[mantraone]

Learnt a few things today.

- when using an i2s connection, and when doing comparing to USB connection, leaving the USB cable plugged in and trying to switch back to i2s, the dac will not get a lock back with the i2s connection. The usb cable needs to be removed from the back of the dac, or, the dac needs to be restarted. The usb cable cannot be left plugged into the dac (with the other end unplugged from the source).

- sotm, innuos phoenix, singxer su-6, i2s, Rockna sounds better than sotm, phoenix usb, Rockna

the su-6 or i2s connection (or both) is making the improvement. Either way, i2s sounds better with the rockna.

- i had previously updated firmware by playing the firmware update wav through the dac. Today, when using the Rockna app to put the dac in standby, it said there was a new firmware available and asked if I wanted to update. I pressed ok and UPD.xx% showed up on the dac. After 100% it showed UPD.DONE

but firmware was the same as the one I had previously updated. :|

So with Singxer su-6 the rockna wavelight works with I2S mode 2 = PsAudio Pinout? Did you try other DCC interface? Gustard U18, Denafrips or....?

no issue with DSD 256with the sigxer su-6 fully high sample rate?

 

[Roasty]

So with Singxer su-6 the rockna wavelight works with I2S mode 2 = PsAudio Pinout? Did you try other DCC interface? Gustard U18, Denafrips or....?

no issue with DSD 256with the sigxer su-6 fully high sample rate?

I have tried i2s mode 1 2 3 on the Rockna and all work with the SU-6. just need to toggle the right switches on the SU-6 if using dsd as for some settings the L R channel is flipped. no issues with dsd256.

 

[EagleWings]

As some of you might know, I find my Wavelight to be on the bright side and I have been trying to battle the brightness using all sorts of tweaks.

In a hope that Supra Cables tunes all their entry level cables like their entry level USB cable (natural sounding, yet quite resolving), back in July 2021, I purchased their entry level power cable ($91) for my Wavelight. As soon as I swapped it in, I noticed it was relatively brighter sounding. But the extra dynamics, energy and vigor it added to the Wavelight was a welcome change that, I just left it in, hoping that the brightness would fade away after some burn in. So I stowed away the stock power cable and continued using the Supra.

A friend of mine, who is into power cable memes, wanted to try my Supra power cable, so I sent it to him a couple of days back. I brought out Wavelight’s stock power cable and started using it. While I did notice the Wavelight to be less harsh sounding than it did in the past many months, I didn’t connect the dot that, it might be due to the power cable swap.

My friend called me today and reported that the Supra power cable tends to sound thin and bright, relative to most power cables he has tried. And that is when it hit me, that the Wavelight was sounding more pleasant the last couple of days, because I had switched to the stock power cable. So if you are looking for a warm, full and smooth sounding cable for your Wavelight, the Supra power cable is NOT an option.

P.S: Even with the stock cable, I still find the Wavelight to be on the bright side and I still get the fatigue from the upper treble. Just that is not as harsh as the Supra power cable.

 

[ThanatosVI]

As some of you might know, I find my Wavelight to be on the bright side and I have been trying to battle the brightness using all sorts of tweaks.

In a hope that Supra Cables tunes all their entry level cables like their entry level USB cable (natural sounding, yet quite resolving), back in July 2021, I purchased their entry level power cable ($91) for my Wavelight. As soon as I swapped it in, I noticed it was relatively brighter sounding. But the extra dynamics, energy and vigor it added to the Wavelight was a welcome change that, I just left it in, hoping that the brightness would fade away after some burn in. So I stowed away the stock power cable and continued using the Supra.

A friend of mine, who is into power cable memes, wanted to try my Supra power cable, so I sent it to him a couple of days back. I brought out Wavelight’s stock power cable and started using it. While I did notice the Wavelight to be less harsh sounding than it did in the past many months, I didn’t connect the dot that, it might be due to the power cable swap.

My friend called me today and reported that the Supra power cable tends to sound thin and bright, relative to most power cables he has tried. And that is when it hit me, that the Wavelight was sounding more pleasant the last couple of days, because I had switched to the stock power cable. So if you are looking for a warm, full and smooth sounding cable for your Wavelight, the Supra power cable is NOT an option.

If you want a warm power cable the pricey Audioquest Thunder might fit the Bill from what I read.

 

[EagleWings]

If you want a warm power cable the pricey Audioquest Thunder might fit the Bill from what I read.

Thanks Than, I’ll keep this in mind.

 

[Roasty]

I've tried several power cords on the Wavelight and always go back to the Triode Wire Labs Digital.

 

[alekc]

As some of you might know, I find my Wavelight to be on the bright side and I have been trying to battle the brightness using all sorts of tweaks.

