Ferrum WANDLA - Impressions Thread

[Mike Hanson]

So the wandla should be close to max volume and then regulate volume om the connected amp, or reverse haha, got me confused

If your Wandla main board is only version 3 (does NOT have voltage splitter), then do this:

2. PRO-setting and consequently listening volume for me 50-55

If your main board is version 4 or 5 (has better voltage splitter for Red), then do this:

3. RED-setting and consequently listening volume for me 60-65

 

[Piffko]

What if I don't have Wandla?

 

[Mike Hanson]

What if I don't have Wandla?

Then experiment and decide what you prefer.

 

[inthere]

Has anyone had audio dropouts with the Wandla? I mean regularly when switching apps or even on social media. The Audio goes completely out and I have to either switch audio devices or the sample rate to get it back on.
I have several DACS and this only happens with Wandla.

 

[VolatileLiquid]

Has anyone had audio dropouts with the Wandla? I mean regularly when switching apps or even on social media. The Audio goes completely out and I have to either switch audio devices or the sample rate to get it back on.
I have several DACS and this only happens with Wandla.

For me, I don't think the issue is specific to wandla but I noticed on Qobuz on ipad, audio stops playing when switching apps to change tracks sometimes when hooked to ferrum stack.

More info is needed. Do you mean the audio track continues but sound stops intermittently? On pc, mac, other? Apps? Others may be able to relate.

 

[Funklefi]

I sometime experience that it drops when using Roon, It takes a few seconds and then it finds the DAC again, I do not experience it with Tidal or other players. Mostly after playing for some hours.

 

[inthere]

All sound on the computer goes out and stays off until I switch sources or sample rates, but I do have Qobuz, I'm going to uninstall and see if that fixes the problem

 

[goodvibes]

May be something to do with a Ferrum choice regarding source quality vs sound performance vs error correction. Speculation on my part.

 

[Kevintj604]

Curious if owners think the Wandla GSE is worth the price?

I'm currently using the internal DAC in my EverSolo DMP-A6 so I'd be looking for that upgrade path.

 

[Mike Hanson]

Curious if owners think the Wandla GSE is worth the price?

I'm currently using the internal DAC in my EverSolo DMP-A6 so I'd be looking for that upgrade path.

My friend has the Eversolo DMP-A6 Master Edition, with the optional linear power supply. It's still not good enough for him, so he also has the Wandla+Hypsos. (He doesn't have the GSE plugin yet, as the tube feature is the only thing he would use, and he may end up with real tubes in a buffer or preamp instead.)

He's adding a Denafrips Gaia DDC between the Eversolo/USB and Wandla, as he felt the Iris that he auditioned was "quite the squeegee!"

So yes, you can definitely get much better performance by adding an external DAC (and more) to your Eversolo.

 

[Kevintj604]

My friend has the Eversolo DMP-A6 Master Edition, with the optional linear power supply. It's still not good enough for him, so he also has the Wandla+Hypsos. (He doesn't have the GSE plugin yet, as the tube feature is the only thing he would use, and he may end up with real tubes in a buffer or preamp instead.)

He's adding a Denafrips Gaia DDC between the Eversolo/USB and Wandla, as he felt the Iris that he auditioned was "quite the squeegee!"

So yes, you can definitely get much better performance by adding an external DAC (and more) to your Eversolo.

Thanks. I suspected that my DAC is the weak link in my chain but just want to make sure. I'll start saving my pennies.

 

[Mike Hanson]

Thanks. I suspected that my DAC is the weak link in my chain but just want to make sure. I'll start saving my pennies.

The Eversolo DMP-A6's DAC isn't "bad". It's just not as nearly as good as the Wandla.

 

[VolatileLiquid]

All sound on the computer goes out and stays off until I switch sources or sample rates, but I do have Qobuz, I'm going to uninstall and see if that fixes the problem

Just a hunch, are you able to set your pc audio output to dac in an exclusive mode? If drop outs occur and doesn't resume until source is switched back, it sounds like another audio sound took priority over temporarily and it's unable to switch back. Like a notification sound.

 

[goodvibes]

I'm not a DAC expert, so feel free to educate me as needed here. But in my mind, the two main functions of a standalone DAC are to 1) Convert a digital signal to an analog one that best matches the original source (duh), and then 2) output an amplified signal with as little noise and distortion as possible.

I've bought a few expensive DACs, and given that the cheap stuff is already measuring really well on point (2), I've attributed the improved performance to the actual DA conversion -- Holo/Chord/Rockna/et al are giving me a fundamentally better analog signal out of the digital input because they're using their own technology to do the conversion. SMSL and Topping do a fine job and measure as good or better on noise and distortion, but they're never going to get to Holo levels of performance as long as they're using those ESS chips.

Now, if the Wandla ends up sounding as good or better than the Holo/Chord/Rockna/etc products at the same price range, I'm going to have a problem because one or both of the following has to be true:

A. The primary digital to analog conversion step is NOT improved by using all the fancy R2R and FPGA technology in lieu of a cheap ESS chip. Rob Watts is wrong, Jeff Zhu is wrong, we've been pouring money into snake oil all this time and ASR is right to be pointing and laughing at us.
B. The amplification section is dramatically more important than the DAC step and that improved performance isn't measurable by distortion, noise, etc.

If (A) is true, then the whole high end DAC game is a farce. I know there are lots of people that believe that, but I'm not one of them. I'm actually not aware of any high-end standalone DAC that uses ESS chips (the Benchmark DAC3 is maybe the highest-end I can think of and still comes in at half the price we're looking at here?), but I'll take your word for it that they're out there. And if (B) is true, then it's awfully weird for Ferrum to not include the high-performance power supply given that it would be foundational to the performance of the unit -- you wouldn't even want to give people the OPTION of using a $2800 DAC that couldn't really get that right.

So anyway that's why I'm confused about this product. If it turns out to be really good then it turns the whole "high end DAC" thing upside down for me and I'll have to re-evaluate how I think about these things.

I used to always prefer a top r2r DAC simply because errors tended to be more about amplitude and D/S errors tend to affect time. Not sure the tech involved but that's my undertanding and may be why folks have generally attribute top r2r dacs as having better imaging, solidity and appearing blacker between notes. I suspect that as error correction, clocks, noise shaping and filtering improves the formats get closer and I find the ESS 9038 sounds very solid when well implimented. It's the chip that had me see D/S in whole new light.

The Wandla also has a lot of cool hiden tech, one of which is the single ended output (RCA) still benefitting from common more rejection in the digital domain. It has a summing circuit for balanced to single ended and that specs better than a full chip in unbalanced mode. A 2nd DAC chip here wouldn't do much if anything. They may help other designs but used this way, 2 dac channels for each of up, down and both left and right is plenty and there are actual advantages to using one chip insteadof 2 or more.

From another forum:

The other practical reason not to go dual mono (2 chips) on any of the ES9008/18/28/38 etc... is that there is a +/- 14% matching accuracy between chips... what that means is that you have to apply level correction to each chip to get them to match. Well there is good news and bad news on that front - the good news is that the new chips have an ADC and an "auto level calibration" feature - that bad news is that to use it you have to reduce the master trim on the chips (to give the calibration feature headroom to apply positive or negative correction) - which has much more impact on dynamic range and THD than you might think!

A single ESS9038/9 has 8 DAC channels that can be configured in a lot of ways. How many do you need?

 

[Mike Hanson]

Different DACs sound different. The measurements are only a starting point. Then you have to listen to see if you like the character, and the analog output buffer has a lot to do with that.

Btw, I also have a Benchmark DAC2, and the Wandla+Hypsos is much more preferable to me.