Digital Processor Reviews

Listening
When I audition a new DAC, the main things I listen for are the liveliness of musical forms (flow, action, jump, vibrancy) and materiality. I used to think these important-to-me audio-sonic traits went out with wringer washers, flushed away in limp digital streams, or buried under layers of signal processing, but exceptional flow, presence, and vibrancy (!) were the first traits I noticed streaming Qobuz via Wattson's control app.

I was hoping to get a quick read on the Wattson's streaming app. Was it as transparent as dCS's Mosaic? I played the remastered 1965 Georg Solti–conducted Wagner: Die Walküre (24/192 FLAC, Decca/Qobuz). Normally, I'd hate to see a great classic recording like this venerable Decca "enhanced" by plug-in trickeries. I've known and loved this recording on Decca vinyl, so I was prepared to cringe at this punched-up-for-streaming remake. Instead, halfway into the second act, I froze.

Somehow this recording's mastering engineer and the Wattson Madison LE's engineering team conspired to make this newfangled Solti-Wagner into an attention-gripping audio-IMAX experience. Images of the performers were almost luridly vivid, right in front of me, very distinctly outlined. The Madison LE displayed a clarity I associate with today's most elite DACs. The sound was so vivid and compelling, I was forced to enjoy what I thought I would hate.

After the supercharged Wagner, I moved on to the curiously irony-tinged charms of Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XX playing Music for the Spanish Kings (16/44.1 FLAC, Erato/Qobuz). Here once again I was struck by the clarity and vibrancy of the musical presentation.

Vibrancy is that rare quality of audio system sound that grabs listeners' attention, prickles their need for excitement, and steers them deeper into the music's content. It is the main trait that music streaming struggles to deliver. Here, via the Madison LE and Qobuz, it was boiling off these courtly processionals. The Madison's vitality made this music livelier and more accessible than it was with Denafrips's Terminator Plus DAC and Roon's Nucleus+ streamer.

Madison's streaming sonics were more transparent and microdetailed than those emerging from that Denafrips-Roon combo. Transients were more naturally preserved. Leading and trailing edges of notes felt complete. Rhythms bounced, percussion hit just hard enough, and vivo ruled.

Jordi Savall and the Hespèrion XX ensemble, and the sublime Montserrat Figueras, sounded tone truthful as they conveyed the Iberian feeling and sensual pleasures inherent to this music. The Madison and its Wattson Music app were delivering streamed 16/44.1 files with a sound quality similar and possibly superior to what I'd been experiencing with CDs via the TEAC VRDS 701T and Sparkler S515t transports. Streaming via the Madison LE displayed that same type of high-action vividness I found so appealing with the Sparkler transport.

In my drag-racer mind, the only way the sound of streamed music will ever engage and excite like LP or CD is if it adds some nitro methane to its processing fuel. Streaming needs to sound more vibrant and intense—with a vital, attention-grabbing clarity. That's what I was hearing with the Madison LE playing Jordi Savall.

Via S/PDIF from a transport
I assumed that the vibrancies described above were a result of the Madison LE's streaming mechanism. I was curious what would change when I took that part out of the chain and played CDs with TEAC's VRDS 701T transport, connected by coaxial S/PDIF.

La naissance de la Polyphonie (CD, German Harmonia Mundi HMX2908167) is a spectacular recording that needs to come through cleanly and crisply, but also smooth and sensuous with tangible touch factor. Besides a chronology of choral practice in Christian Europe from the 12th through the 20th century, this recording offers incredible dimensionality, with groups of singers divided into distinctly separate choral voices at different distances from the microphone. On most of these tracks, I need to hear a little of the venue walls, or at least some artificially induced suggestion of a room, to keep me listening in a prayerful spirit. In my system, the Madison LE found and organized all the pulsing reverb molecules, an ability I regard as proof of the Madison's excellent management of the time domain.

The Madison's vital clarity was more easily recognized through the full-range, crossover-less Voxativ Hagen2 Monitors than it was through the two-way, crossover-equipped Falcon LS3/5a speakers. When a sound system is phase coherent from source to speaker cones, images achieve an extraordinarily focused presence. When audio signals combine in phase, their presence and vibrancy are reinforced. When they collide out of phase, the sound becomes dull and defocused. My brain readily compensates for irregularities in frequency response, but it does not correct for time-domain vagaries.

