Wadia at CEDIA 2014

Adrian Low

Industry Epert
Hi all,
Just came back from CEDIA 2014 which was held Sept 10-13 in Denver. Wadia has some very exciting new products coming for this Fall.

First, there is an all new 1 series, which is slightly wider than the 3 series with similar cosmetics and chassis material; the chassis is made of cast aluminum with smoked glass top.
The di122 DAC has 4 S/PDIF inputs capable of 24/192 resolution. The USB input supports 24/384 and will decode DSD2.8 and 5.6. Balanced and RCA outputs with volume control. A high powered headphone output is also included. Price will be $1,500 USD
Wadia di122 angle.jpg

The matching a102 power amplifier is rated at 50 watts/ch into 8 or 4 ohms
Wadia a102 angle.jpg
Wadia a102 back.jpg

Following the stunning 321 Digital convertor, Wadia showed the m330 Media Server, a315 stereo amplifier and a340 monoblock amps

The m330 Media Server streams music servers like Pandora, Spotify and Rhapsody, decodes up to 24/192 and controllable from an Apple IOS or Android app. This device is a collaborative effort with Autonomics, with Wadia licensing the streaming technology and adding the company's own DAC technology; a significant improvement over the Autonomics server is a separate 30GB Solid State hard drive that houses the operating system, unlike the Autonomics. The server includes Cloud Access for file backup and synchronization with multiple systems. There is an internal 1TB hard drive to store content, as well as the ability to add external drives. Price is $6,000 USD

Wadia m330 angle.jpg

Wadia m330 back.jpg

The a315 stereo amp and a340 monoblocks feature Wadia's proprietary class D technology. The a315 stereo amp is rated at 150 watts/ch into 8 ohms and 300 watts/ch into 4 ohms. The a340 monoblocks are rated at 400 watts into 8 ohms and 800 watts into 4 ohms. Both balanced and rca inputs are available, while the monoblocks will also have XLR and RCA outputs for easy connections in bi-amp configurations.
The a315 is $3,500 and the a340 is $8,000/pr
 

amirm

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I didn't make it to CEDIA this year unfortunately. So good to hear some reports back. The Wadia stuff always has such a clean industrial design and these are no exceptions. Is the "monoblock" fan cooled or class D? I am asking because there is no heat sink visible, nor any other kind of venting.
 

Adrian Low

Industry Epert
I didn't make it to CEDIA this year unfortunately. So good to hear some reports back. The Wadia stuff always has such a clean industrial design and these are no exceptions. Is the "monoblock" fan cooled or class D? I am asking because there is no heat sink visible, nor any other kind of venting.

Hi Amir, the Wadia amps are proprietary Class D according to Ron Cornelius. And they look stunning in person.
2014-09-12 10.57.03.jpg

2014-09-12 10.57.55.jpg
 

Adrian Low

Industry Epert
Not that I know. I've requested tech info, but haven't received anything. I know the company is very busy since the Fine Sounds takeover; all new products, design, manufacturing etc...might be a while before we see supporting white papers and marketing material. I'm just glad that Wadia is moving forward.
 

Roysen

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Who is are the people behind Wadia now? I am still sticking with my Series 9 combination with GNSC statement modifications as the best pure CD player I have heard. I still keep my fingers crossed they will be back making components at the same high quality as back in the days of the 800 and 900 series but I might hope in vain. I am really curious who the people behind the products are now.
 

Hyperion

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Fine Sounds Group are now the formal owner of Wadia, McIntosh, Sonus Faber and ARC - as most of you probably know. I believe the development team behind Wadia to be more or less intact, but they seem to work close to McIntosh nowadays sharing some technology and solutions for the Wadia 300-series of mediaservers, DACs and power amps.

According to some industry sources, there's a standalone model on a higher level forthcoming from Wadia - but nothing's official yet.


Who is are the people behind Wadia now? I am still sticking with my Series 9 combination with GNSC statement modifications as the best pure CD player I have heard. I still keep my fingers crossed they will be back making components at the same high quality as back in the days of the 800 and 900 series but I might hope in vain. I am really curious who the people behind the products are now.
 

