Wadia? Should You Go Direct In Or Preout

Tbone, I ran an 860 for 1.5 years and recently upgraded to the 861. The 860 is not even in the same league as the new 861. The x upgrade does very little by itself to improve the sound of the 860 and it's included on the 861. With the 861 you can now select between 3 different digital filter algorithms. As an additional measure, I had the 861 upgraded by former Wadia's former sales manager, Steve Huntley at (greatnorthernsound.com). The player is now so much better than the 860 it will blow your mind. My sincere recommendation is to find an 861 and start from there. By the way, running the player direct into an FPB600c yields a superior transparency and dynamics. The player is most transparent and dynamic at the 2 volt output setting. 4 volts uses additional gain devices and lower settings puts the signal through an additional resistor. Since one can hear the effects of something like dirty connectors, how can we ever think of a preamp and another cable knowing that it will be several steps removed from the event. ANY separate preamp will add coloration and a signature to the presentation. To be successful, and this is a cutdown to the Krell FPB600c, only run the Wadia direct while using amplification with input sensitivity of 2 volts. This will let you get the most from the Wadia running direct...