A relative of mine took delivery of his 151 this week, so I popped over yesterday for a listen.
He'd previoiusly been running with a set of ancient B&O gear which sounded "OK", but frankly nothing more. Source was a Squeezebox3, speakers being some being 70s Polk audio floorstanders.
The 151 is minute. I believe it uses the same case that their 121 DAC is housed in, and is not much bigger than an AppleTV.
Inputs are digital only, one USB, x2 coax and one Optical SPDIF, so NO analogue inputs. It's rated somewhere between 25-50 watts/channel, depending upon what you read and uses class D technology. Not sure what's under the bonnet in the way of silicon. My understanding is that it does the amplication as part of the DAC process, so there's no conversion to analogue until just before it hits the speakers.
And in use? Well it's clearly got a high WAF factor. Very few controls, i.e. which input, volume and phases button.
To listen to, frankly it's bloody brilliant for the cash (£400 s/h), but I understand you can get them for $800 from Amazon (US).
My opinion is that most "mainstream" kit sounds like hifi, with different levels of detail, depth etc. Getting into upper territory results in less focus upon just smaller details (e.g. detail) and the ability to project a genuine 3d image into the louge. It's something that I think my existing system does quite well. The Wadia gets a good 80% of the way there for a fraction of the cost.
Where is loses out is some of the grain that was on show. That's partly due to the fact that a lot of the material to hand was fairly low res (e.g. 256kb) and there only being a small amount of ALAC to hand. Again, and this is my opinion, that focusing on things like stands, and power cables (I use a balanced PSU) helps to smooth out some of the noise that causes some of those really minor nasties, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Wadia could really shine with a better source and power supply.
Next step is for me to get my relative to bring it over for a listen, by which time I should also have my AG500 in place.
In short, highly recommended for the dosh.
He'd previoiusly been running with a set of ancient B&O gear which sounded "OK", but frankly nothing more. Source was a Squeezebox3, speakers being some being 70s Polk audio floorstanders.
The 151 is minute. I believe it uses the same case that their 121 DAC is housed in, and is not much bigger than an AppleTV.
Inputs are digital only, one USB, x2 coax and one Optical SPDIF, so NO analogue inputs. It's rated somewhere between 25-50 watts/channel, depending upon what you read and uses class D technology. Not sure what's under the bonnet in the way of silicon. My understanding is that it does the amplication as part of the DAC process, so there's no conversion to analogue until just before it hits the speakers.
And in use? Well it's clearly got a high WAF factor. Very few controls, i.e. which input, volume and phases button.
To listen to, frankly it's bloody brilliant for the cash (£400 s/h), but I understand you can get them for $800 from Amazon (US).
My opinion is that most "mainstream" kit sounds like hifi, with different levels of detail, depth etc. Getting into upper territory results in less focus upon just smaller details (e.g. detail) and the ability to project a genuine 3d image into the louge. It's something that I think my existing system does quite well. The Wadia gets a good 80% of the way there for a fraction of the cost.
Where is loses out is some of the grain that was on show. That's partly due to the fact that a lot of the material to hand was fairly low res (e.g. 256kb) and there only being a small amount of ALAC to hand. Again, and this is my opinion, that focusing on things like stands, and power cables (I use a balanced PSU) helps to smooth out some of the noise that causes some of those really minor nasties, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Wadia could really shine with a better source and power supply.
Next step is for me to get my relative to bring it over for a listen, by which time I should also have my AG500 in place.
In short, highly recommended for the dosh.
