Wouldn’t it be “easy” for mfg to do custom outputs? I know with the allnic DAC you can request them to lower it
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If I had to guess, its more of a logistics issue than an engineering one. Also, just tbh, I kinda suspect a lot of places give super hot outputs to be more “impressive” durring demos since you get higher dnr if you have propper amounts of gain elsewhere, so they may not want to lower it
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Yes, in some cases, not others, it depends on how they do it. Some mfg might actually rework the circuit to accommodate, some might slap a resistor on it and call it a day, have to be careful there
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Be careful what you wish for, I’m going to guess most will add resistors, in which case you might as well use a passive attenuator.
The other options they have will have more impact on sound, you can’t just drop gain and end up with something that sounds the same.
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and in particular, from the wavedream net
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Sandu compares I2S to USB with the X-SPDIF3 at this timestamp…
tl;dw - no big difference and no preference with the Wavedream Signature… he then goes to say how much of a massive improvement is the WD NET source lol
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Introducing Rockna Signature Anniversary. You can hear it in Munich, E215
Perfect match with the Red lol this is so ugly
EDIT: this is not photoshop, it’s actually on Rockna’s facebook page.
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A lot of the time when you’re listening, your eyes are closed anyway.
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Bah humbug I kind of like the colored anodizing, with the caveat it’ll be impossible to find matching components which would probably not make it my first choice.
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I like it too, it’s just you’ll be forever getting comments from the peanut gallery.
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Dartzeel? dragon inspire iha-1? spl phonitor lol? Limited pool outside of custom color jobs for amps lol. Just complete the look with some AQ red river interconnects and a sonifex digital source
Guess some of the custom color from a&s, viva, arc, and so on would work
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I typically like red, but I’m not felling this particular one at all. 
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Thanks to @orrman for letting me demo his Wavedream while he’s travelling. I’ve just had it for a couple days now but wanted to add some initial impressions in comparisons to my Bricasti MC1 (network and MDx) now that both dacs seem to be warmed up as I’m not hearing any new differences.
Set up is pi2aes feeding WD with i2s. Bricasti is using the network input. Both dacs are going to a serene preamp into the Schiit Tyrs and then either into headphones or a Woo Wee for the x9000.
Some of my headphones are resolving the differences better then others so the main ones I’ve used so far have been Verite Closed, Diana V2, 800S, and X9000. My favorite headphone with this dac is the Diana.
At first the WD felt like it was just better then the MC1. But, I haven’t been in the habit of leaving the MC1 on since I had a weird issue with the MC1 responding poorly to a power brownout and changing a setting on the dac somehow 
. If I had an M1 with the screen I should have been able to fix it but since there’s no screen it had to go to Bricasti and they reprogrammed it. Brian Zolner told me he turns on his equipment a couple hours before listening so I started doing that. However the MC1 has started to perform better after being left on for 12 hours + so I feel sort of silly that I’ve been handicapping the dac for so long 
. With that rant out of the way here are some impressions.
The biggest difference I hear between the two dacs is that the WD has this emphasis on the upper mids and treble, specifically vocals, horns, percussion, and guitars. This makes the images in this area of the sound feel bigger and have more space around them. It also seems louder even though I have level matched the dacs within a few tenths of a dB. Sometimes this emphasis seems to add a haze or extra spice to cymbals and vocals which can sound unnatural or make flaws in a recording more obvious. The Bricasti in comparison sounds much darker in that region and sometimes can sound muffled or soft when switching back and forth.
The WD is a bit faster overall especially in the low end, sometimes the music feels like it’s dragging with the Bricasti. The Bricasti stages a bit wider although the WD has a much more holographic sound with better layering, depth, and fluidity as things move around the stage. This effect changes with the track though, depending on the stage size of the recording it can be obvious or seem about the same. The Bricasti sounds like there is a bit more bass emphasis but this could be a side effect of it being slower.
That’s what I’m hearing now but it’s only been a couple of days so will update if I have more discoveries with the differences between these dacs. Thanks again for the demo, always fun to hear new pieces of gear in my system.
