Wadia 860 thoughts....

Has anyone heard / owned one of these players. Ive seen one for a reasonable price and wondered about the issue of having very deep / large bass???? Is this a problem of the player or is it a matching issue? The guy selling it, described it as having almost too much bass. Tony at Coherent suggested the 860 as a good second hand option. Im looking at the 2k mark. any other cdp suggestions welcome for that sort of money, but second hand only..

 

£2k is too much for the basic 860

A couple of others at the price worth a listen, these are very different too the wadia house sound but may give you another prospective.

Marantz SA1

Audio Aero Capitole

Sugden Masterclass

 

Hi banpe2006 I agree with Ya-boo £2000 is way to much for a player of this age . It must be about 7 years old ,however if you got it cheap enough say for £1000 to £1200 you could(if they can still do it have it upgraded to an 861 spec. Well worth doing ,give The Musical Design Company a ring and ask to speak to anyone other than Michael,as hes not really up to much.Ideally the Md Ian Bolt,nice guy.). The only problem with Wadia's is they need to be left on all the time,and it takes about a month to reach full potential(i am not talking about run in . This is after the thing is run in.) Once their they are fabulous,big open sound stage . Lots of depth,height,width of image and a very open and detailed sound. The signature of Wadia is the very solid weighty sound they have. Bass is amazing but need not be an issue if your system is matched to it . I would not use large full range speakers in a small room with a Wadia as that would lead to bass boom.
One other thing is to really fully hear a Wadia you need to use the Xlr balanced outputs into an amp with the same,if you don't you will be missing out on a fair bit of what it can do.

Ya-boo's suggestions are good but i would say that the Audio Areo is a bit on the flaky side for build quality ,but if you can get a good one worth a listen. As to the Marantz Sa1 not bad but a Marantz CD7 will beat it on Cd playback.You may be able to get one for about £1500 or so . I once had the opportunity to compare one to my stock CD7 ,in my system there was no contest,the CD 7 was more open and airy ,with better detail and a less soft sound . The SA1 reminded me a bit to much of the soft warm sound bit stream had .

However a Wadia 861 basic was a lot better than my Marantz cd 7. The Wadia reminded me of a Nottingham Analogue Mentor Reference turntable . Very solid and stable with lots of macro and micro detail ,all built on a foundation of very solid tight extended bass and an amazing weight and scale. The only serious flaw(depending on your system) is that the Wadia can spot light detail a bit to much ,things sound a bit to HI-Fi rather than organic.

Hope this helps . Regards D Louth

 

yes, very helpful - thats what i wish to avoid ( hif, rather than music) . A month of being left on? are you serious? I sold a wadia 830, as i wasnt happy with the sound entirely - would it have made a difference if it was on all the time? Ill look into the matantz, any other suggestions?

 

lavry

Just buy a lavry da-10,£600 ish use your current transport .

 

2K is far too much to play for a CDP of any age.
Any CDP that sounds different is wrong...

 

I wouldn't buy a cdp especially an older model, if the transport breaks you may well be stuffed, the lavry is a super little dac,better sounding dacs are available (including the 924 Lavry )but diminishing returns kick in hard.

 

Hi banape2006

Sorry to say but yes Wadia's must be left on and they all take a month to reach full potential . I Don't know why this is but every Wadia i have looked/heard has been the same. I have had in my system Wadia 302 and 861 basic and 861 standard.

My Moon Andromeda and Amr cd77 are the same as the Wadia in needing left on as will any Marantz tda 1541 dac user. The difference isn't subtle so yes you may have dumped your previous wadia to soon. What did you not like about its sound in your system?

The Wadia standard sounded better than the basic which in theory it should have been the other way round. The basic has less additions(digital in's and outs) however i heard what i heard and both machines were well run in . I spoke to Ian Bolt about this at the time and he was surprised as he thought the basic should be slightly better(bargain if you didn't need all the extras,which i actually wanted) However i was going to get a 861se but they discontinued it when i finally had the cash to buy at this price.

I bought a Moon Andromeda ,which is as good and better than the Wadia in that it has a more organic and less spot lit sound (Roy Gregories HI-FI + review on the Moon is a very good and in my opinion accurate description of the difference between these players,in his system he prefered the Wadia).

You may not feel that the Wadia sound is HI-FI ,you must hear it in your system to agree or
disagree.

As to buying second hand ,yes you may run the risk of not being able to find a replacement lazer but that can happen new. I site the musical Fidelity Tri-vista sacd player . this Philips lazer caused any one who used it a lot of grief as they were crap. Philips would not help their customers in this case MF . What did the owners of these players do ? They had to accept an offer of changing to a dm25 transport and dac or the like (and pay more money) and these don't play sacd's . So new can cause issues to. A good rule is avoid oddball mechanisms Philips pro 2 safe enough as is Teac(Wadia),i would avoid anything with a Philips CDM 1 (very old but excellent mechanism. These are almost impossible to find now) ,so that rules out most early Marantz machine such as the CD 12,94 etc also early Micromega .

