2. digital
  3. 1225556564

Wadia 170i and Benchmark Dac1 - anyone try it?

I noticed that some Agon members have replaced their CD player with the new Wadia 170i and a dac. I've been look for a transport for my Dac1 to replace the DVD player I'm currently using. I've demoed some CD players acting as transports to the Dac1 and have definitely noticed an improvement in sound especially in the bass over my five year old DVD player. Interestingly my new Sony 350 Blu ray player sounded much worse as a transport (coax) than the cheap Dvd player which cost one fifth as much.

Any feedback on the new Wadia 170i (as compared to other transports) would be welcomed.
adasilva
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
I just installed a 170i, ruining digital coax into the digital-in of my Playback Designs MPS-5 CD/SACD player. My first impression is very, very good.

Hopefully I'll get time this weekend to do some critical comparisons with the original discs vs. the lossless output from the my 160G iPod Classic. If so, I'll post a more in-depth follow up or maybe a Review.

Dave
teddy_bear
112 posts
 
re: transport,
operative word being "if", there is so much information that gets lost

re: iPod

Classic introduces lots of jitter because of the moving parts in HDD, little iPods with flash memory is much better
adasilva OP
57 posts
 
I've gone back to the Audio settings on the Son 350 Blu ray player and made sure that everything was PCM no digital. Through either the coax or optical output feeding the Dac1 the results are about the same for the Sony 350, lack of focus and blurry details. Again using either an older DVD player or an older CD player's digital out to the Dac1 the results are noticably better than using the Sony 350.

I'm glad to hear that many folks are having good experiences with the Wadia 170 (and Ipod) as a transport.
shadorne's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
shadorne
7,467 posts
 
Contact Elias Gwinn at Benchmark and let him know your findings. It is possible others have reported the issue and there is a fix or you can simply confirm the problem and stop wasting your time trying to get it to work. Elias may also be able to advise you on which players are known to be "bit-transparent" should you decide to sell the BDP 350 and get something that works with the DAC1.
lightminer
164 posts
 
If you were to do that and let us know I at least would find that extremely interesting. Sorry, I know there is a bit of thread hijacking here, but lots of people are about to create a setup like this, so this is very interesting.
More to discover