Some more impressions. Again, still early and not heavy-duty comparisons.
I decided to try some 16/44.1 redbook on it. The Marley album was 24/96 and a good test of high-res recordings, but since the WDS-1 is intended as the "2-chassis D/A" portion of a $2,400 CDP when paired as intended with the WTP-1, I figure 16/44.1 is intended to be it's most "native" mode anyway, and that's where every bit really counts. The album of choice was Poncho Sanchez "Psychadellic Blues". It's a great recording of some great music on a modern album from a legend of Latin Jazz. It's Latin, but with heavy emphasis on the jazz. Think of it more as Latin 'Bop with a hint of chacha/samba. It's what Miles would sound like in Cuba. Without the scratchy recording.
A DAC being as subtle a thing as it is, it was immediately striking to admire the sound of the system as a whole, but very easy to forget the presence of the new DAC. I was lost in the music, enjoying the instruments, the melodies, the subtleties of the vocals in the two tracks featuring vocals, the blast of the trumpet, the slap of the hand drums, the piano tinkling, and the deep bass plucks. This album features bass elements sound down to 20Hz and it shows. While I was busy admiring the sound of the system, being impressed by my modest amp, my HE-6, my EQ, and even the pretty scrolling of the Denon transport's OLED display, it was all too easy (and frequent) for me to forget that I was really auditioning the new DAC with the comparably dim VFD display. Which is a good thing. A DAC is best when it gets out of the way. Except this one is so pretty it's easy to want to notice it. Of course, the garden hose pouring electrons into the amp is easier to notice...I hope it's big enough and isn't spilling any electrons on the floor or something....would that muddy the bass? Do IEC plugs come with gaskets to prevent that? Does the whole trumpet fit inside? It looks about 20% too small for that. These are the philosophical questions an audiophile needs answered. One can never be too careful about their music hoses, especially when run at high pressure...
Back to the album, after the first track I bumped up the volume slightly. That seldom happens. But after that, while sounding appropriate in volume, something was bugging me. I couldn't tell what but something that was presenting a sense of...not fatigue per-se...but especially with the trumpet it could be fatigue. Brass on a headphone without rolled off treble can be fatiguing, because brass in real life can be fatiguing. After a few tracks I figured out what it was: Too much R/L separation. I switched to the stereo imager on DEQ and narrowed the soundstage another notch....
much better. But the intriguing part here was that I already had it on .7 which is as far as I've ever had a desire to push it before. Now I'm pushing it to .6, and even curious about .5. And I was
still getting significant amounts of sound clearly to the right and left. This is new and indicates a dramatic over time, but subtle on first blush shift in the soundstaging. When adjusting the imager narrower, with the Bifrost one can perceive it as a congesting of sound in exchange for the better image. I've noticed over both albums now when narrowing the image with the Woo that it doesn't give an image of any congesting, but simply moving the image a bit. Even "fixing" it to correct the position from being out of position. On the Bifrost, the feeling of widening it again created a sense of open air. On the Woo it seems to create more a sense of breaking the soundstage, artificial surround sound (note I'd still use the "surround" for classical, as it should be.) These are the kind of differences you don't hear just sitting down and saying "hmm, sounds like a DAC", but over time with listening, and especially with processing adjustments you know you're getting something difference when you find yourself getting unexpected results from changing a setting and find yourself pushing the settings further and further. Many people praise the HE-6's soundstage and call it speaker like. I'm convinced these people are in need of a processor. Once you hear an adjusted stereo image, unadjusted will never sound speaker-like again. This is now especially true with the WDS-1.
So the big moment arrived. I figured up Bifrost, now that I remembered what inputs need to be connected where. The transport goes into the optical in of the DEQ, AES-EBU comes out to the Woo, optical out to the Bifrost. All optical cables are glass. This means both DACs are getting identical signal with identical processing from identical transport. The whole chain up to the DACs is shared except for the physical connection format of optical versus XLR. Both DACs are fed into the Marantz which conveniently as a pre/integrated has a number of jacks to switch between. Also conveniently it doesn't even have a relay click when switching inputs, it's a smooth, instant switch between them...fantastic for A/B.
