New Wadax Atlantis Reference Dac

BruceD

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Dec 13, 2013
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i guess my digital must really suck if my vinyl is so obviously better. i have to assume AE has top flight vinyl.

or......1 + 1 = ?.....something other than 2.

When I have been at AE's sound room he had the WaveKInTT (same as you)--sound was excellent--then next time he used the top of the line

Vertere/Arm and Miyajima MC--Wadax Digital Phono/Zanden Amps.

The latest pics show the front TT end has changed--CK maybe can identify--they list Da Vinci and Hartvig as TT's now.

Rest easy Mike --your incredible system is assembled to please your good self;)

Chris(AE) is presented to appease his well heeled Market:)

Good listening!

BruceD
 

the sound of Tao

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Jul 18, 2014
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I much prefer these Divin series Goebbel speakers to the bending wave models.
Is definitely a confident and sexy looking beast. Nice and chunky but with a good contemporary clean edge to it.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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When I have been at AE's sound room he had the WaveKInTT (same as you)--sound was excellent--then next time he used the top of the line

Vertere/Arm and Miyajima MC--Wadax Digital Phono/Zanden Amps.

The latest pics show the front TT end has changed--CK maybe can identify--they list Da Vinci and Hartvig as TT's now.

Rest easy Mike --your incredible system is assembled to please your good self;)

Chris(AE) is presented to appease his well heeled Market:)

Good listening!

BruceD

thank you, Bruce, for your concern. i do rest easy as my ears are very happy.......;)

i had no doubt that the vinyl would be very fine there.

recently my vinyl has taken a significant step upward with the new Durand Tosca tonearm + the additional Taiko Tana active isolation under the whole signal path. the uptick from my recent upgrade in digital is at least matched by the vinyl side.

but the implications of the AE comments are curious. i guess we have to keep our minds open to this Wadax changing the space-time continuum:eek:. hope to hear it at some point and maybe i'll be a believer too.
 
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spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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Mike, I know one thing. Your wife will not want to hear one word about another $130k 3 box dac.
 

CKKeung

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Jun 17, 2011
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:eek:
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Is definitely a confident and sexy looking beast. Nice and chunky but with a good contemporary clean edge to it.

i like the Divin's, but what i heard from the big Gobel Epoque Reference in Elliot's room in South Florida was an easy cut above the Divin's. OTOH that was much better from that speaker than what i heard at RMAF. so maybe the Epoque's are less tolerant of a marginal/show set-up than the Divin's which would make perfect sense.
 
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howiebrou

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Jun 29, 2012
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CK,

Does Chris have the Atlantis Dac on demo? I might have to pop over for a listen if he does.....unfortunately the reference dac’s looks don’t do it for me. They remind me of those floating ball robots in Oblivion... 06B0C8A5-183C-4A7C-B112-FAD7B1C4A6B0.jpeg
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Mike, I know one thing. Your wife will not want to hear one word about another $130k 3 box dac.

i'm done with digital choices. when/if MSB raises their bar i might go with that......as it's what i signed up for (any upgrades for the retail difference for 10 years).

which does not mean that other digital might not be better. that stuff will never stop happening. nothing is forever.

really loving the refinement step up with the Gobel USB.......it's like the whole thing broke through the clouds into clean air.:)
 

CKKeung

Well-Known Member
Jun 17, 2011
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CK,
Does Chris have the Atlantis Dac on demo? I might have to pop over for a listen if he does.....unfortunately the reference dac’s looks don’t do it for me. They remind me of those floating ball robots in Oblivion...
Hello,
Most probably yes.
You are in HK? Pls give them a call.
https://www.audioexotics.com/contact/
 

spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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I love the comment on "50,000 man hours of research". I'd love to be paid for all that time listening to music.

It's not as if these boys are starting with a dac made of chopped liver. Their baseline is the Atlantis dac, surely in the top dozen of frontline dacs. Everything from there can only be extra levels of joy.

