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The speaker terminals are exclusively banana which is okay. Nearly all cable vendors today offer that termination option. Where real surprise kicks in is reading that this pizza-box sized deck which counters the drag of massive audiophile cable snakes with a mere 6 kilograms unleashes 350 watts into 4Ω. Clearly that mandates class D’s compact efficiency, here Italian PowerSoft modules. So even in party mode the top merely hits lukewarm. The power switch hides around back right above the IEC power inlet by the way.
Integrating the Intuition 01 into my rig was child’s play. Requiring a single shelf for all its functionality merely displaced my North Star Supremo DAC whilst taking over its power cord and USB cable plugged into a Win8 HP laptop with JRiver player. My class A Musical Fidelity AMS 35i muscle integrated could stay put—my lower back saluted—and only had to relinquish its speaker cables. I was ready.
ESS Sabre DAC inside. The Wadia is no Power DAC but an integrated with built-in DAC and switching output stage. It's not a direct-digital circuit using PCM-to-PWM conversion like NAD, NuForce and Audio4Soul doit.
Not so fast. To get full traction this Windows man needed to install the proper driver either via the included USB stick or also downloadable from Wadia’s website. Apple users of course are plug’n’play. Now I was ready to run in the machine which I did in the literal sense of the word. My latest toy is WiMP, a commercial streaming service whose extensive library is massive fun to surf to discover new stuff or reconnect with forgotten flames. Select WiMP's best quality and you stream in uncompressed CD quality*. Naturally a top DAC like the Wadia takes to that like a hungry bear to honey.
* Since we're a global publication it's only fair to point out that at time of publication WiMP subscriptions were limited still to five European countries. If that excludes you, check whether Qobuz streaming is available. Their HiFi abonnement too streams at 16/44.1 in FLAC format. - Ed.
Looking for "Lullaby of Broadway", I chanced upon a version with the Oscar Peterson Trio. The Canadian keyboard lion seemed intent to prove that he possessed the quickest fingers even with a track that’s not slow to begin with. And the Wadia really made the most of this historical recording. It dug into the dynamic enormously nuanced Peterson artistry with such conviction that I nearly shed tears of joy. That’s how good this ancient cherry can sound despite vintage effects in the bandwidth extremes. The top end is recessed, the bass generally soft and set into the background. But those were the standards back then. The all-important midband however was dynamic and finely resolved.
To hit presumably familiar turf, in with JRiver and my carefully selected hard-disc library, out with WiMP’s unbelievably vast online selection. Still in the thrall of the old piano legend I selected a modern variant, Jazzsketches by Caroline Wegener’s Acoustic Trio. And I had my first surprise with the first cut "Berlin bei Nacht". It sounded different than usual. Caroline’s highly dynamic very colour-intense keyboard artistry captivated as it always does. But I thought transient detail and string decay were more intense and teased out. And somehow the midband too felt fuller than with my reference gear which plays it a bit harder and cooler. Wadia’s minor sonic opulence was new for this album.
