With the new WANDLA Dac, the Ferrum Audio team are making a statement to the current and next generation of music lovers. WANDLA represents tomorrow’s standard of high end digital-to-analog conversion. Think of WANDLA like a Formula 1 racing car. Like the F1 constructor’s team building the best racing car, Ferrum created the best engine for The Converter. WANDLA offers flagship audio quality at an unprecedented price. While WANDLA performs very good right out of the box it is made to excel above and beyond when used together with HYPSOS. Using the proprietary Ferrum Power Link (FPL) connection both components will perform to their maximum, unleashing unheard of musicality
WANDLA GoldenSound Edition Features and Changes:
Elevated digital headroom: Many modern musical tracks are produced in a way that leaves very little headroom in the recording, often referred to as the “Loudness Wars”, This can cause clipping and additional distortion during playback on most DACs due to the oversampling filter being unable to accurately reconstruct strong transients. The WANDLA has its own digital processing headroom, but GoldenSound Edition has elevated headroom to accommodate it to its additional DSP functions, which are described below, and therefore, unlike the vast majority of available DACs, the WANDLA GoldenSound Edition is highly immune to intersample overs even in bypass mode at full output level, allowing you to play back any music free from additional distortion.
Spatial Enhancement: The WANDLA GoldenSound Edition features a unique spatial enhancement that utilizes the power of the Ferrum SERCE module to provide an expanded soundstage and improved clarity of separation between musical elements, whilst avoiding the drawbacks commonly found in other approaches. A Headphone Mode and a Speaker Mode are offered to provide an enhancement tailored to each use-case, and this is achieved without any coloration to the frequency response, no additional distortion, and no tricks like added reverb.
Tube Mode: The WANDLA GoldenSound Edition features a tube mode, which intentionally increases the even-order harmonic distortion produced by the DAC, similar to the distortion added by a tube amplifier. This provides a warmer, richer sound without directly changing frequency response, and without the other drawbacks commonly found in tube based devices such as increased noise.
Impact +: The WANDLA GoldenSound Edition features an Impact + function for those that enjoy a little more low-end in their music listening experience. Though rather than a basic bass-shelf, this feature uses a customized two-band EQ which not only elevates bass but provides additional punch and dynamic impact.
No MQA: The WANDLA GoldenSound Edition no longer uses any MQA processing, with all content being kept as untouched PCM other than if you choose to enable one of the sound tuning features. All of DSP functions of WANDLA GoldenSound Edition are extensively using the processing power of the WANDLA’s SERCE module. Therefore, to ensure seamless operation, MQA decoder is not available in the GoldenSound Edition.
Hardware Voltage Adjustment: The WANDLA GoldenSound Edition includes a hardware level output voltage adjustment, allowing the user to swap between just below 10 Vrms output to just below 4 Vrms output. This is facilitated via a dedicated hardware voltage divider in the output stage of the DAC, allowing the user to select lower output voltage and ensure compatibility with all amplifiers, without a need to use any digital volume control, or to have analog volume control components in the signal path. This hardware voltage divider will be available on the standard edition of WANDLA and WANDLA GoldenSound Edition units starting with board revision v4.0.
Revisions older than v4.0 will support this functionality but do so in a slightly different way. These revisions will use the existing analog volume control chips instead.
*We will post Wanda (to GSE) upgrade details as soon as we receive them from Ferrum*
Specifications:
DAC chip: ESS Sabre ES9038PRO
DAC resolution: 768 kHz / 32 bit, DSD 512
Digital inputs:
- USB Type-C (up to PCM 768 kHz / 32 bit, DSD 512, DoP 256)
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I2S (up to PCM 768 kHz / 32 bit, DSD 512, DoP 256), PS Audio® compatible
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ARC (up to PCM 192 kHz / 24 bit), TV input with CEC
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AES (up to PCM 192 kHz / 24 bit, DoP 64)
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Coaxial S/PDIF (up to PCM 192 kHz / 24 bit, DoP 64)
- Optical S/PDIF (up to PCM 96 kHz / 24 bit*)
*May work up to PCM 192 kHz and DoP 64 – depending of customer optical cable and transmitter
Analog inputs: RCA
Analog input Vmax: 9.5 VRMS (2 – 3.5 VRMS recommended)
Analog input impedance: 47 kΩ
Line outputs: balanced XLR, unbalanced RCA
Volume control: analogue with bypass option / digital for DAC operation only
Output level (@ 0 dBFS / 1 kHz sine):
- PRO: 8 VRMS balanced, 4 VRMS unbalanced
- Red Book: 3.5 VRMS balanced, 1.75 VRMS unbalanced
Frequency response: 10 Hz – 200 kHz +/- 0.1 dB analog inputs
DAC THD: -121 dB (0.00009 %), THD+N: -115 dB unweighted
Analog input THD: -123 dB @ 2 VRMS
Dynamic range (A-weighted): 127 dB analog, 119 dB digital
Crosstalk: -120 dB for 1 kHz, better than -100 dB for 20 Hz – 20 kHz
Output impedance: 22 Ω unbalanced, 44 Ω balanced
Power consumption: 10 W idle, 15 W max
Power inputs (22-30 VDC):
- 5.5/2.5 mm DC connector, center positive
- Proprietary Ferrum Power Link (FPL) 4-pin DC connector
Power adapter: 100-240 VAC to 24 VDC
Remote control: Included
Dimensions: 21.7 cm x 20.6 cm x 5 cm / 8.6″ x 8.1″ x 2.0″
Weight: 1.8 kg / 3.97 lbs
