So my Waxwing arrived today. I’m in sensory overload.
I installed the Waxwing via the optical out connection (which was a bit of a pita - the documentation concerning setting the output to the optical out port wasn’t immediately easy to come by or particularly intuitive in my humble opinion).
Once I had everything talking, I put on a circa ‘80s rock album. Clean, but it’s been played many times. Previously, running through a Schiit Mani 2, there was a constant, distracting level of surface noise. I’m running an Ortofon 2M Blue. However, once running through the Waxwing, I was surprised to hear how much “cleaner” the album presented itself. The level of background noise was materially reduced without (to my ears) a huge hit to clarity / bass / etc. The music didn’t become muddy or overly engineered. I didn’t feel like the DSP was hamfistedly dragging down music content along with pops and noise. I then fumbled through a change to enable “magic” and was rewarded with another audible improvement. I stopped there for now and thought to ask my learned colleagues which Waxwing settings they found most interesting / entertaining.
So to the question(s)… Which Waxwing settings have you all found most interesting / entertaining? There are ~24 different toggles to play with + the testing screen. Which ones have you found most valuable as “daily driver” settings versus those you might use for particularly difficult albums?
I know that there are other Waxwing posts out there, I’ve read a number, but I didn’t see one really delving into the various settings you’ve selected for your own use that other newbies such as myself might learn from. If I’ve missed something, put me in my place and I’ll go dig into it.
Thanks much!
I installed the Waxwing via the optical out connection (which was a bit of a pita - the documentation concerning setting the output to the optical out port wasn’t immediately easy to come by or particularly intuitive in my humble opinion).
Once I had everything talking, I put on a circa ‘80s rock album. Clean, but it’s been played many times. Previously, running through a Schiit Mani 2, there was a constant, distracting level of surface noise. I’m running an Ortofon 2M Blue. However, once running through the Waxwing, I was surprised to hear how much “cleaner” the album presented itself. The level of background noise was materially reduced without (to my ears) a huge hit to clarity / bass / etc. The music didn’t become muddy or overly engineered. I didn’t feel like the DSP was hamfistedly dragging down music content along with pops and noise. I then fumbled through a change to enable “magic” and was rewarded with another audible improvement. I stopped there for now and thought to ask my learned colleagues which Waxwing settings they found most interesting / entertaining.
So to the question(s)… Which Waxwing settings have you all found most interesting / entertaining? There are ~24 different toggles to play with + the testing screen. Which ones have you found most valuable as “daily driver” settings versus those you might use for particularly difficult albums?
I know that there are other Waxwing posts out there, I’ve read a number, but I didn’t see one really delving into the various settings you’ve selected for your own use that other newbies such as myself might learn from. If I’ve missed something, put me in my place and I’ll go dig into it.
Thanks much!
