Wadia Digital – Power DAC / Digital Amplifier

Above: Wadia 790 Power DAC

They were very exciting times. Remember: ICE power et al were not yet commercialized, and thus the impressive Wadia 790 was the first “fully digital” amplifier that I heard of. You would need two of them, along with a digital controller to switch sources, convert to ST glass, and of course split the L/R digital signal into two halves. Extremely expensive and very rare beasts that I have never encountered in person, the combination is said to sound impressively good. Now, even though Wadia claims not to use “Class D switching amplifiers and digital switching amplifiers”, you can’t feed a speaker a digital signal and although I’m sure that the 790 used fully proprietary circuitry, I doubt that the underlying techniques really had nothing in common with current switching amplifier techniques. But if anyone has more info, I’m always happy to update this section.

Below cursive info about the 790 PowerDAC is taken from Audiogon user Pureaudio who has owned a pair for 12 years and was selling his system.

The PowerDAC is a true, industrial work of art and fabled conversation piece. The PowerDAC plays with awesome authority on Wilson Watt/Puppys (won Best Sound at the Show Award at the Hi-Fi show in Chicago with Wilsons). Each tower (DAC/Amp section) produces about 300 WPC. Wins “Best Sound at the Show”…again for the second consecutive year. The Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy Series 6, driven by the Wadia PowerDAC system received the Best Sound at the Show Award at the Hi-Fi ’99 show in Chicago.

Wadia Digital Corporation is proud to announce the introduction of the Wadia 790 PowerDAC, the flagship of an entirely new breed of audio product that significantly elevates the standard for music reproduction. The result of ten years of development, the Wadia PowerDAC uses a revolutionary patented process to convert digital signals directly to high-power analog signals that drive any loudspeaker. The Wadia PowerDAC radically simplifies the audio circuit path, replacing conventional preamplifiers and power amplifiers and keeping the signal in the digital domain until just before delivery to the loudspeaker. Providing the purest and most accurate conversion from digital to a high-power analog signal, the Wadia PowerDAC is an enormous step forward in music playback.

What is a PowerDAC? As the name suggests, the Wadia PowerDAC is a digital-to-analog converter with variable power to optimally drive even the most demanding loudspeakers. The PowerDAC uses the same basic architecture as Wadia’s existing Decoding Computers, but with analog output circuitry that supplies ultra-high current and voltage required to drive any loudspeaker to its full potential. The PowerDAC is Completely Different The PowerDAC is unlike any amplifying system on the market. Before developing the PowerDAC, Wadia engineers experimented with various amplifying and digital conversion techniques — including Class-D switching amplifiers and digital switching amplifiers. Clear advantages of the PowerDAC system over switching amplifiers include lower radiated noise, no passive components in the high power signal path, compatibility with a wider range of loudspeakers, and ultimately superior sound.

The Wadia 790 PowerDAC uses the most advanced digital audio circuitry in the world — beyond even the world standard Wadia 27ix and Wadia 9 Decoding Computers: New DigiMaster 1.3* with 32-times re-sampling at 96 kHz, true 24-bit resolution, upgradeable to 192 kHz. Wadia Digital Volume Control System eliminates the losses and distortion inherent in analog volume controls and can be optimized to match speaker sensitivity, listening room size, and user listening preference. ClockLink™ Jitter Reduction eliminates jitter added by the transmission interface. New patented Swift Current* zero-feedback current-to-voltage converter combines the sonic performance of discrete circuitry with the reliability and consistency of integrated circuitry. New Carillon Battery Powered Clock* jitter reduction circuitry eliminates power-supply induced jitter – and provides a jaw-dropping improvement in sound quality.

The Wadia 790 PowerDAC combines this advanced digital technology with state-of-the-art analog technology: Advanced, high-current MOSFET output stage mates perfectly with any loudspeaker, without the use of sonically damaging global feedback. The enormous, inductor-input power supply provides huge power reserves and twice as much rejection of AC line noise as conventional power supplies.

A stereo pair Wadia 790 power supply includes – 10 power transformers – 18 power inductors – Over 600,000 mF of capacitive filtering – 52 stages of regulation.

The Wadia 790 PowerDAC is the most advanced product in digital audio history. With the most processing power and modular construction of any Wadia product, the Wadia 790 PowerDAC will extract the maximum performance from any of the proposed new formats. All internal electronics are already capable of 24-bit, 192 kHz processing. The Wadia 790 PowerDAC: a combination of the finest digital decoding technology in history, plus the ability to drive any loudspeakers to its full potential. The Wadia PowerDAC is a fundamental breakthrough that simply must be heard to be appreciated.

While the mighty 790 never seems to have been a commercial success and Wadia is said to have even gone bankrupt partly due to this project, the restructured company continued to develop the principle under new management and later issued multiple other switching amplifiers.

Please note:

Unknown values are marked “xxxx”. Years with a question mark are not confirmed but likely close. Do please drop me a line if you have any of the missing info!

Digital Amplifier

790 wadia 790_powerdac clean 167pix
2000-2002

Original Retail 117.982 euro
(yes 117 thousand!)
The first-ever Power DAC – a DAC with powerful enough output to drive speakers directly. Unique at the time!

151
2009-present