Any idea yet what's responsible for the ST optical connection not working?

not yet. i was hoping to go through a process of elimination before having the hardware looked at but i havent got a the second ST cable yet.

Any news about the Wadia ?

i've been listening to the B-283 tube buffer over this past week and just started comparing it with the Wadia/EAD DAC combo yesterday. i'll post my final judgment tomorrow ...

well after much deliberation i've come to realize that the Wadia WT3200 is a pretty nice transport after all. i was really expecting something different that would impress me right away, but thats not what the Wadia does. this thing is downright subtle, and in a very sneaky way.

for the first several weeks i would listen primarily late at night after everyone had gone to bed. with the volume low enough to not disturb anyone trying to sleep, the character of this transport began to emerge. subtlety and nuance came out like i had not heard before, or at least i had not noticed before. my big and bold, monolithic 4-way AR9's were transformed into nearfield monitors. ok i thought, this is nice but its the environment, its quiet and dark, without interference to spoil the sound. i continued with my late night sessions and didnt put much more thought into it. That is until this past week when i was demo'ing the Grant Fidelity B-283 tube buffer.

for the purpose of the demo i paired the Kenwood DV-4070 with the B-283 and listened to this combo for most of the past week. over the last few days i've gone back and forth between each source pair (Kenwood\B-283 -vs- Wadia\EAD) comparing them. even though the B-283 significantly improved the sound of the Kenwood alone, the Wadia\EAD combo prevailed handily. the subtlety and nuance of the Wadia was evident, but the the biggest tell was the level of refinement with the Wadia\EAD. this was not unexpected, but i was surprised that there was such a big gap in terms of refinement.

this comparison does nothing in the way of resolving the Wadia\EAD -vs- Kenwood\EAD debate. on that note, with the B-283 taking up permanent residence in a bedroom system, a head to head shoot out has begun. if you remember, a preliminary go round between these two combos ended in a dead heat. right now i’m giving a definite but subtle edge to the Wadia. on a quick A/B switch from the Wadia to the Kenwood, you would be hard pressed to pick out a difference between the two. i found that starting one player about 30-seconds or a minute after the other and listening to the same passage back-to-back reveals small but significant (to me) differences. on some material the differences are more pronounced, higher quality produced cd’s are more obvious while lesser recordings show much less if any difference at all. with the Wadia i pick up little details that were once difficult to hear or that i missed altogether, the timber of acoustic instruments are slightly richer and more natural. i guess the term used to describe this is better resolution. also, the soundstage comes across as more solid, more tangible, and i get a sense of a more refined sound.

taken individually the differences are so slight that none of these aspects would likely amount to much of anything on their own. together they add up to something that is quite different than what i was expecting, but also something that i have been unfamiliar with until now. i’ve also gained a new appreciation for the Kenwood, a player that doesn’t perform that well on its own, but does quite well as a transport.

I'm feel happy for you, amigo.
BTW, any chance of a pic from inside the Wadia ?

thanks Alvaro.

dont get me wrong, the Wadia is superb, the sound is stellar. still, even though i am appreciating the Wadia more than before, i am not entirely convinced that psycho-acoustics are not playing a big part in the entire experience. the "sound" of the Wadia was not made fully evident to me until after i had compared it to the sound of the Kenwood\tube buffer combo. that seemed to give me a better grasp of the Wadia's character, but since my previous comparison to the Kenwood\EAD combo showed no difference, it was really evidence of the difference in sound between the tube buffer and the EAD dac.

so now that i know what to listen for, only then can i conclude that the Wadia\EAD is giving me better sound than the Kenwood\EAD. i can hone in on specific details and pick out minor improvements that add up in the end, but is that the basis for a strong argument when i cant replicate those results without getting into a specific frame of mind? seems a bit thin and i have not ruled out the possibility that the only thing i have accomplished is to mind-###### myself.

Looks like you "take it in the ear" on this, eh?

You left me hanging! A cliffhanger!!!

I need to tune in next week, to find out the exciting conclusion....

Of course the Wadia is a great transport, but you lost me... what kind of psycho-acoustics are you talking about, and also what specific frame of mind are you referring to?

psycho-acoustic in my perception of the character of the Wadia, which was revealed only after a comparison to the tube buffer. grapsing this character, or subtlety and nuance, requires me to focus intently on the sound in a way that i had not done before. so i am wondering if i simply convinced myself that something was there. i can replicate it, but not without listening in a manner that i have not become accustomed to, at this point its a bit distracting in that i am not really enjoying the music for the sake of the music.

the other side of this issue is that i am simply going through a learning process in the way that i listen. when i become used to this new way of listening, and comfortable with it, i'll be able to do it without effort or distraction and i'll have a more well trained ear.

perhaps i am being over-dramatic. as most (if not all) things in audio are, this is almost entirely subjective. had i been able to detect the subtlety and nuance of the Wadia initially, i doubt that i would be leaving room for any second guessing. it is the way that i arrived at my conclusion that has me leaving the door slightly open, but open none-the-less, to the possibility of psycho-acoustics at work.

Got it!
...and i know what mean. Sometimes there's so much data - "sound" - coming from the source that our "poor" brain just can't handle all details...

Architect Miles van der Rohe once said of his craft: "God is in the details". IMHO, listening enables the whole of a component's performance to be examined simultaneously. This does not mean examining every little aspect - how much bass? how liquid the midrange? how grain-free the highs? - but simply to sit, listen, and examine your hole reaction :
-Am i enjoying this? You know, the "following the tune" criterium that sometimes i use in my reviews...

IMO, only by simplifying our mental activity as much as possible can we allow ourselves to be truly receptive to what our senses tell us (something that students of Zen spend much time and effort trying to learn!).

"Quality" can only be inferred via hollistic approach, wich is of necessity subjective. In fact, there is experimental evidence that the more a person tries to conciously analyze the available data before making a decision, the more likely he or she is to plain wrong.
If you want to know what a component sounds like, "just listen".

Whish i helped you with all this "Sound Thinking"...

Well, I must say that tube interface sounds interesting. I was wondering how good they may work.

Thanks for the info!

Hi Everyone,

I also have a Wadia WT3200 transport. I've had it modified and I am very pleased with it. I've read here that the transport is a Philips CDM1, but I do not think this is true. The person who modified it is very sure that it is a CDM4 and not a CDM1. Can someone cornfirm this?

Sonik

I found this when Googling the wt-3200.

I believe the CD94 uses the Philips CDM1 transport mechanism which is regarded as being among the very best ever made - my own Wadia WT3200 transport was basically a modified Marantz CD95 which is very similar to the CD94.
Unfortunately it's impossible to find a replacement laser for this mechanism nowadays which persuaded me to sell my Wadia, but as a transport the Wadia was fantastic and I haven't actually heard of any CDM1 lasers failing.

If you ever take off the cover of your player, just have a look at the transport mechanism and how slick it is when taking in a disc; it really does embarrass modern equivalents.

Best Regards,
Chris redmond.

And also this, so make your own conclusions:

My 14 year old old Wadia WT3200 Transport with the Philips CDM1 mechanism was a better transport than anything I've heard todate and certainly a league above the Toshiba SD-900 I use now.