[mikemalter]

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hello, I am about to buy a full size WA6SE. before I was using SR71B. I really liked the balanced sound that amp gave me. but I am moving to full size in order to get the max power and quality. do you think single ended full size will give me better than the portable balanced amp? I will post later with results once the WA6SE arrives.

That's a cool question.  Don't know the answer, but please post when you find out.
 
 

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

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Head, I am starting to get the same impression as you, that 192 was too bright on the DLIII, and as the PWD/bridge continues to break in, it seems to be in that neighborhood.  I have my filter set to auto and I am in native mode.
 

Well, I still place the PWD treble brightness as falling between the DLIII in 96K and 192K mode.  The DLIII in 192K mode was too bright except with my old Woo GES and Stax O2.  The 96K mode was good with my brighter phones like HD800 and HE-5 with my ZDT amp, but it was too dark with my GES and O2.  In 96K mode my DLIII sounded identical to a Stello DA100 DAC that I compared side by side for 3 hours, and at the time I needed the extra brightness of the 192K mode for my GES/O2 rig.  It made no sense why the DLIII sounds warmer and smoother in 96K mode and then more spacious but brighter in 192K mode.
 
Right now the PWD is NOT too bright with ANY of my dynamic phones and ZDT amp, but with my Sennheiser HE60 electrostatics and Woo WES the sound is a little bright; more the fault of the phones than the DAC, except the DLIII in 96K mode helped tame their highs nicely with both the Woo GES and the WES.
 
Again, you might want to try some of the DAC's filter settings, and stay away from up-sampling although it seems to not affect the PWD sound as much as it did with the DLIII.  And, if you have found tubes for the Woo amp that pair well with the PWD DAC, isn't that good enough to have found synergy that works for you?
 

 

[MacedonianHero]

I always considered my (now sold) DLIII slightly warm. The classic PS Audio sound....warm side of neutral. I found slightly better sound staging with 19k2 over 96k, but both were to my ears warm-ish. But the 192k didn't seem as "lush" as the 96k, but I always attributed that to the more open sound stage of the 192k setting.

 

[mikemalter]

     Quote:

Well, I still place the PWD treble brightness as falling between the DLIII in 96K and 192K mode.  The DLIII in 192K mode was too bright except with my old Woo GES and Stax O2.  The 96K mode was good with my brighter phones like HD800 and HE-5 with my ZDT amp, but it was too dark with my GES and O2.  In 96K mode my DLIII sounded identical to a Stello DA100 DAC that I compared side by side for 3 hours, and at the time I needed the extra brightness of the 192K mode for my GES/O2 rig.  It made no sense why the DLIII sounds warmer and smoother in 96K mode and then more spacious but brighter in 192K mode.
 
Right now the PWD is NOT too bright with ANY of my dynamic phones and ZDT amp, but with my Sennheiser HE60 electrostatics and Woo WES the sound is a little bright; more the fault of the phones than the DAC, except the DLIII in 96K mode helped tame their highs nicely with both the Woo GES and the WES.
 
Again, you might want to try some of the DAC's filter settings, and stay away from up-sampling although it seems to not affect the PWD sound as much as it did with the DLIII.  And, if you have found tubes for the Woo amp that pair well with the PWD DAC, isn't that good enough to have found synergy that works for you?
 

 
Quote:

I always considered my (now sold) DLIII slightly warm. The classic PS Audio sound....warm side of neutral. I found slightly better sound staging with 19k2 over 96k, but both were to my ears warm-ish. But the 192k didn't seem as "lush" as the 96k, but I always attributed that to the more open sound stage of the 192k setting.

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences.  I've come to the conclusion that the sound of the PWD is not for me, and made a decision to sell it.  I paid $2400.00 for it, and I'm going to sell it for $2200.00.  I'm also going to sell the LCD-2 which I bought in hopes of taming the highs.  I bought them from ALO with their Chain Mail cord for $1370.00 and I'm going to sell them for $1100.00.   Will post the sale notice later today.  If anyone is interested send me a PM.
 

 

[shipsupt]

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Thanks guys for sharing your experiences.  I've come to the conclusion that the sound of the PWD is not for me, and made a decision to sell it.  I paid $2400.00 for it, and I'm going to sell it for $2200.00.  I'm also going to sell the LCD-2 which I bought in hopes of taming the highs.  I bought them from ALO with their Chain Mail cord for $1370.00 and I'm going to sell them for $1100.00.   Will post the sale notice later today.  If anyone is interested send me a PM.
 

Sorry the new gear's not working out for you. I'm sure the LCD's will go fast at that price! Did you consider keeping them to see if they grew on you in a system that didn't contain a component that was not working for your ears (the PWD)? Just curious...

 

[mikemalter]

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Quote:

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Thanks guys for sharing your experiences.  I've come to the conclusion that the sound of the PWD is not for me, and made a decision to sell it.  I paid $2400.00 for it, and I'm going to sell it for $2200.00.  I'm also going to sell the LCD-2 which I bought in hopes of taming the highs.  I bought them from ALO with their Chain Mail cord for $1370.00 and I'm going to sell them for $1100.00.   Will post the sale notice later today.  If anyone is interested send me a PM.
 

Sorry the new gear's not working out for you. I'm sure the LCD's will go fast at that price! Did you consider keeping them to see if they grew on you in a system that didn't contain a component that was not working for your ears (the PWD)? Just curious...
 

