I find Amir’s dubiousnes, or the dubiousness of his sycophants on ASR, to be probative of nothing. If Amir can’t measure a difference, then Amir cannot (and will not) hear a difference.
Since when do we owners of components in this hobby demand that marketing copy make technical sense, or demand that that marketing copy be proven by a third party to be technically accurate?
I doubt many of them have the digital technical chops to realistically evaluate WADAX's claims. I also have a highly technical background and understand a lot of the digital discussion quite well but what WADAX does I don't really know (as someone here put, what does "feedforward" digital really mean? What are they actually doing? If it is a way to further eliminate jitter then it seems they first measure the jitter and it's nature and then send an "inverse" jitter signal forward to "correct" the digital waveforms?? Maybe? probably not...no idea.
Maybe it is a bit like DSP time correction of speakers. There the timing of the drivers is measured and then delays are applied to make so the result at the microphone is in time at all frequencies (or nearly so). Can something like that be done with a digital waveform? That is kind of what it sounds like.
I personally don't like when companies say they think something works in a way that is not very consonant with known physics...the problem is, how many audiophiles know what is possible or not in physics?
My biggest problem with ASR, and engineers in general, is that they are not scientists...they are engineers and there is a big difference in the way of thinking. Engineers design to a set of criteria and once they hit that target they are satisfied. Some of them are also defining that target but it is often based on purely objective goals (certain THD and jitter over X frequency range etc.). Very few of them are actually concerned with the WHY does it sound a certain way and is that the way it is supposed to sound. Psychoacoustics is the realm of science where understanding what and why we prefer certain sound quality over other quality, when objectively, the differences are quite small (or arguably inaudible).
The problem is those guys are convinced (not sure by what other than their own disbelief in how sensitive human hearing can be) that below certain levels of distortion and noise or whatever other artifacts are generated that all things will sound the same. However, experience tells us that this isn't so... no matter how good it measures... it seems that the path in design to get to certain measurements matters a lot too.
I have heard some of these cheap DACs, especially a Topping DAC, because a friend of mine bought one. He brought it over and while it doesn't sound bad, it doesn't sound particularly high end either (made pretty flat images for example)...and it for sure has better measurements than just about anything else out there! I have had similar experiences with not-so-cheap Weiss DACs where they just sound horribly sterile and flat (except they cost several thousand). The Topping might actually sound better than the Weiss...so price indeed is not a guarantee!!
I think what bother's me about the WADAX the most is that I heard it in several rooms in Munich and it failed to deliver great sound, IMO. Hard then to justify the spend. In the room with Goebel speakers I thought the analog setup with Kronos absolutely KILLED the WADAX setup there. I know which of those I would buy for that kind of money.
So, even IF WADAX has made a huge leap in the digital section of their DAC, what comes out, to my ears at least in these show rooms doesn't advance sound quality in the way the price would suggest it should...or at all. The Kronos TT setup wowed me with SQ (I have noticed over the years that rooms with a Kronos consistently delivered great sound)...the WADAX not. Maybe if WADAX put a good tube output stage on their tech it would sound a lot better? Maybe they need the advice of really good analog circuit designers (the tech between digital and analog are quite different realms of engineering)?
Why should people spending big bucks willingly be deceived by marketing copy? Not saying WADAX is being in anyway deceptive (as I said, I lack the digital circuitry chops to judge if it is technobabble or the real deal) but there are claims to such and that is worth debating.
