Wadia 861se vs All others.


I know someome who has just purchased a stock unit. He said it was better than his DCS stack(Verona included). He also raved about the build quality, upsampling and the technology. When I informed him that my dac was an 8 yyear old Altis Ref, he basically said it was garbage because it didn't have a high sample rate. I told him that Zanden use dac chips from 20 twenty years ago and don't upsample or over-sample. He wasn't impressed. His position is based on the fact that the DCS components bested his EAD 9000 because it upsampled at a high bit-rate.
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I can attest to the fact that my modded 47Labs Shigaraki DAC beat the Levinson 390S and Wadia 850 in my system. The diferences are not subtle and it does not over or up sample and has no filter on the output.
Your 8 year old Altis Ref and my 10 year old Audio Logic M-34 are BOTH extremely musically involving tube Dacs, period.
Don't believe everything you hear about up and over sampling being better because .............
Build quality is nice to have, but it is design engineering (power supply esp.) and execution with system synergy that reign supreme.
I know a lot of audio heads that would snap that Altis Ref. off the A-goN classifieds in a heart beat (if you ever decided to sell it)
Keep your Dac, it's very special.
Another great testimonial to older DAC's is the Museatex Bidat. With mod's many feel it bests many of today's ultra-expensive DAC's.
Best advice is to ignore the hype and let your "ears" decide whats good.
I definetely agree, the Wadia 861 se stock unit stands on its own. The music just "floats" through the air. There's space, blacker backgrounds and three dimensional that fills the room with live "vivid" sound which I haven't heard before. This player sets a new standard in Red Book reproduction !!

Roger