Btw, how many engineers does 50,000 hours equate to?
 

microstrip

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May 30, 2010
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i guess my digital must really suck if my vinyl is so obviously better. i have to assume AE has top flight vinyl.

or......1 + 1 = ?.....something other than 2.

If it is systematically so obviously better than we can think that it is overall system or listener preference ...

And yes, in this hobby 1 +1 never equates 2. :)
 

nonesup

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Feb 15, 2017
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Their baseline is the Atlantis dac, surely in the top dozen of frontline dacs.

Currently its base model is no longer the Atlantis, but the Arcadia. It's been in the market for almost a year but they have not found time to upload it to their website.....
Good DAC, nothing stressful sound.
 

nonesup

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Feb 15, 2017
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36A08CBC-F30B-4A26-95EA-8B8E97CE46C0.jpeg
 

koalakoala

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Aug 10, 2017
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50000 hours are roughly equivalent to 30 engineers working for one year.

In Hong Kong, the approximate cost of such work is in the region of US$3million.
 

nonesup

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I will copy the comment I made on the subject in a Spanish-speaking forum called AudioNirvana. But in summary I'll tell you that for me Kassandra is more musically exciting.
 

nonesup

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Go ahead (although it is obvious) that the opinions that I will express are from the listening in the configuration that I have, the DACs connected to different previews, maybe they sound differently. I would also like to point out that the differences in the different parameters between the two are not overnight, far from it, they are small, in some cases very small. If a DAC combines the strong points both would be the ..........



To begin with, we should indicate that we are facing two DACs with development philosophies, not different but radically opposed, at least as far as the conversion from Digital to Analog is concerned.

Wadax bets on the ultra-processed signal. It uses a really powerful programmable chip (an ASIC) programmed with the algorithms developed by them, which examines the incoming signal and applies corrections to eliminate or at least mitigate the time and phase errors it encounters (Wadax dixit).

Well Aries Cerat believes just the opposite, the signal does not have to be processed at all, in this way we are facing a really rare DAC for the times that are running; R2R NOS and without Filtering. However, both developers agree on the obsessive importance they dedicate to the power supply and in general to the details. I would recommend going through their websites for more information.





If what Wadax was looking for with its processing algorithms was to eliminate that feeling of "digititis" to which we are so accustomed, I can only say that they have achieved it fully. I never heard a DAC that, like this one, can listen for hours and hours without hearing fatigue. In this aspect for me the test of cotton are the masses of violins, I usually use the first movement of the first violin concerto by Bach / The English Concert / Archiv. In my old Electrocompaniet EMC1, it was hardly bearable, with the Lumin A1 the thing improved but there followed the digital signature. With the Kassandra I thought that I no longer could obtain more softness of a digital reproduction. Well, I was wrong with the Arcadia the violins of that "fucking" recording are pure silk. It's the least fatiguing DAC I've ever heard.

The Kassandra is already but Arcadía is even more so.

In terms of dynamic macro both are and much, I could not say which is more. In microdínamicas, in that facility to show you the little details there may be a slight advantage for the Kassandra. In variations on a Paganini / Janos Starker theme. Attacks on cello strings are better in Kassandra, Starker is more in my room.

The orchestral weight is again slightly better in Kassandra although the image is more advanced than with Arcadia. In this I prefer the latter, also this gives an image a little higher than Kassandra, although equally wide.

Timbrically I think Kassandra is a bit ahead, in the tenth prelude to Debussy's first book I think Benedetti Michelangeli's piano is more like what I hear live in the Philharmonic Society.

However, to complicate everything, the first movement of the Brahms violin concert with the Mutter, New York Philarmonic and Kurt Massur is in the Arcadia of a beauty, serenity and refinement that is one step above Kassandra.

In summary Arcadia has a sound without edges, without fatigue and refined, Kassandra has that same "tad" underneath but nevertheless its sound is more like real music sounds, by timbre and dynamics and again I say no no by big difference .
 

nonesup

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Something important with the Kassandra is that it is preferable to leave by RCA than by XLR. Stavros warned me and he was right. Now I have a RCA Göbel borrowed, while the connectors of my XLR change in the factory.
 

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