Despite the Bifrost being rated at 2.0vrms, and the Woo at 2.2vrms, I found that my calculated 91 volume setting for volume matching was not correct...obviously volume control does not work at evenly divided portions of the output voltage, meaning it must bottom out somewhere above true zero. I found at 100% it was louder than the Bifrost, and at 99 it was just about right. At first I was hard pressed to notice a distinct difference. On one hand one would expect a DAC costing 4x more to have an immediate difference, but knowing audio as we do around here and knowing how good Bifrost is for the money, we know that's not how it works. Both sounded very good as the music ramped up when switching back and forth. Both were enjoyable. However certain moments were much more obvious and displayed clear differences. I now understand the Bifrost "treble harshness." Cymbal crashes were edgy, harsh, splashy on the Bifrost, compared to the clean and crisp crash on the Woo. The trumpet when it moved up the octaves got a little....edgy may not be the right word. There was something "strained" about it compared to the Woo...A'Bing in vibrant trumpet sections showed an almost tonal correction in the trumpet...the timbre itself had a shift to the more real. And I think this is related to the holography a bit.
Especially when the vocals kicked in I noticed a more stark contrast between the two. The Bifrost, if you listen closely, seemed to have more of a "veil"....this could be noise floor or THD. I think it's a little more than that in terms of presentation. Veil is overused to mean too many different things. In this case, things seemed more blurred together, or specifically much more one dimensional. Things seemed more flat in texture....a clean painting but painted against a flat surface, while the Woo was a more three dimensional cutout, things had texture because they had depth to go with it. The multi-layered holography. Along with that goes detail resolution. The WDS is simply better at data mining the recording and that filled in some of that texture. Possibly a better amp could make even more use of it...though this one's doing a fine job on its own. Also striking to me is at .6 on the stereo imager, all that sound that was coming from the L/R sides still collapsed more to the front/center with the Bifrost, implying it's already blending the two channels together more so there's less to work with. Less R/L separation in the output. More bleed-over. Narrower soundstage. No wonder I'm pushing the imaging farther front with the Woo, it's more separated to begin with and lets me move the sound even more to the front than before in processing!
Again, this underscores two things, the first is just what a good bargain the Bifrost is. When scrutinized next to a DAC costing 4x its price it's weaknesses begin to be revealed. This is to be expected, there was no doubt from the start that the Woo should be a much superior unit, and it is. DAC differences are subtle, but the kinds of difference there are stacks up to be a major change over more listening. But it's also amazing just how closely one must listen and evaluate to notice where the Bifrost's performance starts to fall off. For the money it's astonishing and remains my defacto recommendation for those on a budget. It also underscores where the high-end DAC segment does pick up advantages over it's cheaper cousins. Soundstage/separation, detail resolution, and the mysterious depth/texture/holography that makes that jump from recording to live. It's simply cleaner, with a blacker background and more nuiance and texture across the range, and less edge/harshness in the treble. It also seems to handle midbass much more cleanly and with more detail and less bloom. And yet, it's also amazing how well little Bifrost can compete against the bigger titans out there.
Rarely would I ever agree with a 6Moons review, but I understand exactly what they were saying in their Bifrost review comparing it to an Eximus in a speaker rig. Their conclusion was that in an A/B test the Eximus had more raw data mining and fine detail resolution, but the Bifrost had the basics of PRaT and tone covered, and in the absence of the Eximus, they could be happy with the Bifrost without really noticing the Eximus was gone. I think this evaluation is quite true. One can be very happy with the Bifrost in the absence of having something higher end that gets it just that last bit right to compare it to.
The fact that that evaluation clicked so readily with me tells me both that the Bifrost is remarkable for its price tag, and also that the WDS-1 is remarkable for its price tag. I arrived at the same evaluation between the Bifrost and the WDS-1 on my own that 6Moons did in their Bifrost review in comparing the Bifrost to the April Eximus. The Eximus costs more than twice the WDS-1 and was my previous "dream DAC."
More impressions and comparisons to come...stay tuned!
