Has anyone heard the YBA Design WDA202 DAC?

[TheD]

I'm about to purchase the DAC1-USB, but the new YBA looks very interesting + costs only 800$.

 

 

[VT Skier]

I'd wait to see what people think of the Wadia 121. It's a little more expensive, but I bet it will work pretty well with the i170.

 

It's supposed to be on display again at CES, shipping shortly thereafter.

 

[TheD]

Is there a firm spec, release date & price for the Wadia 121 ???

So far I found details only on the 151 ...

 

[VT Skier]

Here's a link.

 

http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2009/wadia_need_next/

 

 

[salwani]

From what i've read the 121 will sport 4 inputs - 2 coax, 1 Toslink and 1 USB input (24/96). its not clear if the coax/toslink inputs will be 24/96 or 24/192 - but i would presume the latter. Outputs are both balanced and unbalanced. It will be upsampling and use their digimaster filter. Also i believe it uses the ESS Sabre DAC chips.

 

Price is supposed to be around $1000 ($1500 with a Ray Samuels headphone amp built in) - showing at CES 10 in January and released shortly thereafter. But dont hold your breath waiting for a release - Wadia is not known for accurate release dates.

 

 

 

[Rob]

It uses a PCM 1796 DAC chip. The owners manual says:

Digital input word length: 16, 18, 20, and 24 bits.

Digital input frequency: 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 192 kHz

Upsampling: Fixed 24 bits / 192 kHz

It has similar inputs to the DacMagic along with USB. On USB it will only do 16/44.1 (at least that is the only option in audio midi when plugged into USB) but it sounds considerably better than the onboard DAC in the KingRex T20U amp which is PCM 2702E based. When I can get my hands on a Wireworld Super Nova 6 glass 3.5 mini to Toslink for my one of my Macs, I will find out if it imports native high-rez files or just downsamples everything to 16/44.1 and then upsamples to the "fixed" 24/192. Sadly, DACs that handle native 24/96 via USB are rare. Outwardly comparing it to the DacMagic, it is much prettier IMO, has internal power supply, build quality is superb, and it has a remote, but at this point I don't know how it will stack up to the DacMagic which is hundreds less. All I can say that in the 16/44.1 mode via USB it sounds extremely good. More to come if I can get the Toslink connection.

 

Rob

 

[TheD]

Thank you Rob for your input.

I did hear the YBA, Benchmark & PS Audio and decided to go with the PSA DL3.

It just sounded better (sweater sound) with my equipment (Krell 400xi, Proac D15 & old Marantz as transport).

 

I tried waiting for the Wadia 121, but they keep on delaying this unit (now they talk about the "spring"....)

Since they didn't even present it at CES 2010, I decided to move on...

 

Thank you all for your input.

 

[Rob]

1) Was the playing field level? Did you try the different DACs in your own system or at least all in the same system?

2) Were you using the same inputs, bit rate, sampling, and interconnects on each DAC?

3) What bit rate and sampling?

4) Same file type?

If you didn't do the above, then you have not compared the DACs fairly.

I found the YBA quite "sweet" sounding, and that is via USB on 16/44.1.

I would honestly like to know, if you used one of the inputs other than USB, were you able to bring native 24/96 files into the YBA DAC? I am unable to determine whether mine will as I have no Toslink connector at this time and won't have one for at least two weeks.

 

Rob