In a hope that Supra Cables tunes all their entry level cables like their entry level USB cable (natural sounding, yet quite resolving), back in July 2021, I purchased their entry level power cable ($91) for my Wavelight. As soon as I swapped it in, I noticed it was relatively brighter sounding. But the extra dynamics, energy and vigor it added to the Wavelight was a welcome change that, I just left it in, hoping that the brightness would fade away after some burn in. So I stowed away the stock power cable and continued using the Supra.

A friend of mine, who is into power cable memes, wanted to try my Supra power cable, so I sent it to him a couple of days back. I brought out Wavelight’s stock power cable and started using it. While I did notice the Wavelight to be less harsh sounding than it did in the past many months, I didn’t connect the dot that, it might be due to the power cable swap.

My friend called me today and reported that the Supra power cable tends to sound thin and bright, relative to most power cables he has tried. And that is when it hit me, that the Wavelight was sounding more pleasant the last couple of days, because I had switched to the stock power cable. So if you are looking for a warm, full and smooth sounding cable for your Wavelight, the Supra power cable is NOT an option.

P.S: Even with the stock cable, I still find the Wavelight to be on the bright side and I still get the fatigue from the upper treble. Just that is not as harsh as the Supra power cable.

@EagleWings I find it strange that your WL is on the bright side. I had 3 different Rockna WLs (one demo at dealers site, 2nd demo in my system and 3rd the one I've bought - completely new) and none has been bright or very harsh. This makes me wonder what amp/pre amp are you using. Maybe it is more about pairing and synergy than issues with WL. On the other hand have you contacted Rockna about it?

One more question: is it bright but still smooth or rather bright and harsh?

Last but not least we are all different and hear differently so my experience may not be applicable to your finding in any way

 

[EagleWings]

@alekc , yea it has been quite puzzling to me too, with regards to, how polarising my findings and the reports on the internet has been. Although there have been a few more folks on this thread early on, who also found their Wavelight to have treble issues. Apart from differences in treble sensitivities, I also believe there could be unit variances due to differences in caps used (see attached pics).

My Wavelight exhibits 3 treble issues; brightness, lower-treble harshness and upper-treble digitus. I have been able to address the lower treble harshness and some level brightness with tweaks and gear pairing. But the remaining brightness and the upper-treble digitus, exists on all 4 chains of mine (HPs and speakers), as well as on chains of my friends we have tried.

 

[alekc]

@alekc , yea it has been quite puzzling to me too, with regards to, how polarising my findings and the reports on the internet has been. Although there have been a few more folks on this thread early on, who also found their Wavelight to have treble issues. Apart from differences in treble sensitivities, I also believe there could be unit variances due to differences in caps used (see attached pics).

My Wavelight exhibits 3 treble issues; brightness, lower-treble harshness and upper-treble digitus. I have been able to address the lower treble harshness and some level brightness with tweaks and gear pairing. But the remaining brightness and the upper-treble digitus, exists on all 4 chains of mine (HPs and speakers), as well as on chains of my friends we have tried.

@EagleWings in such case I would definitively contact Rockna - at this price point the sound you get must be a lot more than satisfactory IMHO and no tweaks should be necessary. Are you having this issue with any particular set of cans or have you tested different pairs too?

 

[sennheiserguy]

@alekc , yea it has been quite puzzling to me too, with regards to, how polarising my findings and the reports on the internet has been. Although there have been a few more folks on this thread early on, who also found their Wavelight to have treble issues. Apart from differences in treble sensitivities, I also believe there could be unit variances due to differences in caps used (see attached pics).

My Wavelight exhibits 3 treble issues; brightness, lower-treble harshness and upper-treble digitus. I have been able to address the lower treble harshness and some level brightness with tweaks and gear pairing. But the remaining brightness and the upper-treble digitus, exists on all 4 chains of mine (HPs and speakers), as well as on chains of my friends we have tried.

