Sorry to go dark here, wanted to give myself enough time to anchor and burn-in my brain. I'm no eloquent wordsmith when it comes to impressions so bear w/ me on the limited jargon and selective cliches. First of all I sold my DAC3 recently after extensive comparison, I guess the bright side of quarantine is being able to listen for hours every day. Needless to say I'm happy, enamored even, w/ the Wavelight about 3 weeks in now. Nicolae mentioned he is working on the next firmware update so I look forward to that release. I don't have another DAC on hand for direct A/B thus any mentions would simply be callbacks from past experience and memory so take it for what it's worth. For starters, one aspect that stands out to me is the difference of these 4 filters are more distinctly audible than e.g. Hugo 2 where I could not confidently distinguish one filter from another. So in essence Wavelight, I imagine Wavedream as well, is quite a chameleon suitable to various nuanced preferences. I've landed on the hybrid filter for most of my listening thus far.
@EagleWings you took the words out of my mouth w/ that succinct assumption. Perhaps the biggest draw to me has been the hint of analog seductiveness w/o being overtly smoothed. In other words, not thick and heavy like butter but more like Margarine i.e. I can't believe it's not butter. The treble particularly flows across liquid and grainless w/o feeling rolled off, just enough sparkle w/o reaching an etchy threshold. The stage is sizable but more notably it is perceptibly holographic, great sense of depth and 3D-ness perpetuating precise imaging. Notes seem to float effortlessly above a deep and inky background w/ discernible space during layered passages. Specifically two aspect are hitting home for me as standout presentations, eerily lifelike; 1) decay and tone of piano, sax, and 2) organic timbre on female vocalists. Now how different is it from other capable DACs? Well after a glass of scotch or two I'd surely say who cares about this upper echelon hair-splitting, first world problems after all, but at full cognizance I would say granular differences are easily detectable as critical-listening time accumulates. Various DACs have passed through my journey and it has become more apparent to me that I have a slight affinity towards R2R because they have more - for lack of better word - character, though I still enjoy and appreciate other topologies. We are reaching the extremes of subjectivity now but on one side of the spectrum, there's surgical transparency and resolution like DAVE.. conversely there's more tonal driven musicality like Terminator. This is perhaps also a euphemism for clinical vs smeared. Somewhere in between lies the rest of my experience, DACs like Holo, Lampi, Aqua lean towards Terminator, while chip DACs strives to sound like a DAVE but get nowhere close. Ultimately if I had to pick one signature, embodiment, the Wavelight reminds me of, it would be Yggy but more elevated, refined, polished. In conclusion, I'm enjoying the Wavelight a lot and plan to peruse the next level by pairing the upcoming Wavelight Server alongside via I²S. If you're DAC shopping in this price range, give some consideration to Wavelight. I think, I hope, this front-end will keep me happy for a long time, but who knows when the next shiny object will come along.
As a footnote, I mainly listen to jazz, acoustics, female vocalists. I like pop, hip-hop, and EDM as well but it's more car or party music to me. Can you imagine blasting Diana Krall windows down on the expressway?
My current system includes IsoTek Aquarius, EtherRegen, Lumin U1 Mini, Bakoon AMP-13R, and Susvara. Cabling is Shunyata on power and mostly Cardas elsewhere.
