New Wadax Atlantis Line

[Nacho]

Hello everyone.
I have always been a great fan of music with more than 2000 cds and sacd. My favorite styles range comes from classical to rock, jazz, flamenco and pop.
My academic musical education is complete and I have been a trumpet player for six years in a classical orchestra. This theoretical and practical training has allowed me to analyze each component I have heard sonically until finding in each of them the best approach between authentic musical reproduction and my personal taste. I'm not a golden ear but i know what i want.
Two years ago I made the jump from a transport (Esoteric x-03-SE) to a server (Aurender N100H) clearly seeing that the advantages offered are superior to the drawbacks.
In this way I have been incorporating the following components to date:
TAD CR1 ( from B&W 802di)
TAC C600 ( from Darzeel cth-8550)
CLASSÉ OMEGA MONO ( from Darzeel cth-8550)
SILTECH EMPRESS II X 2 ( from Transparent Reference)
SILTECH EMPEROR II (from Mit Ma-Magnum)
SILTECH RUBY DOUBLE CROW
SILTECH OCTUPUS G7
SILTECH RUBY MOUNTAIN II ( FURUTECH NCF ) X 4
All power cables bought after listening Shunyata, Transparent, Mit and Synergistic.
SILTECH JUMPER DOUBLE CROWN SILTECH CLASSIC USB ( from Transparent Reference)
ESOTERIC D02X
AURENDER N100H
FURUTECH FT-SWS (R) WALL OUTLET
AUDIOQUEST VODKA ETHERNET
All the components have been increasing the musical quality in different degrees but in my experience I have verified that the most important ones are the first ones in the chain of the system.
The power wiring is the most important followed by sources, dac, preamp, amps and last speakers.
In my last purchase after listening to several DACs I opted for the Esoteric D02X. Not because I like it completely but was the best of all heard (TAD DA1000, Wadia, DCS Rossini, etc ...).
Curiously, Esoteric is the one that has made less improvement to the sound and I’m aware that the source is fundamental I knew that the improvement of the server was mandatory.
The field of servers is in continuous development and I was waiting for the Munich Show to see what news were presented to decide my next step.
The options on reference server were SGM2015 and Aurender W20. Twice are great players but for different reasons it doesn’t complete my needs.
Here is where i found the Wadax company and was really impressed by the Atlantis line. I did read a few reviews and i discovered that Wadax has a large experience on digital audio and is really apreciatted on markets like Asia.
I'll request a demo unit and that is my experience with it.
First of all the construction is the best i've seen on that kind of product. Very heavy unit (35kg) with a close chasis with great spikes and upside bases to put another Wadax units above.
I like closed chasis. I want dust far away from my components.
It is an USB output Server. I don't like a Server with a lot of outputs that i don't have to use. I prefer one output well developed like it is on the Atlantis. Dual AES, BNC, Ethernet, HDMI, etc....
I have experience on every kind of output and finally my conclusion is that all that matters is the implement of it. How it really sounds. I don't care if it is USB, BNC or sewing thread.
It is based on Windows but Wadax has designed a new USB line output that is far away from others servers with the typical computer output and i it is the only one that has a ground terminal (Tripoint is coming)
To finish about the specifications, i don't care about it. I'm bored about chips, sample rates, oversamplings vs upsamplings, etc....
It has been a lot of years reading about it but finally where is the sound? One example. I don't like Windows, so what? This unit sounds like angels, that's what i want. Great sound. I don't care about how the designer gets it.
In this time of demo i didn't request to Javier (Wadax designer and propietary) any specification. Only the concept and the implement of Roon.
Is it great looking? Really. Better than ugly.
Until here the "specifications".
Next post the sound impressions.

[Nacho]

First of all, i’ll try to explain it the best possible because english isn’t my first language.

