Two other fascinating phenomena come to us from the Wadax Reference Server. The first is the astounding improvement made by Wadax’s custom Akasa optical interface between the Server and the company’s Reference DAC. I listened to the Server/DAC pair for a few weeks via USB before installing the Akasa board in the DAC. The difference was staggering, in bass definition and weight, dynamics, and soundstage dimensionality (for starters). This from an interface carrying digital ones and zeros. Even more perplexing, the Reference Server has front-panel controls that adjust the waveshape of the digital signal sent to the DAC. These controls don’t change the digital ones and zeros representing the audio signal, only factors such as the signal amplitude and rise time. How could changing a digital waveform’s shape introduce an analog-like variability to the sound?
...
Going back to the Wadax Server’s front-panel controls that change the waveshape of the datastream, the difference in the DAC’s analog output signal, on an objective basis, must be immeasurable. Yet these infinitesimal differences are translated by our brains into musical meanings. The Akasa interface better resolves the starts and stops of bass notes and renders more textural detail in the bass. That’s the sonic description. The musical description is hearing how the bass player interacts with the drummer and the ensemble or soloist, allowing us to experience more powerful rhythmic drive and feel a heightened impression of contemporaneous music-making—a charged sense of occasion that you don’t experience to the same degree with the conventional interface.
www.theabsolutesound.com
