Ferrum WANDLA - Impressions Thread

[OldNewb]

@Jacksatin - very nice gear you have there, I'm jealous! Following on from some of the above posts, do you find much difference in the sound signature of the Wandla as input voltage from the Hypsos is increased? Specifically, does the sound become more tonally saturated and darker?

 

[ChJL]

My Ferrum stack setup , they are using 2 units of Hypsos to supplies the different voltage to each device. The different voltage in each headphone , the upgrade sound I could get from each headphone.

I wonder why you stack them like this... Hypsos rather cool and OOR hot.
Anyways, please tell me the dimensions of these feet! Thank you.

 

[Jacksatin]

@Jacksatin - very nice gear you have there, I'm jealous! Following on from some of the above posts, do you find much difference in the sound signature of the Wandla as input voltage from the Hypsos is increased? Specifically, does the sound become more tonally saturated and darker?

Hi Oldnewb,
In my opinion, I do prefer 26 voltage rather than 24 voltage from Hypsos to Wandla which it made Wandla got more dynamic and holographic noticeably. However , if it went to 28 volts, Wandla got more punchy and low end but the airy was decreased dramatically.
So, my favorite sweet spot voltage of Wandla will be 26 volts.
Moreover , in the term of OOR, the Hypsos's voltage is depended on each headphone for instance Susvara and He6seV2 are 26 volts (More smooth and detail), Abyss 1266 is 22 volts (more bass and holographic).

 

[Jacksatin]

I wonder why you stack them like this... Hypsos rather cool and OOR hot.
Anyways, please tell me the dimensions of these feet! Thank you.

My final position , OOR will be on top of Wandla on right side and the left side will be 2 Hypsos stack.
the feet of Ferrum stack is Isoacoustic Orea Bronze model (19 mm. height)

 

[ChJL]

My final position , OOR will be on top of Wandla on right side and the left side will be 2 Hypsos stack.
the feet of Ferrum stack is Isoacoustic Orea Bronze model (19 mm. height)

I see, but what's their diameter? meaning do they "stick out" from underneath... in front of the chassis?

 

[Bkido]

Todays DAC-off...
My Wandla just landed today. I loved it when I demoed it in Munich and some other meets and decided to give it a go. Currently comparing it to my Holo Spring 3 KTE and it looks like the Wandla might match my personal preference a bit better than the Spring 3. Excited to compare these two in the coming days.

btw. setup on top of the speaker is just temporary

 

[Jacksatin]

Todays DAC-off...
My Wandla just landed today. I loved it when I demoed it in Munich and some other meets and decided to give it a go. Currently comparing it to my Holo Spring 3 KTE and it looks like the Wandla might match my personal preference a bit better than the Spring 3. Excited to compare these two in the coming days.

btw. setup on top of the speaker is just

temporary

Can you please compare the two Zmf headphones with Ferrum Wandla ? I am looking for to buy a ZMF headphone either Atrium close, Atrium open or Verite close in the end of this year. My music genres is soul , EDM , hop-Jazz , alternative 90’ mostly.

Thanks

 

[kajetanjazz]

Excited to compare these two in the coming days

Please do. I’m considering both, but there’s no way I can test spring 3 w/ pre. Wandla is also comes in much cheaper, but I weren’t 100% sold on the sound

 

[taipan254]

Todays DAC-off...
My Wandla just landed today. I loved it when I demoed it in Munich and some other meets and decided to give it a go. Currently comparing it to my Holo Spring 3 KTE and it looks like the Wandla might match my personal preference a bit better than the Spring 3. Excited to compare these two in the coming days.

btw. setup on top of the speaker is just temporary

Interesting. Do you upsample with your spring 3?

My quick hypothesis would be that spring 3 plus hqplayer (dsd or pcm) or pggb (pcm) would be better than wandla with internal wandla filters (which are pcm based I believe and developed by hqplayer). Of course output stage, power supply implementation and other things matter too and may impact your perspective.

Interested to hear how you use these DACs!

 

[akukula]

Following this thread as I have the OOR and Hypsos and using Pegasus rn

 

[Patu]

Todays DAC-off...
My Wandla just landed today. I loved it when I demoed it in Munich and some other meets and decided to give it a go. Currently comparing it to my Holo Spring 3 KTE and it looks like the Wandla might match my personal preference a bit better than the Spring 3. Excited to compare these two in the coming days.

btw. setup on top of the speaker is just temporary

Interested to hear more of your impressions about Spring 3 vs Wandla, keep us updated.

 

[gadus]

Has anyone compared wandla to rme adi 2 dac fs?
In terms of sound quality, transparency and detail.
Thanks.

 

[Michaels1963]

What HDMI cable are you using for I2s

 

[Bkido]

Interested to hear more of your impressions about Spring 3 vs Wandla, keep us updated.

Since my Spring 3 sold faster than expected and will have to ship within the next few days I decided to share my experience with the two dacs side by side.

They are both very good dacs. But in the end the Wandla is going to be the one I'll be keeping. The overall package it delivers just fits my needs and preferences better.

To give the Spring 3 the best chance I used HQPlayer 5 with 1.5MHz upsampling with it - which gets them closer together performance wise. But that also already hints and one of the things I like so much about the Wandla: its integrated HQPlayer filters.
They enable Wandla to have surprisingly good staging and layering capabilities that even exceed the ones of the Spring 3 in my opinion. And that's out of the box without having to run a software on a PC.
Other things about Wandla that I preferred over Spring 3 are that it sounds snappier and faster which is especially noticeable with electronic music - which I listen a lot.

Another difference I noticed with Wandla is that it's able to position sounds in the soundstage with more precision. It feels so transparent and all around you that you feel more like being in the music. Spring 3 can sound a bit fuller and smoother in comparison but at the cost of some precision and hence immersion.

Another not sound related argument for me is also that Spring 3 needs to be running 24/7 for optimal performance - which especially in the warm summer month(and high energy prices) gets something to consider as well. And it also takes up more than double the space - in my case desk space.

Overall the Spring 3 is still an excellent DAC and depending on use case and preference it might be the better choice for some. For me it's more of a surprise what Ferrum is able to achieve with a delta sigma DAC design in such a compact form factor and ease of use.

Btw.: I also had a Weiss DAC204 here to demo a few weeks back. Also a very good sounding DAC. The punchiest out of all 3 and a bit more forward sounding. But it can't keep up with the staging and overall natural sound the other two are able to provide - also not with HQPlayer. And since it's a more bare bone dac without all the features the Wandla provides I decided against it in the end.

I hope that helps a bit. If you have any specific questions. Let me know

 

[akukula]

Thank you for this! Guess this means goodbye to my Pegasus. I will be getting the WANDLA! Much appreciated!