product more? Advertise the positive things about it & show the public what benefits they would be getting if they bought your product compared to the others WITHOUT bashing or providing misinfo on the competitor's product.
I personally think that this is a better way to do biz rather than getting your sales up by bashing the other guy.
I think that MSB could have easily made their point by advertising their 7pS of jitter & stating that it was the lowest in the industry for this type of product (if it turns out that it actually is. we need to wait for Justin to post the info from Wadia) WITHOUT giving misinfo on Wadia. I would have had more respect for MSB than I do now. I think that this is piss-poor attitude from MSB. :(

Unfortunately, this trend of bashing & misinfo on companies does not stop at manuf only; many of the members here are happy to post misinfo & bogus data on companies' products. Worse, they state/write it with much conviction as if it were the truth! :(

Hi Justin my name is jerry. Justin i have gear from wadia and msb and i have e-mailed and talked to both companies about which product is better and of course they will tell you their product is better. I have the wadia i170 mod version by gns and it's great piece of gear. I hope that wadia will come out with a higher end ipod transport in the near future. Until then i am using the msb in my main system.

Not to change the subject but if you want a really good ipod player, check out the krell kid it rocks. The kid has taken the place of my bel canto cd-2 player in my paradigm system.

I'm also very interested to see the jitter figure which is quoted by Wadia. I have no doubt that it will be significantly higher than the MSB as otherwise I would not have expected the Monarchy DIP jitter reduction box would have had such an impact. For the Wadia, I've seen one review in a UK publication (Hi-Fi News, I think) publish a figure of 115ps and other references online stating jitter in the realm of 3000ps - will be interested to see the manufacturer figure. I would prefer to see an independent measurement but not sure if this is likely.

Regardless, a low jitter figure doesn't guarantee better sound, it is just one of a number of factors and the bottom line is that if you have a DAC that can reclock the signal and eliminate most of the jitter, this is an even less significant factor. So just like most hi-fi, it comes down, not to measurements, but to our subjective listening preferences. As long as we're enjoying what we've got we can stop thinking about upgrades for a while and enjoy the music.

Thanks Justin for going to the effort to get the information from Wadia - much appreciated.