Wadia 170iTransport - To mod, or not to mod?

Their are quite a few companies doing mods: Great northern sound co. i have one, Hot rod audio mods, asi and auidocom-uk.com my mod from GNS was around $750 that was including the wadia i170. Some mods can run as high as $1,800 from asi they claim their modded wadia can sound as good as the best cd transports from esoteric and cec.

Hello,

seems that some guys have the same ideas and questions, that i have.
Latest review from german "Stereoplay" testing the standard Wadia with their reference DAC, the Accustic Arts Tube-DAC II SE(7000Euro) looks not so bad. They compared the 170i(Ipod Touch) with the 6900Euro Acustic Arts Drive II SE and the result was, that each of the both have advantages in some sonic aspekts, but they cannot prefer one of them. Having a look upon the price, that´s an impressiv result for our little friend, from my point of view.
I think Bombaywalla exactly knows of what he´s speaking, and the result of this review with the external Clock/DAC tells the same story.
Thanks a lot !
Joe

I'd focus my attention on the clock and DAC downstream of the Wadia. IMHO, it only makes sense to mod the Wadia if you use its analog outputs.

I'm using mine with the Playback Designs MPS-5 as the DAC. The designer claims zero jitter and I can't hear anything to dispute this. When I compare iPod to Wadia to PD output to the PD using it's internal transport. If your DAC or separate clock is going to reclock the Wadia's output, then the ICs and connections make little or no difference, IME.

Dave

I made up my mind: TADAC
I'll let you know how it goes when I get it here and up and running.

Hello

i just had a look upon what the modifiers do with the 170i.
My opinion, and please correct me if you think it´s wrong, is, that to give the wadia a better POWERUNIT, a better PLUG(WBT Next Gen?) to the digital output and a better DIG.CABLE, may also bring a better performance using a external DAC, cause the incoming digital signal should be less jittery , to make the job a little bit easier for your converter.
ALL THE OTHER MODIFICATIONS, i think, are only intersting for people who have no digital input in their other equipement, cause it only makes the internal DAC and it´s analog output-transformer better.
I´m very interested in the experiances of the people, who have the mods on their player, using an additional DAC.
Logical thinking on good sound, very often seems not the wright way to improve............

In some aspekts of High End i was wrong over decades.

In the result, today i listen to everthing i read, even it seems to be impossible.

Joe