I choć to nie formalny test, to nawet na podstawie kilkugodzinnego odsłuchu stało się jasne, że potrafi rzeczy niesłychane. Nie odbierajcie tego jako egzaltacji; znacie nas i wiecie, że staramy się trzymać zasady, że im droższy sprzęt, tym bardziej musi udowodnić swoją wartość, by zasłużyć na uznanie. Ale Wadax w tym, co robi, jest obezwładniający. Rozwiewa wątpliwości, odpiera argumenty i świetnie się bawi, obserwując, jak staramy się go na czymś przyłapać. Gra z taką łatwością i finezją, że najmądrzejsze, co można zrobić, to zastanowić się, czego chcielibyśmy posłuchać. A później usiąść wygodnie w fotelu i nacisnąć „play”. Naturalność tego grania nie przejawia się nawet w tym, że instrumenty akustyczne i głosy mają prawdziwe, pełne, choć ani odrobinę nie przekoloryzowane barwy. To oczywiście też, ale to by było zbyt prosto i zbyt mało. A my idziemy dalej. Nawet nie idziemy, tylko lecimy gdzieś w przestrzeń międzyplanetarną, bo naprawdę jest do tego stopnia lepiej niż zwykle. O referencyjności Wadaksa przesądzają trzy aspekty, które – idealnie stopione – dają wrażenie owej niesamowitej naturalności. Są to: rozdzielczość, przestrzenność i – chyba najważniejsza z nich – umiejętność zaciekawienia słuchacza. To jest jakiś kosmos! Już sam fakt, że musimy standardowy zestaw kategorii rozszerzyć o zupełnie nowe pojęcie, sugeruje, że dzieje się coś nadzwyczajnego. I to prawda, ponieważ hiszpańskie źródło rozsadza klasyfikację. Nie tworzy nowej, ale zmienia skalę i wprowadza kolejny wymiar; w dotychczasowych ramach po prostu się nie mieści. Pozostaje świetne, ponieważ wypełnia wszystkie kryteria świetności. Ale robi też znacznie więcej, czym zaskakuje i sprawia, że szybko zaczynamy je doceniać. Natężenie poukładanych według hierarchii ważności i stabilnie lokowanych w przestrzeni szczegółów przyprawia o zawrót głowy, a równocześnie działa na nas kojąco; wiemy, że nic się nie zaciera ani nie zostaje pominięte. Głowa odpoczywa, bo niczego nie musi się domyślać. Siedzimy wygodnie, włączamy kolejne nagrania, a Wadax gra. Prosta historia, tyle że na abstrakcyjnie wysokim poziomie.

To granie nie może się nie podobać. Łączy arystokratyczną klasę z przystępnością. Zaczaruje zarówno zawodowca, jak i kompletnego amatora. Amator będzie miał nawet lepiej, bo szybko stwierdzi, że jest ładnie i nie będzie się zastanawiał, dlaczego. Słuchacza z doświadczeniem niechybnie dopadnie myślówa, przeplatana co chwila niedowierzaniem. Bo utwór niby znany, ale szczegóły nowe. To uderzenie w talerz wcześniej tak nie wibrowało. Ten pozbawiony naciągu sprężynowego werbel na „St. Anger” Metalliki wcześniej brzmiał bardziej głucho. W skrzypcach czarny aksamit czasem tak opatulał struny, że potrafił skutecznie wytłumić szczegóły i zgasić brzmienie. Teraz można docenić złożoność barwy, a dźwięk odzyskuje otwarcie i nośność. Kontrabas i fortepian zachowują selektywność nawet w najniższych dźwiękach. Nie dudnią studziennie, no chyba że realizator naprawdę się o to postarał. Bo fuszerki Wadax nie przepuści i z wrodzoną elegancją da słuchaczowi do zrozumienia, że przy konsolecie można było się bardziej postarać. Nie zniechęci do muzyki, ale też nie przemilczy niedoskonałości. I tak pozostaje o wiele bardziej wyrozumiały od źródeł podkreślających swoją analityczność wypchnięciem górnego środka i wysokiego skraju pasma. Niemniej nie można oczekiwać, że tam, gdzie jest słabo, nagle zrobi się dobrze. Podobnie reaguje na średniej jakości pliki. Te faktycznie wysokiej rozdzielczości potrafią sprawić, że przestaniemy przeglądać okładki płyt, odłożymy tablet i zanurkujemy głęboko w muzykę, poszukując nieodkrytych wcześniej składowych.