Also I have played around with the filters and volume on the WD. I was using no filter most of the first day and linear most of yesterday. They sound close enough but haven’t spent time really comparing the two of them. And the other filters, minimum and hybrid I haven’t used. I’m level matching with the volume on the WD because it’s easier then adjusting the serene each time I switch. But might use the WD at full output soon to see if that changes anything for me or not.
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A few more thoughts now that it’s been a week with the Rockna. Most recently I’ve been running the linear filter and bypassing the volume control of the WD. I’ve still been using the pi2aes to pass i2s but have also got my Urd back and have used that to feed CD and streaming over AES.
I discovered when attempting to volume match with test tones that tones over 1k or so were louder on the WD. I ended up volume matching with white noise and now they feel much more similar in volume when switching. This helps reduce the sense that mids and treble were louder on the WD that I discussed in my last post.
I’ve tried most of my headphones on the two dacs and there are some that I prefer on one over the other. Basically headphones that sound a bit darker or congested benefit from the sound of the WD (ZMF mostly ). Headphones that are a little lean in the bass or tuned brighter sound better on the Bricasti. But I enjoy all my headphones on both and sometimes it seems like I prefer one dac over the other based on the music. With vocal jazz, I really like the WD’s texture and presence whereas with electronic I like the Bricasti’s heavier bottom end. However, in most cases the WD presents detail better, stages more naturally, and has more texture. The one part where the Bricasti seems to consistently win is in the bass quantity and slam. But I still find the Bricasti a bit muddy sounding next to the WD.
I have some cool gear coming in for demo soon that I’m hoping to use with the WD. Next week I should get the Aperio and the Raal VM1a. I’m also trying to see if I can get a Meitner MA3 but am not sure it will ship in time to have while the WD is here on loan. I’ll update with thoughts with those pieces of gear.
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The Wavedream went back to Orrman today. I sent him some notes that I’m going to include here since I think it’s a good synopsis of my time with the dac:
My initial impression was really positive but that was before I volume matched with white noise which made the dacs easier to compare. Once the volumes were more even I found that the rockna had more presence to vocals and cymbals and some of the best imaging I’d heard. The way that sounds move about the soundstage is very fluid. It sort of reminds me of what the wa33 does well but not as dry.
I liked the bass on the bricasti better. It wasn’t necessarily more accurate but there was more of it which made a big difference on x9k and sr1b. It also presented vocals a lot more intimately which is probably due to it not presenting depth or layering very well. It’s either close in or far away with that dac.
The one thing that still confuses me is how similar the rockna sounded to the ma3. I also switched off the serene and started using the kara so that might have impacted how the dacs sounded through a pre. A friend came by yesterday to try Aperio and also to hear the rockna and ma3 through the utopia. He couldn’t notice a difference either. I’m pretty sure the ma3 and bricasti will be more different and will start that comparison soon although the ma3 still doesn’t have much time on it.
What I didn’t like was the screen and controls of the rockna. The info it provided was good but it just reminded me of how clunky the dave settings were. I really like how the bricasti has no screen but a bunch of buttons and each button just does one thing. It’s not a very clean look but it’s just simpler to operate. I also couldn’t tell a huge difference between the filters on the rockna but slightly preferred linear to off. It sort of sounded like the stage was a bit larger with the linear filter but I didn’t spend much time comparing the two.
So basically I like the rockna a lot. It’s much more technically capable then the Bricasti but I like the more easy going nature of the bricasti next to the rockna which sometimes became harsh with things like the x9k. The Ma3 is very similar to the rockna so far and am curious how it goes next to the bricasti once I get more then 200 hours or so on the ma3.
Also for the VM1a and Aperio, I didn’t really like the pairing with the VM1a but more so with the SR1b. I just didn’t get the bass quantity that I wanted and preferred the Bricasti in that setup. With the Aperio, it does sound better with the Rockna. The stage expands and you gain some smoothness and more detail.
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Is a Rockna dac universal voltage? One dealer telling me its universal but on the back I see 120v and some 230v?
It is not
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That’s what I thought. Thanks for confirming.
I believe it is relatively easy to put in jumper’s and switch it . Page 18 of the manual