Wadia X-32


On the advice of a friend I purchased a Wadia X-32. It does seem to take the edge of the CD sound in my system and I am very happy with the purchase. The seller said the unit was purchased new in 95. However, the serial number is XXXXXXXX-90, and the manual has a date of 1990. It leads me to believe the unit dates back to the 90's. Does anyone have any history on these units and what would be a it's expected "life span" -- Wadia says 20 years? If this unit is from the early 90's, I am shocked at how well it sounds IMHO, in my system compared to other state-of-the-art DACs (midfi - Parasound 2000, NAD 24/96 and Denon/Sony). Thanks for your help and time.
patriot
My recollection is that the X32 was Wadia's attempt to produce a lower priced DAC than their multi-box 2000 and Digimaster 64, both of which used 64x oversampling vs. the X32's (you guessed it) 32x oversampling, in order to compete with the lower priced offerings at the time from Krell and Theta. I'm sure it dates back to the early 90s/late 80s. I think Harley reviewed it in Stereophile back then too.
according to the bible (Orion Blue Book) the production dates were 1990-93, sold for $2500 when new.
Thanks for the input Justlisten and Rcprince -- the unit has to be an earlier version (1990)and is in decent shape...it's about the sound for me not the looks. I am amazed at the sound this 10 year old technology makes. Thanks again, the forum and the people who participate really make this a more enjoyable hobby.
I used to own one of these until a year ago. The X-32 went through a couple of iterations (the way to tell is if the flush mount buttons are square vs. round). When Wadia was still in existence, I talked to a technical support person about my unit since I had bought it used, and found out that there's a chip upgrade that can be done for free to make the unit less sensitive to different inputs (i.e., I was having trouble locking onto a signal from DSS Satelite). Also, I think I paid $450 for it, and sold it for about the same, to give you a price reference. I hope you did'nt pay much more than that.