Everyone has personal preference in the way things work, however, the App has explanations for every function in the list. Simply tap the function and the explanation appears. Example below. Anyone considering the Waxwing can download the App and test run the App without purchasing the unit.
You could, but I don't know why you would - the bits you get to via the app are the only reason to pick a Waxwing over an Adept, Spartan etc. that would cost you less and measure better.
This is the nub of it for me.
Agreed - but demonstrates the degree to which you need to interact with the app is not that great. I got it mainly for the magic function and the digital output. In theory, I could have connected it up, opened the app. Enabled magic, set output to digital. Closed the app, and never used it again.
I was sarcastic, that's true.
And also those checkmark and double check mark when you open a setting, when you hit the one check-mark you show graphically what the setting does, it shows as a db range, how much of a boost, where, how high it goes, when it slopes back down and ends. Lets say you have both air and bass boost on, in either setting hit the check marks twice and it will show a graph of change for all settings so you can see total changes, in this case air and bass boost, if more settings were changed you can see all settings by hitting the two checkmarks in any setting. So this statement is wrong. """Not much in the way of explanation, or even a manual, to explain how to determine what everything does and which settings to use. It seems to be designed for engineers rather than musicians or casual listeners.""
"Alternatively you can plug it in out of the box - not touch the app and it will work just as any other phono pre." Actually, that was what I did at first -- but I got a very loud and very nasty sound that made me pick up the needle and turn all the volumes down to near zero. It took me quite a while, going back and forth to find the right levels on everything without blowing out my speakers. And, when I finally did, it sounded worse than any other preamp that I have ever owned. The best way I can describe it, not being an engineer, is that it sounded like there was a lot more emphasis in the mid-bass frequencies that I couldn't get rid of, a lifeless mid-range and muted highs -- all of which I couldn't fix without introducing another problem that I couldn't get rid of. I am not saying that it isn't possible, in the hands of someone with more expertise, to improve this. What I am saying is that, after a day of playing with it, the best I was able to do is get something that was sort of close to what I was hearing from the preamp in the turnable when connected to my Emotiva preamp or using the Emotiva with the built-in preamp. Maybe this would be worth it on a better system or for someone with different tastes (and a different set of ears), but it just wasn't worth it for me.
He had his point of opinion, and we have ours. That's all.
The reason is that the reviews I have read led me to believe otherwise. But none of them were by people using my ears and I have to work with what I've got.
I guess you still need to figure out how to properly configure the waxwing for your specific setup.
Well, but at least other readers may now be a little bit inspired to give this one a chance
You weren’t taking the output of the preamp in the turntable and putting it into the Waxwing, were you? Because if you were, the 2x (approx) 40dB gain of the two preamps (the one in the turntable followed by the Waxwing) in series would certainly make a very loud and very nasty sound with everything overloaded and clipping like hell, requiring you to turn down everything to zero.
Due to applying 2x the RIAA curve, resulting in bass boosted by 20dB too much, and highs turned down by 20dB too much.
Or spend a little more for a MiniDSP PocketADC if you want one with known-good measured performance.