Whenever I use TEAC's 701T transport, I feel like it's delivering all the low-level detail in just the right order. No blur. No generalizing. And definitely no added vibrancy. Which means that those extravivid vocal and room excitements I enjoyed on La naissance de la Polyphonie were a product of the Madison's DAC. I was impressed.

With Beyerdynamic DT 1770 Pro MKII headphones
On top of the tallest blues mountain, you'll find three preternaturally talented creatures: Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, and Skip James. All three proffer dark supernatural tales backed by guitar (or piano) pyrotechnics. All three artists are worth a lifetime of study. For the millionth time, I am marveling at Skip James's amazing, cannot-be-equaled piano playing. It's 10° outside, and I'm lying on my back in the dark, listening with Beyerdynamic's 32 ohm DT 1770 Pro headphones to "Little Cow, Little Calf Blues," the second track on Mr. James's 1968 album Devil Got My Woman (16/44.1 FLAC, Vanguard/Qobuz). The Qobuz-streamed version of this song is sounding almost as good, maybe as good, or possibly better (in its own way) than the LP version. This album never sounded this clean, clear, and inner-detailed when streamed by the Roon Nucleus+. This streamed Skip James sounded different than analog, but not inferior. It came through with the same emotional intensity as the LP. I felt like I just woke up, and while I was asleep, digital reinvented itself. The Madison's server-DAC-headphone amp made Beyerdynamic's easy-to-drive closed backs sound like the last headphones I, or any mastering engineer, would ever need.

Next, I played the Devil Got My Woman LP (Vanguard VSD 79273). I was amused by how the streamed version had shown me all these fantastic details of Skip's piano work and now there I was, looking for those details on the LP. I was grateful to see they were there, but they were presented less obviously, under a different light.

The Madison's headphone amp made Beyerdynamic's $599 DT 1770 Pro MKII closed backs sound more liquid clear and pro-level resolving than they had any right to at their three-figure price. You'd have to be a snooty elitist audiophile to require anything better with your Madison.

Speaking of elite: When Skip performed "Look at the People Standing at the Judgement," he dropped the falsetto, picked up his guitar, and started singing like a crooner. The smoothness of his voice was haloed by the velvety refinement of Meze Audio's flagship, the Elite planar magnetic openbacks. I knew that these $4000 headphones costs more than Wattson's DAC-streamer, but I didn't care. I wanted to see how smooth and beautiful the Madison's headphone amp could sound.

I smirked while playing "Goose Freight Train" (LP Version) off my favorite Melvins album, Stoner Witch (16/44.1 FLAC Atlantic/ Qobuz). The loping bass and finger snapping at the beginning felt raw, clear, and direct, as if I could see recording engineer Joe Barresi's or producer GGGarth's (Garth Richardson's) forearm, under a strong light, snapping their fingers about a foot from the microphone. Hearing "Goose Freight Train" via the Madison LE showed how Wattson's DAC-streamer was putting this track through fresh, clean, and super-textured, neither adding nor subtracting data. The Madison's streaming sound didn't sound like analog, or CD; it had its own vibe, presence, and intensity that I found equally appealing.

Because I'm me, I couldn't stop myself from trying one last headphone test, this time using Stereophile's 2023 Headphone Product of the Year, JPS Labs' Abyss Diana TC ($4495). The Diana TCs are difficult to drive, a 69 ohm load with 90dB/mW sensitivity. With the Abyss, the Melvins sounded dull and closed down, as though I was listening through a slit in a cardboard box. Weather Report's 8:30 was only a little better, under a dense, dark, heavy, low-hanging sky—no fun compared to how fresh alive and blue-sky open it sounded through Voxativ's Hagen2 standmounts. The Madison LE is best used with headphones that are easier to drive than the Diana TC.

In sum
I believe that the only way forward for music streaming is to start punching harder and sounding more movie star glamorous than its disc-based alternatives. Based on my experiences with the Madison LE, it seems Wattson's engineering team are hip to this plan and have created the Madison as a distillation of their leading-edge technologies to showcase the next level of in-home streaming sonics—in a small package, at an affordable price. In my system, the Madison LE streamer-DAC delivered a level of vibrance and vital clarity I had not previously encountered for under five figures. My highest recommendation