This is really interesting. FWIW, in my system I wouldn't call the Wavelight bright, but I wouldn't call it warm either. I do agree that with some recordings at loud volumes I do get "digititus". I've been trying to place my finger on what is going on, and I think it is more of a forwardness with the upper mid-range that can be bothersome. Power cords and source make a very noticeable difference. I actually never tried the Rockna with the stock cord, because the rest of my system is power corded up with LessLoss CMARC, these cables are neutral, get out of the way, realistic / organic sounding sound stage. Nothing to ever complain about LessLoss Cables. Thing is, similar to what @EagleWings has reported with Supra cables, it wasn't until I tried a Synergetic Galileo UEF power cord, that I realized what was going on. The lessloss was somewhat accentuating the presence region, and this was too much for my Wavelight. I use the Galileo with the silver bullet, it is extended, neutral, and scales up the performance of the DAC at all levels, but that presence region seems to be more natural now. The other aspect which is more of a subtle thing is the server / renderer / USB cable or connection type. I run Euphony Stylus as an end point with JCAT USB XE Card powered by Farad LPS. I came from a Pink Faun I2S card with the same power supply. In my system I preferred the sound of USB (more natural, less digital sounding). This was on a Gigabyte AM4 based motherboard, passive cooling, M.2 NVME disk. Last month I purchased the SOTM "Audio Grade" motherboard as an experiment. First thing you notice on this board is the size of the caps, quality of power regulation throughout. So out came the AMD CPU and Gigabyte, and in went the SOTM motherboard and a 9th Gen Intel i5 F series (no graphics). I broke-in the motherboard by placing random CPU loads over about a 200 hour period... The difference is noticeable, and I will say this - un-expected. The leading impulse of a note has greatly improved, meaning the attack or first part of a note. This is really noticeable with acoustic instruments like a guitar plucks, in addition front to back space has improved quite a bit. What I am going to say next may be totally in my head, but bear with me here.... In the past I ran the Wavelight in Linear Phase filter mode 90% of the time. There are some recordings - for whatever reason - that sound better in NOS. But I found that NOS seemed to slow down the pace and roll-off the top. I always preferred Wavelight's internal up-sampling to external (HQ Player or Roon). With the SOTM motherboard, when I select NOS, and then do PCM upsampling in HQ player - Sync L which is around 2 million taps at 8X rates - NS15 is the noise shaping, and in this combo the sound is simply sublime. Best of both the NOS and Linear worlds. FWIW the internal Rockna Linear filter uses 2.5K taps. All this said, there are still times, and I am starting to think it is content dependent, where the Wavelight is a little too forward for me. I am going to explore a Cardas Clear XLR to see if that helps, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.... Hope my long-winded diatribe helps others

 

[EagleWings]

@alekc , thank you. I hear it on all my headphones and speakers (Modded HD800, HD650, LCD-i4, Graham LS-6, Lii F15, Tannoy Gold 7). But I doubt I'd get any helpful response from Rockna on this issue. One of the head-fires here already tried it one and Rockna's response was that the issue was else where in the chain. At this point, the best course of action for me is to move on to a different DAC.

@sennheiserguy , yep, I experimented with a couple of sources/trasnports and cables, and settled on the Allo USBridge Sig with the Supra USB, as I found it to have the least treble issues with the Wavelight. I do plan on giving HQP one last shot. Just that it is so cumbersome, when you are not a Roon user.

 

[sennheiserguy]

@alekc , thank you. I hear it on all my headphones and speakers (Modded HD800, HD650, LCD-i4, Graham LS-6, Lii F15, Tannoy Gold 7). But I doubt I'd get any helpful response from Rockna on this issue. One of the head-fires here already tried it one and Rockna's response was that the issue was else where in the chain. At this point, the best course of action for me is to move on to a different DAC.

@sennheiserguy , yep, I experimented with a couple of sources/trasnports and cables, and settled on the Allo USBridge Sig with the Supra USB, as I found it to have the least treble issues with the Wavelight. I do plan on giving HQP one last shot. Just that it is so cumbersome, when you are not a Roon user.

@EagleWings - agree WRT HQ player, it is a very cumbersome app. I use it in its embedded form directly on Euphony Stylus end point. When I have a few moments later today, I will send a screen shot of the settings I use with Rockna - may be a good starting point.

 

[sennheiserguy]

As promised - below are the settings I use in HQ Player.

Essentially I send everything as 8X PCM (either multiple of 44.1 or 48.4). DSD is converted to PCM
SDM settings are omitted as output mode is PCM

 

[nogi replicant]

Can anyone on here with a Rockna Wavedream XLR please comment on whether the Wavedream is much better running balanced (which uses the 4 DAC modules) as opposed to single ended (via RCA) which I believe uses only 2 of the 4 DAC modules. I have been happily using the Wavedream via RCA with my XI Audio Formula S and Powerman for the last 18 months. The Formula S cannot run balanced. I do not have a balanced amp to test the difference but the question of whether it is much better balanced (as it costs a couple of grand more for the XLR version) persists in the back of my mind. Thanks.

 

[kumar402]

Can anyone on here with a Rockna Wavedream XLR please comment on whether the Wavedream is much better running balanced (which uses the 4 DAC modules) as opposed to single ended (via RCA) which I believe uses only 2 of the 4 DAC modules. I have been happily using the Wavedream via RCA with my XI Audio Formula S and Powerman for the last 18 months. The Formula S cannot run balanced. I do not have a balanced amp to test the difference but the question of whether it is much better balanced (as it costs a couple of grand more for the XLR version) persists in the back of my mind. Thanks.

If your amp has SE input then I bet it’s better to jump from normal to signature edition of SE before you take plunge on XLR