To granie jest rasowe, spełnia najwyższe kryteria oceny i… wcale a wcale nie stara się zrobić wrażenia. A im bardziej się nie stara, tym większe wrażenie robi. Od obiecującego początku do końca odsłuchu, kiedy po ostatnim wybrzmieniu siedzimy jeszcze przez moment w ciszy, nasłuchując, czy to aby na pewno był ostatni dźwięk „Lucifera” EABS. Nie możemy wrócić do otaczającego świata od razu; potrzebujemy choćby kilku chwil dekompresji. Tak bardzo wciąga, tak zaciekawia, takie opowiada historie i tak wiele przekazuje – informacji, współrzędnych źródeł pozornych i emocji. I kiedy tak siedzimy i nasłuchujemy, i okazuje się, że to już naprawdę koniec, jedyną myślą, która przychodzi do głowy, jest ta, żeby posłuchać czegoś jeszcze. Ale kilkugodzinny koncert definitywnie dobiegł końca i kolejnego bisu nie będzie. Wstajemy, zmierzamy do wyjścia i już jesteśmy pewni, że chociaż w domu tak nie zagra, to i tak warto było się przekonać, czy wrażenia z wystaw wytrzymają konfrontację z dłuższym odsłuchem w komfortowych warunkach. W tym przypadku nie tylko wytrzymały, ale pozwoliły jeszcze bardziej docenić sprzęt, który już wcześniej zapadał w pamięć. Serię Atlantis Reference obserwuję od dnia premiery. Okazuje się, że Wadax jest lepszy, niż mi się wydawało.

Link do recenzji: Wadax Reference Server – Hi-Fi i Muzyka

That question of source material brings me directly to the subject of this review, the Wadax Reference Server. It also opens a serious can of worms. If the Reference DAC stands both above and apart from its competition, The Reference Server exists on another plane entirely. Not only is this the first file replay/streaming source to deliver what I consider to be musically acceptable results, comparable to the performance of the best optical disc sources, it too sounds quite unlike anything that has come before it. This isn’t just the first and only server that I’ve heard make music, it makes music in a way that’s different to anything else I’ve heard, building on the qualities of the reference DAC but stepping way beyond them: if the DAC was a culture shock, then the Server risks demagnetising your audio compass.

File quality and provenance is a far wider issue than this review. But it is an issue you need to take seriously when contemplating the performance potential of the Reference Server, because arguably for the first time, you will be confronted with a window onto the musical performance of file replay that is capable of revealing the full quality spectrum available, from great, through good and indifferent, all the way down to musically worthless. The variations in file quality are wider than those experienced with disc replay (optical or vinyl) because the error mechanism is different and more musically destructive. Generally speaking, even lousy records possess a degree of musical coherence, their failings being tonal and dynamic, spatial and dimensional. The general pattern and rough spacing of notes is one of the last things you lose. The problem facing streamed music is that so much of its error is concentrated in the time domain, meaning that musical pattern and expression are the first things that are eroded. As the level of noise increases – and any signal that isn’t exactly where and when it should be is just noise – it quickly masks the music that remains. It’s why so many streamers sound flat, sterile and bleached, as harmonically bereft as they are bereft of human agency. Yet the Reference Server is astonishingly responsive to the colour and identity of instruments, voices and recordings. There is none of the sense of processed sameness that insinuates itself into so many file-replay systems. A well-fed Ref Server is as richly individual as the recordings it plays and the musicians they capture. That makes it the first file-replay solution that offers a genuine alternative to top-flight LP or optical disc replay.

