Wadia 171i Digital Transport Sound Issues

"I'm also confused as to how digital IC's can be so different if there true 75ohm termination and wire..."

They're not all true 75 ohms. I think the termination is the biggest culprit in that, but don't hold me to that.

Even if they were, different cables (ICs, speaker, power)sound a bit different to my ears, even if they scientifically shouldn't. I used to get caught up in the why, now I just trust my ears as it proved to be a futile exercise to me.

Also, as you've found out, price has very little to do with sound quality in cables IMO. The more expensive ones are made better (for the most part), but that doesn't always equal sounding better.

It seems the weakness in my system between the iDock and D/A is the interface. I've tried three different well known interfaces with the Canare coming out on top, still there is something slight missing. Perhaps, this is the best I can get when I compare the sound to the CD, I'm adding a wire and two connections, the way I think I see it now is the interface must be invisible, does anyone know of a digital IC that can pull this off? Thanks!
Rpg

There may be another factor, and that has to do with the use of the 840c.

I have another post where I describe the use of the 840c as a player into a Bryston BDA-1. I found a similar reduction in clarity when using the upsampled digital outputs of the 840c into the Bryston. Only the raw 16/44.1 data from the player sounded as good or better than the CD player (840c) alone.

My point is that if you are comparing a digital input to the 840c vs a CD being played by the 840c, I suspect there may be a quality loss entering the digital process stream of the 840c. This is irrespective of cables.

This may be due to the 840c design where the system is optimized very well to take it's player output and upsample it to the DAC. If you interrupt this stream going either direction, audio quality suffers, even though its in the digital process streams where (theoretically) it should not make a difference.

I thought the Wadia dock was totally overpriced and lacking in quality. I sold it after I bought the $99 i-20 PURE dock which is sonically superior and much better than the Wadia in terms of build quality. A no-brainer audiophile purchase.

I use the i170 with a 160gb iPod Classic, and find it very sensitive to PC and digicable. With a Kharma Grand ref digicable (which I had lying around) and a Nordost Brahma PC connected to an adaptor for the Wadia electrical input, I get very near CD quality sound, especially with a FLAC download converted to iTunes.

It may not make much sense to use a PC and digicabkle that cost multiples of the i170 itself, but I had the wires anyway and the convenience and reliability is worth it! And a lot simpler, cheaper and more reliable than (ugh!) computer audio.

Neal