Adrian Low

Industry Epert
Yes that is my understanding as well. McIntosh is tasked with the manufacturing/assembly and billing, but design apparently is still done by Wadia engineers, though I'm sure engineering is shared throughout the companies. It makes sense to leverage resources if ideas and implementation are similar.
 

Roysen

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It is my understanding that there is nothing left of the old Wadia team. They were let go by Fine Sounds while holding ownership. The old staff at Wadia has started a new company called Exogal. Wadia today is most likely nothing but McIntosh and Audio Research engineered components.

Steve Huntley of the late great GNSC said that Jim Kinnie is the most talented digital engineer he has ever worked with. So I guess Fine Sounds had big plans for Wadia when they gathered the team which is now Exogal. Then something must have happened and Wadia suddenly just became the lifestyle department of Audio Research.
 
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egidius

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lifestyle here, there, anywhere?

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Exogal Comet at €2200.

A Ti PCM 9211 ADC and receiver at $2,5 controls the analog and digital inputs.
Comet is a unbalanced design so to get balanced outputs, so the dac chip used is a 4 channel type - Ti PCM 4104 at $5.
The big Altera DSP chip do the upsampling and digital filtering.

No discrete parts here in this lifestyle product.


May I ask, as I am not up to date: The newest Wadia products seemed lifestyle, cheap in comparison to my GNSC 781 and later GSNC S7i - but in your post you consider EXOGAL also lifestyle, whereas Roysen describes the EXOGAL team as most advanced.
Can somebody eluminate on these new products, or is it just all the same, and the Wadia knowhow has been dispersed in the Sea?
 

Roysen

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Can't and won't comment on the products of Exogal as I have never heard them. What I am talking about is the people with the knowledge. They are no longer involved with Wadia. They are now with Exogal. Who is now working for Wadia developing their products are a big mystery to me. I hope someone could elighten us.
 

Roysen

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View attachment 17609

View attachment 17610

View attachment 17611

Exogal Comet at €2200.

A Ti PCM 9211 ADC and receiver at $2,5 controls the analog and digital inputs.
Comet is a unbalanced design so to get balanced outputs, so the dac chip used is a 4 channel type - Ti PCM 4104 at $5.
The big Altera DSP chip do the upsampling and digital filtering.

No discrete parts here in this lifestyle product.

If you think back at all the great Wadia products of the past they were not discrete components. Esoteric transport mechanisms, Burr Brown DAC chips etc. Still Wadia made them sound the best in the market. Jim Kinnie is the man behind the 270, 27 and 790 products which must be the highlight period of Wadia with the products considered the best compared to its competitors in the marketplace.
 
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egidius

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On behalf of everybody I should like to ask you to hear your tone, and in fact tone down: I simply wanted to know more, and had no intention of setting off two members against each other.
 

Roysen

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I appologize Egidius and I agree. I will not continue any argument on this forum. I will however add to my defence that I do not appriciate being threatened and at least not in the welcoming e-mail after I have accepted to pay money to get access to a blog. Who charges for entry to a blog? He gets the picutres sent to him by the manufactureres anyway. He has not owned or even heard any of the components he is presenting all these picutures of and then claim to review with a score. All information is sent to him from the manufacturerers who see what he does as free marketing. Then he wants to charge us money for that. Give me a break. I was actually prepared to accept all of that until he in his welcoming e-mail threatened me if I ever posted any information from his blog outside the blog I would get banned for life. As if he has any owner rights to that information in the first place.

I am posting this here now in order to stop anyone doing a mistake by actually believing in any of the stories he is telling about having heard any of the products he is writing about. He has not. All that is purely fiction as Mike Lavigne has called him out for in the past. So consider this a warning to anyone who wants to buy anything based on the "reviews" he has been posting on any forum or on his own blog with his personal scoring system or just based on his description. It is purely fiction.

Or I might actually be mistaken in one regard - that is about the Bugatti Veyron he claims to own. :rolleyes:
 
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egidius

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No need to apologise: I always got useful information of you, so thanks for that - even now I have learned something, and I would probably whoheartedly agree with you, if I had paid for access to a blog!?
 

egidius

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apology or not ;-)

No need to apologise: I always got useful information of you, so thanks for that - even now I have learned something, and I would probably whoheartedly agree with you, if I had paid for access to a blog!?

