Wadia 26

I owned one for about a year around 2001, and only sold it because I acquired a Wadia 9 (not Series 9!) at a great price. The 26 is a 32X oversampler and is basically the DAC section of the Wadia 16 player.

It has the typical Wadia sound - lots of spatial detail, great bass, and better treble than the Wadia X64.4 it replaced. I used it with a Wadia WT2000S transport. It's been a while since I listened to it, but I think it would still be competitive with current low to mid priced DACs, and it's certainly well built.

Try to listen to it in your system before buying, if possible.

I'm also looking into the electrocompenient ecd1 and the benchmark dac1. Any input is appreciated.

From an original Wadia 26 sales brochure :-
Wadia 26 Decoding Computer
Decoding Software - DigiMaster
Resampling Rate - 32 times
Resolution - 19 bits DC 20kHz
Passband Ripple - None - is Monotonic
Signal Inverting - Digital Domain
Output level (0 db ref) 12.5V
Output impedance - 100 ohms single ended and 200 ohms balanced
Channel Isolation at 1Khz > 110dB
Channel to channel phase error < 0.5 degree at 10kHz
Weight - 11 lbs.
Dimension - 3.125" High, 13.75" Wide and 13" Deep
Wadia NOTE: Specifications subject to change.

Do not overlook the Wadia 25 or a Wadia 15.
Agree with Ghostrider, if possible try in your system , as "you are only restricted by the weakest link in the musical chain".

Hope this helps.