Wadia was bought by Fine Sounds, then owners of Audio Research and McIntosh, in 2011.
Everyone thought that would be a good thing at the time, perhaps an Audio Research CD player or DAC using Wadia’s Digimaster algorithm, or perhaps even the use of Wadia’s technology in McIntosh CD players or DACs. This was especially true as Wadia was moved from River Falls, Wisconsin just across the Mississippi River into the back of Audio Research’s building in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
Instead, by 2013, Fine Sounds and McIntosh decided to let Wadia wither on the vine and die. For example, Wadia had a new upgrade to allow the S7i to do 196/24 designed and ready to roll out, and Wadia’s customer base was anxious for it and regularly bugged the company about wanting to buy it.
Fine Sounds killed it. (In their defense, it still would have been PCM-only in a market rapidly embracing DSD.)
Instead, in 2014 they turned Wadia into a “lifestyle” brand, introducing the Intuition 01 DAC/Integrated amp in a swoopy new chassis that did not use Wadia’s vaunted Digimaster filter algorithm at all, instead going with an off-the-shelf ESS Sabre Pro ES9016S DAC.
Fine Sounds bought the Wadia legacy and… threw it away.
The former Wadia engineers decided in 2013 to create their own company to carry on the Digimaster legacy, but their effort, Exogal, sadly went out of business earlier this year; notably there was at least one review that stated their $2500 Comet Plus DAC beat the Rossini (though not the Vivaldi.)
That left many of the Wadia faithful like myself wanting to upgrade, but not willing to accept a downgrade in sound quality to do so.
Wadia still makes the Intuition along with the $3500 di322 DAC, which also does not use the Digimaster filter but instead uses the same ESS ES9016S DAC. (Wadia is now located in the back of the McIntosh factory in Binghamton, New York.)
Prior to the Rossini with Clock, I had auditioned the ARC Reference CD 9 SE and found it to be my “if my Wadia dies and I have no other choice” DAC, trading places from recording to recording with my other “second place” DAC, the Moon 780Dv2.
Again, as soon as I heard the Rossini with the Rossini Clock, I knew I had found my upgrade and left (with some sadness) the world of Wadia behind.