I used both Tidal and Qobuz streaming services, accessed via Roon. However, the biggest imponderable in this equation is the quality of the files being streamed. We simply have no control over or knowledge of either the original location of the file we are listening to or the route by which it reached our network. There is also no guarantee that listening to the same material twice, even in quick succession, you will be listening to the same data, drawn from the same storage location and arriving by the same route. It makes drawing firm conclusions regarding musical quality something of a lottery. It also makes for a far more impressionistic review process – something that seems to have passed both hi-res dogma and our more deterministic digital brethren by.

Having said that, the Reference Streamer’s musical performance exceeds all the other options I’ve tried – and by a considerable margin. For the first time, the musical quality is more than up to the task of familiarising oneself with new music or making meaningful pre-purchase assessments of new recordings. Trawling through the extensive libraries on Tidal and Qobuz is equally entertaining. As I have already commented, that makes this the first streamer to really deliver on the promise of ‘unlimited musical horizons’ that has been so effectively leveraged by the file replay marketeers – even if that delivery comes at what is for most of u, an impossibly steep price. But that’s not really the point. Like all new technologies and formats, it takes time to achieve really good results. For streaming, that time is finally here and the associated costs are only going to reduce. That’s a big win not just for Wadax, but streaming in general.

I started by comparing the SACD to the downloaded and locally stored file, a process that once again underlined just how musically critical the DWC settings are – of which more in a moment. The presentation of the performance via optical disc (played on the Atlantis Reference Transport) was as quick, clean, agile and incisive as I’ve come to expect. Subtleties of timing and phrasing, the shaping of both the solo part and the orchestral accompaniment were captured with an explicit clarity and articulation that laid bare both artistic intent and the structure of the pieces as a whole.

Switching to the stored file delivered a sound that matched the SACD for speed and agility but brought an impressive sense of body, weight and instrumental density. This was a presentation that imbued the instruments with a real sense of presence and substance, a rounded dimensionality and a more natural, less etched perspective. The absolute separation and absence of noise within the soundstage and between instruments that is such a feature of SACD (and arguably contributes to a slightly hollow or sterile sound) was absent in the file replay, which offered a warmer acoustic and a more natural ‘in-hall’ balance.

The Reference DAC wasn’t just better than the competition – it was better by a country mile: and still is. Adding the Reference Server to that equation is like adding two and two and getting eight! The Reference Server is arguably even more impressive and significant than the Reference DAC, but it’s true significance is only really revealed when using the AKASA interconnect. That means that to get the results I’m describing here, you have to use the Reference DAC too, at least until Wadax offer a more affordable DAC equipped with the AKASA optical interface. Which is how what started out as a server review ended up covering a five-box digital replay chain, plus cables!

Despite those who feel that streamed music is the answer to the world, the universe and everything, it simply ain’t so. Walking around any audio show will demonstrate that! Nobody is ever going to describe the Wadax Reference set as a cheap option. But the best rarely is and, currently, if you want what is unequivocally the best streaming solution, this is it. The arrival of the full Wadax Reference set up finally elevates general file replay – by which I mean its use for playing real music for actual listening, rather than a few ‘audiophile’ recordings for test and evaluation – to qualitative equivalence with the best vinyl and optical disc systems. That’s no small thing. It’s not so much that nothing else comes close to achieving that goal: nothing else that I’ve heard is even in the same race…

Part 1: Wadax Reference Server – Gy8

Link do recenzji: Wadax Reference Server – Gy8

I’ve been following the evolution of digital audio since 1989 and have reviewed many of the industry’s most ambitious efforts. There’s been a slow and steady climb in the technical sophistication and sound quality of digital sources, punctuated by occasional leaps in performance. But the Wadax Reference Server represents a qualitative advance in sound quality that is unlike the improvements I’ve heard in a single product. It’s not an incremental advance in sound quality—more of the same but better. Rather, the Wadax pair sounds different in kind rather than in degree. The qualities that the Wadax embodies are so important musically. The Wadax conveys a feeling of spontaneity, vitality, and contemporaneous music-making that is the antithesis of canned and sterile. I heard this vivid life and immediacy on recordings I’ve been listening to for decades and know intimately. It was surprising—and sensational—to discover that these treasured recordings held greater musical expression than I had realized.