Hey Ship, good question, I did consider keeping them, but I bought them to solve a brightness issue with the PWD.  In comparing their sound signature with the HD800 (I would A/B them during a song), I found the HD800 sound delicate and having more nuanced qualities than the LCD-2.  I liked the woodiness of the the LCD-2, but I want to hear all of the details that the HD800's revealed.  So, even though the LCD-2's are really good 'phones, and definately worth the money, I'm looking for something that touches all of the bases for me all of the time.  I also found the LCD-2's tonally correct.
 
 

 

[Golfnutz]

Mike, please do not take this the wrong way. All of you complaints so far have been about having a bright sound (TSRP, 7236, PWD, etc.). Is it possible there's something wrong with your WA22 causing this issue? Can you compare your WA22 with someone else? If not, what about sending it back to WOO Audio to be evaluated. Also, as SS suggested, purchase the Oppo BDP-95 with the intention of returning it before 30. If it still sounds bright with ANY of your tubes, then I would say it's the WA22.  Of course this is all moot if you think the WA22 is working normally.

 

[Skylab]

IMHO, the HD800 are bright. Connected to an amp that isn't colored, they stay bright.

 

[WindyCityCy]

HD800 don't sound bright in my configuration.  Guess I've picked the right combo.    Touch --> W4S DAC2 --> WA22 (GEC 6AS7G, NU, EML 5U4G) --> DHC Clone balanced cable --> HD800.  With the WA22 and my DAC if I could keep only 1 of my headphones I would keep them.  However, I really like the LCD2 also and am using each about 50% of the time.

 
 
 

 

[Xcalibur255]

An important question that may not have come up yet is what kind of music mike is listening to.  No amount of equipment tinkering will really fix material that is mastered with too much treble energy, which includes most everything that isn't aimed at the hifi community in the first place like HDtracks products.  I must admit though, I've come surprisingly close to getting some radio friendly music sounding just the way I want it on the WA6, something I would not have thought possible with my headphones a year ago.

 

[mikemalter]

Quote:

Mike, please do not take this the wrong way. All of you complaints so far have been about having a bright sound (TSRP, 7236, PWD, etc.). Is it possible there's something wrong with your WA22 causing this issue? Can you compare your WA22 with someone else? If not, what about sending it back to WOO Audio to be evaluated. Also, as SS suggested, purchase the Oppo BDP-95 with the intention of returning it before 30. If it still sounds bright with ANY of your tubes, then I would say it's the WA22.  Of course this is all moot if you think the WA22 is working normally.

Golf,
 
Not at all, and I thank you for your helpful suggestion.  The TSRP brightness was only in the round micas, not the oval micas. My WA22 only sounded bright with the PWD/bridge but not with the DLIII.  However, I did not even think that the WA22 might be the issue, and I'll email Jack and see what he says.
 
The breakin of the PWD/bridge finished and I could hear its sound signature evolve.  While it became very detailed and revealing, I found that there was just this "something extra" that I don't know what to call that drive me up the wall.  I also found that ultimately the bridge wound up to be superior to coax.
 
One of the other guys here who has a DLIII and PWD/bridge, by way of example, talked about a harshness in the DLIII when he sets it at 192, but that is not there at 96, and the PWD is somewhere in between the 96 and 192 setting.  This is my experience too.  With the EML, TSRP and GEC6AS7G and HD800 combination being fed by my DLIII, I find the detail to be similiar to what the PWD/bridge delivers, but that "something extra" thing is not there, and my experience of the music is something that is detaled, with bass heft, tonaly correct and natural.
 
I think that SS has a very good idea about trying an Oppo since I am looking to break out of the iTunes walled garden 44.1 Hz limitation.  One of the guys here says he has a Wilson Audio setup and it wasn't until he added the Oppo into the mix that he was able to get past a harshness issue and into the music.  That it has a LAN connection is a definate plus as I can feed it directly from a media server.  The W4S dac has the same chip, but to listen to hirez music you need to feed it through a computer's sound card, and I'd like to get away from that.  I might take a step back and look at something like the Logitec SqueezeBox as it has a digital output that I can feed into my Monarchy DIP and then into any DAC to a W4S is a candidate.  Maybe if other's know of a really good, musical server with a digital output, I'd love to hear about it.
 
From the little I was able to hear of 96 and above music, it is worth the hassle of trying to find the right DAC/Media Server Appliance combination.  I used to be a strict CD guy, but I find that I really love haveing complete access to my entire music collection and then playing it at random.
 
Again, thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate you taking the time to put something out there that would benefit me.
 
EDIT: After posting this, I went looking for the guy with the Wilson Audio setup to thank him for sharing his Oppo experience, and what do you know, but it was you Golf!
 
 

 

[shipsupt]

Mike,
What do you mean by the iTunes 44.1 hz limitation? My understanding is that iTunes is quite capable of playing higher sample rates. Am I misinformed or missing the point?

 

[Skylab]

ITunes now supports 96/24 no problem. It didn't used to, but a while back they added that support.

 

[crazyscarecrow]

Golfnutz: What do you think of your WA22 with balanced inputs from your Oppo 95? Can't decide between balance path and the WA22 or going single through a WA5??

 

[vinyllp33]

Quote:

ITunes now supports 96/24 no problem. It didn't used to, but a while back they added that support.

Better still if you are running a Mac is to add the Pure Music software to iTunes, you can then not only do high-res but also import and playback native FLAC files. 
 
The sound I am getting with 24/96 downloads from HD Tracks is as good and often better than the high-end vinyl counterpart and standard CD's benefit greatly as well. 
 
It is by far one of the best investments I have made in this hobby, for $129 it really is a steal. 
 
Add an iPad and you instantly have a remote controlled music server limited only by the quality of your DAC.