However, a visiting Wadia representative looked inside our sample and used the word "ancient" to describe its circuitry in relation to current production. In addition, I was never able to audition the 2000 with a glass fiber-optical interface, standard equipment on Wadia's transports.…
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During my reviews of digital processors in the past year or so, I've made comparisons with the Wadia 2000 Digital Decoding Computer first reviewed by Arnis Balgalvis in Vol.13 No.1. I've felt that, as good as the 2000 is, other processors—many costing less than the 2000's $8500 price tag—are now superior.
Follow-Up from October 1992 (Vol.14 No.10):
In my report on the Wadia Digimaster 2000 in the June issue, I reported on the latest version of this sophisticated processor's sonic and technical attributes. I found the 2000's musical presentation extraordinary—unequivocally Class A performance in Stereophile's "Recommended Components." My measurements, however, revealed some odd behavior: the low-level linearity was very poor—among the worst I'd ever measured—and the unit decoded a –90dB, 1kHz signal at –100dB and generated a spurious 2kHz signal nearly equal in amplitude to the test…
Follow-Up from December 1996 (Vol.19 No.12):
Wadia Digital has offered four upgrades of its 2000 Digital Decoding Computer since the model's 1989 debut. The first was a streamlined power supply that was much more aesthetically pleasing than the square metal box supplied with the first units. Multiple digital inputs on the 2000 also replaced the separate fiber-optical converter and its outboard power supply—necessary if you wanted to decode more than one digital source—and reduced the four-box 2000 to two.
The latest upgrade is much more extensive: the 2000's entire circuitry is…
Sidebar 1: 1996 System Context
I drove the Wadia 2000 with both the Wadia 7 transport and the Mark Levinson No.31 transport. The former was connected with the Wadia-recommended glass-fiber optical (ST-Type) cable. Other digital links included the Illuminati coaxial and AES/EBU cables.
Loudspeakers were Genesis II.5 dynamic/ribbon hybrids. The upgraded 2000 saw action driving the Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 preamplifier as well as with a direct connection to the Audio Research VT150 power amplifiers.
The long balanced interconnect between the 2000 and VT150s was WireWorld Gold…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Stereo digital processor intended to take a standard SPDIF multiplexed L/R, serial digital datastream. Sampling frequencies: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz. DigiLink 30 unit converts coaxial digital signal to optical format for feeding the decoding computer. Maximum analog output level: 5V RMS (balanced), 2.5V RMS (unbalanced). Analog output impedance: 3.5 ohms.
Dimensions: 17" W by 2.5" H by 12" D (main unit), 8" by 4.5" by 13.75" (main unit power supply), 8.5" W by 2.5" H by 10" D including psu connector (DigiLink 30), 5" W by 2.75" H by 11" D…
Because this is an unusual and controversial tonearm design, and has had astonishing claims made for its performance by the manufacturer, this in-depth report goes deeper and is longer than is usual for Stereophile. We will return to a reasonable balance of reportage in the next issue.
The manufacturer's initial advertisement for their mis-named "Vestigal" arm (footnote 1) was so laced with nonsense that we will admit to having been skeptical about the product from the outset.
For example: Transcriptors claims that the "Perfect Arm" should have zero mass. If it did, the low-…
A pickup's output is produced by movements of its stylus relative to the body of the cartridge (which contains the sensing elements). At frequencies above a certain point, the inertia of the cartridge and the arm tends to hold the cartridge still while the stylus vibrates independently of it, thus producing signal output. Below a certain point, the cartridge-and-arm frequency response of a relatively undamped tonearm-pickup combination resonating at 10Hz (fig.1), inertia is insufficient to stabilize the cartridge, and it starts to follow the groove "modulations." Relative stylus/cartridge…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: To put forward to your readers a doctrine of low-compliance cartridges in the required high-mass tonearms is offering advice that a technology 20 years out of date should be followed. I am not able to argue at such a level, as such thinking indicates only an utter lack of knowledge on this subject Whilst in no way would I fault lack of knowledge, I do fault unqualified journalists writing about highly complex subjects such as tonearms, when in reality their vocation is that of a greengrocer, garbage worker or whatever.
Contrary to your comments, no…
Reviewer's Addendum
Okay, we admit it. We probably were guilty of oldthink in our reaction to the Vestigial arm. There is no doubt but that tracking cleanness and record life are enhanced by reducing total system mass (or inertia) as much as possible, and that in this respect the Vestigial arm represents a substantial advance in the state of the phono art. It is also true of course that the compliance must be very high (as it is in the KLM) in order to place the resonance of the system at the optimum frequency (or frequencies when vertical and lateral mass are different).
But the…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Low-mass arm for use with high-compliance cartridges.
Price: $100 (1975); no longer available (2015).
Serial number of review sample: Un-numbered sample loaned by Music & Sound, Ltd., Willow Grove, PA.
Manufacturer: Transcriptors, Ireland. US Distributor: Transcriptors, 330 West 58th St., New York, NY 10019 (1975); Transcriptors Limited, Unit 10, Daybrook Business Centre, Daybrook, Notts. NG5 6AT, UK. Web: www.transcriptors.eu (2015).