If you all keep editing, there is indeed need to apologise...
 

egidius

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I don't know what to response to this untrue claims, many of them just made up from members from this forum.

Roysen is the first person who react like this from my 35+ members, actually I'm not surprised, he copied a lot from my old site.
None of the Ultimate members are interested to post information on any forums. Ultimate isn't a news blog, but I also post technical articles.

Some manufactuers send me pictures, but I've posted pictures from almost all high-end brands on the market on my site.
No I don't get paid from any of them, and my site have no ads that many claims it has.

The score of the products was for my own reference that I used before - I've not owned all of them, but heard many of them in other systems I know well, and many of them were loaners.
No I haven't heard Exogal Comet, but the Geman Audio magazine has - 125 points, the same as NAD M51 and T+A Dac 8. Comet sounds a little better than Wadia 121 at 120 points.

And that Veyron - that was in a different life and country I live in now, and almost 10 years ago, but sadly only for a very short time - I almost got bankrupt at that time and had to sell it.


I'm tired of this forum now, so this will be my last post on WBF.
Later I think I will ask Steve Williams to delete all my posts on this forum - if this is something you want me to do I will ask him?

This is getting really interesting: Any more of you high frequency posters, some with lots of glossy pictures (high end porn?) now threatening to delete all posts WITH all the nice pics.
Why bother to post in the first place.

My advice: Tone down. and maybe moderators close down that thread. No good.
 

Roysen

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Like I wrote, I am finished with this issue now. I have no interest in taking this issue further on this site. If I had found it appropriate I would instead have persued the case outside of this forum. I do however need to make one point clear and that is the reason why I bring this up is not only about being threatened. The second reason is that since I am a very enthusiastic audiophile who has actually had experience with quite a few very expensive high end equipment I also receive a fair amount of information about new and future products myself. This I find it interesting to share with the audiophile community FOR FREE. Some of that information which I post has since been copied into Wizards blog where he charges money from his members to view that information. So what he is claiming to be me coping his informtaion, it is actually he who has copied my information on quite a few occations and then use that information to charge other people money. I really don't like that kind of behaviour. I want the information coming from me to be free. So please don't misunderstand this to be an issue over money either becuase I don't think marketing information should something anyone should pay to receive. It should be free. So there is the last of it. My final word on this issue.
 

Adrian Low

Industry Epert
Hi guys, perhaps it's time to lighten up a little. In the overall scheme of things, this is really quite insubstantial. Wizard posts beautiful pics and I appreciate that. If he sent Roysen a threatening email, that's between them. I for one am glad Roysen posts. Don't know what the actual issues are between the two of them, though hopefully they can iron things out as reasonable people.

Re Wadia engineers, I posted what I was told during my dealer meeting. It is certainly possible that some/many of the team has left the company; I'm led to believe Wadia maintains its own engineers separate from the other companies that Fine Sounds owns. Wadia of the past certainly made some wonderful products. The new company seems to be doing the same now. Will they blaze the trail like before? Only time will tell. Wadia has not released any "cost no object" products as yet. Maybe they never will, depending on the company's strategy.

The one thing that does bother me about Wizard's posts is the inclusion of the "costs" of certain parts, presumably indicating that cost is related to performance. If so, then the Bugatti Veyron mentioned earlier must be only as good as the cheapest parts used...screws? Bolts? A $100 windshield wiper? Ok maybe $200. All companies buy parts from vendors. No one can make everything themselves, nor is it fiscally responsible. If parts costs are important to the performance, then perhaps it should be proven somehow. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've heard the same tweeters (for example, Dynaudio's Esotar) sound magnificent as well as average. Later in the old Wadia's product lineup, the company released "all in one" CD players and they claimed that the performance was better than the separates due to much lower jitter. I never had the chance to verify this, but assume that Wadia would not state this unless it was true. In the case of the CD players, the cost was substantially less than the separates. This did not mean the performance was worse.

Finally, I've spoken to many manufacturers and designers who I trust, and they certainly do not assume that parts cost directly relate to performance.
 

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