Yes, the Wadax Reference pair are crazy-expensive and will be owned by very few music lovers. But it’s impossible to put a price on the value of having an instant remastering machine in your own listening room.

I’ll start with the bass. The Reference DAC’s bass was already state of the art but driving it with the Server resulted in a metamorphosis in ways that are very important musically. The Server snapped the bass into sharp focus to reveal a level of pitch resolution, dynamic articulation, and harmonic texture that I have not heard before from any format, analog or digital. Recordings that I’ve listened to countless times over many decades were transformed. I could suddenly hear every nuance of the bass line, in pitch, dynamics, and timbre. What had been a mush, relatively speaking, was instantly clarified into individual notes. Consequently, and more importantly, the bass player’s contribution to the ensemble took on a different and more prominent role. This was particularly true of dynamics, whether from bass guitar or stand-up acoustic bass. The bass player’s dynamic emphases on certain notes were rendered with powerful clarity, profoundly affecting the music’s rhythmic flow. The bass became much more of a rhythm instrument, emphasizing dynamic accents and thus the feeling of propulsive energy.

Before I received the Reference Server, I thought that the Wadax Reference DAC produced unrivaled dimensionality, but driving it with the Reference Server through the optical interface took the spatial performance into an entirely different realm. If you have the opportunity to audition the Wadax pair, ask to hear a comparison of the Server’s USB output with the optical connection. The difference is readily audible with any music, but particularly with naturally miked recordings in a large hall—try the Arnold Overtures on Reference Recordings, for example. With the optical interface, the wall behind the speakers vanishes, replaced by a tremendous sense of distance. The apparent space between instruments in the front of the orchestra and the back deepens. The big low-brass tuttis “light up” the hall, revealing the size of the recording venue. The decays from those tuttis hang in the air longer, further explicating the hall’s scale. The air in the hall sounds “charged” and alive rather than flat and airless. Instruments or sections of the orchestra are separated from each other by tangible, three-dimensional air and space. Moreover, the way the instruments project their energy into the space around them is thrillingly vivid and realistic. As a result of these sonic characteristics, the sound becomes much more like live music and less like an electromechanical recreation. The music is more organic, natural, and free of the artifacts that remind us that we’re listening to an illusion.

The Wadax represents yet another advance in digital playback—in reproducing the smoothness and liquidity of instrumental timbre. Designers have for decades struggled with the balance between smoothness and reproducing a full measure of upper-midrange and treble energy. I’ve heard countless DACs that prioritized detail and an open and extended top end at the expense of sounding hard, bright, and fatiguing. I’ve also heard many DACs that smooth over these digital nasties by making the sound soft, euphonic, and lower in resolution. Both approaches are a recipe for long-term dissatisfaction. The Wadax, more than any other digital front end I’ve heard, achieves the perfect balance between these extremes. It has an unmatched beauty and liquidity of timbre, yet is highly detailed, vibrant, open, and extended in the treble, The Wadax doesn’t realize this smoothness by softening the sound. Well-recorded cymbals are revelatory through the Wadax, infused with detail, life, air, shimmer, and rich in treble energy without sounding bright or harsh. The Server revealed more texture and inner detail in cymbals and hi-hat. Digital has improved in this area, with the first DACs making cymbals sound like bursts of noise from a spray can. Although digital has come a long way, and there are some superb-sounding DACs on the market, the Wadax simply has no peer in its ability to sound simultaneously richly detailed in the top octaves and smooth and unfatiguing.

Link do recenzji: Wadax Reference Server – The Absolute Sound

Link: Wadax Reference Server – Hi-Fi i Muzyka – Nagroda Roku 2023

Link: Wadax Reference Server – The Absolute Sound – Editors' Choice 2022

Link: Wadax Reference Server – The Absolute Sound – Golden Ear 2022

Link: Wadax Reference Server – The Absolute Sound – Editors' Choice 2023