I have bought a fare bit second hand and have so far not had any major problems ,most awkward was a Micromega Data but an engineer i know put it right and i have now found a guy who makes that guy look very poor.

" You pays your money and takes your chance"

Regards D Louth

 

CDP's left on for a month! You are joking aren't you, I borrowed the AMR for a month and it was poor , perhaps I should have left it on!

 

Keith, as far as I know at least half a dozen people here have heard the AMR and not one of us thinks it was poor. I realise that reviews (Internet or Magazines) don't mean much, but the ones I've seen have been very positive. It may not be to your taste but simply repeatedly saying it was poor does not help anyone. I'm not saying don't criticise it, but I do wonder why you seemed to have singled out this CDP.

 

I just can't stand this ' leave it on for a month and it is marvellous' crap, I heard the AMR amongst about thrty other players all at home and in the same system, I would just advise anyone when considering spending that much cash to listen to at least four or five alternatives at home, magazine reviews count for nothing.

 

Agreed.

 

I had budgeted £4500 for an Audio Research CD3 that I think sounds great. My plan was to use it for special occasions as I intended to use my Mac streaming uncompressed to my Benchmark DAC for every day listening until I compared them side by side. The Benchmark at £700 was 95% of the CD3 at £4500. Stunning, and if you like detail, musicality, and natural presentation then you will like the Benchmark. Its like going to a gig and thinking, wow those guys play well.

 

how does it work with my current cdp? its a modded sony, that sounds very good, - does the sony become a transport for the dac - im not exactly sure of the workings, but its only a cheap player I think, in its original form.

 

What a load of crap you're talking about the wadia needing a month left on to sound its best.


Some of you guys really make me laugh with stupid theories.

 

I always leaft my Wadia 6 on standby. Even the on/off switch was at the rear of the chassis to encourage this.
It always sounded great, with a really dark sound, and yes, prodigious bass.
However, it started skipping, and I replaced it witha CEC belt drive CDP. I must say, this seems to show the wadia a clean pair of heels, with much enhanced delicay, particularly on vocals, and the rest of the upper midrange.

 

Okay Guys

Keith and class A, i am not talking a load of crap ! and i am sick of narrow minds and narrow attitudes . It is generally accepted wisdom that some CDP need to be left on to sound their best . The Wadia,Moon and Tda 1541 dac users being some of the others(this includes the AMR CDP).

With some players the improvement is small but worth having and with other the machines i have mentioned the improvement is more dramatic . Now if you cant accept this fine but stop being so aggressive about it ,as they say where i come from "Wind your Neck in." I know what i have heard/and others ,over the last 18 years of listening to many different makes of cdp,proper run in and warm up makes a difference. I wish it didn't what savings in electricity bills i would have made but the sound improvement is worth the cost. All my current CDP are always left on .

I throw down a challenge to anyone who reads this thread who does not leave their player on all the time to leave it on over the next week and post if you feel the sound has improved and if so buy how much and in what way. In some cases i suspect it will be only by a little in others cases by a lot especially if its a multibit player TDA1541 or a Moon or Wadia(which should be on for longer,but you will still hear a better sound. If you do leave it on for the month)

Class A have you ever owned a Wadia if not keep your ill-informed opinions to your self please. If you have experience outline it in detail please ,otherwise only comment on what you have experience of and don't be guilty of what you have accused me of ,I.E "Speaking crap" yourself. And as for this being a stupid theory no class A its a fact not a theory. I at least can qualify everything i say on this forum and i usually do,unlike others,who make sweeping statements and don't offer any experience or details to back up their so called truth. Come on guys start sharing what you know and how you know it,so we can understand how you came to your conclusions .

I agree with Keith(coops) that anyone interested in buying an expensive player should hear them in his or hers system but equally i should have thought (i do) that you should offer all your potential options the best possible circumstances to give their best and if that means 800 hours of run in or being fully warmed up(IMO and others at least a month with the likes of Wadias)what have you to loose to do this. If you aren't prepared to properly access products then frankly you are wasting your time and everyones else who reads this forums time IMO and coops i am not necessarily talking about you when i say that.

I accept Keith in the context of your system that you didn't like the AMR/or it was not compatible,but that does not mean it does not work well and brilliantly else where.

Increasingly Frustrated D Louth

 

I own a Moon Eclipse CD player and there is bugger all difference in sound whether it is freshly switched on or left on for weeks. Any differences are extremely marginal.

My system is extremely transparent, so I would hear differences.

I think people are letting their imaginations run away with themselves, or at the very least vastly overstating the significance of the warm up phenomenon.

 

robbo do you use your player single ended or balanced ?

The warm up issue is more obvious when using balanced over rca . I would agree that if you use rca connection then and while i think the sound is better after a week or so the sound transforms with the xlr out puts to a much greater extent

. I can't offer an explanation for this but all the Moon kit i have tried is the same . From the Super Nova and i7 amp to my Andromeda and i am not prone to flights of imagination . I just listen carefully and am methodical in how i do it .

It could also be that your marginal improvements are more important to others .

Regards D Louth

 

I agree that hifi components sound better when they've warmed up - and as a result of this - I leave my kit on 24/7