Audio reproduction is a very difficult task as we all know. There are a lot of factors that are involved to:
Room, speakers, cables, ac noise, jitter, etc… But i’m going to begin from a well balanced system with a good room interaction.
I think audio master recordings are the key to understand the sound character of each component.
We don’t listen real sound, we listen the sound that the engineer thinks it’s the best posible to obtain with the record equipment and the engineer criterion.
So there are a lot of points that are very important to clarify before valore a reproduction.
Here I mention some of them:

• Acoustic impact of the situation of the orchestra, band, etc…Ex: Isn’t the same a live arena show that a quartet on a church.
• Performance’s level of each orchestra, director, etc… Ex: Claudio Abbado sounds different than Kubelic.
• Impact of the microphones and record equipment quality. Ex: DG sounds different than Decca.
• Impact of our own systems.
• Our taste of music. That’s the most important point. As we think we should heard the music we listen.

There are a lot of final sound tastes, somebody wants warm one, others direct one, we could summarize it with there are so many tastes as listeners.
I’ve been following my personal taste looking for the music reproduction as i think it should be.

Viewing the imposibility to obtain the perfect sound, i always try to listen my Reference System.



The Palau de la música of Valencia is one of the best acoustical places around the world. Not so often that i would like, the Musikverein is another great one i’ve been.
With the reception of the Wadax Server i listened the San Petersburg Philarmonic Orchestra playing Shostakovich and 5th Tchaikovsky symphony on my Reference System.
That was great because i had the oportunity to compare a violin solo performance and a big symphony like 5th one on a single concert.
At the same time, i went to a pop concert with a great equipment on an open place. Very good sound too.

Why i write this prelude? To go directly to the Wadax Server Sound.

The Wadax Server has been the only component on my home system able to jump all the factors mentioned before, to put me on the real sound nature.

After break in time, my previous hi-end experience has changed 180 degrees.

I’m not listening DG label, engineer taste, etc… Wadax is able to go througth the record to the background, to the primary level of sound.
The Server seems an excavator, it extracts the sound that are behind the record to extract the sound that the engineer isn’t able to control.
The primary sound. The sound that the microphones records and it is still on the master.

It sounds fast when required, open when required, big when required, etc, etc, etc,…. It sounds like the sound is, not like i want it sounds.
And i tell you, the sound like it is, is better that i wanted.

More on next post…..

[Nacho]

One of my favorite pieces to analize a component it's the Lang Lang "Rhapsody in blue" version recorded by Sony.
I like it because it is very instrumentaly complete and difficult to play.
First of all we have two pianos (Lang Lang on the left and Herbie Hancock on the right).
One a classical master and the other a jazz master.
On the other hand the orchestra is the London Symphonic.
That's a great american style cocktail composition with a classical style that tries to conduct the piece.
This record is particular because you can feel that also Lang as the orchestra wants to be americans for this record and when you force something the result isn't always the expected.
The record is overproduced. The orchestra sounds too much big like trying to demostrate that they are jazz players too.
The percussion, double basses and trumpets are very presents. But in that record they are bigger than others ones.
So we have a very dynamic piece with a foreign players trying to do it even more dynamic.
That produce a big ball of sound that is very difficult to reproduce on a sound system.
The Wadax Server is able to control that mess in a listenable and coherence experience.
I can hear the double bass vibrato, the tempo of the bass notes at the same time trumpets are shining and reigning when required.
There are a lot of percussion. Also too much present. All we know the difficult to hear from the hit to the cymbal membrane to the end of the vibration of it. As with the double bass i can hear all this development even when full orchestra is playing.
I have the sensation taht the Wadax is now the conductor and controls the orchestra with aplomb after to pay a beer to the director to get him away from the hall.
Separate chapter is the piano duel.
There are two styles with two different piano players and piano brands. Lang Lang is too nervous, he sounds metalic, hard...He is not playing, he is trying to be over Herbie like saying: " Hey man !!! I'm more cool than you ".
But this doesn't work and you can imagine how the sound engineer is swearing to contain a piano out of control.
Herbie performance is legendary. I wish it could record alone that Rhapsody with a great american orchestra.
The Wadax server puts every piano player perfectly on their place on a perfect development of Herbie's performance and more melodic piano instument against the violence and hard piano sounding instrument of Lang Lang.
I hear the different pianos construction but containing the Lang Lang one on a more relaxed performance. Still hard, fast, etc...but, as i said on other post jumping the engineer overproduced equalization.
I'm hearing the real hall sound.