Стримеры — Wattson Audio Madison LE Streamer

The Madison LE Streamer combines network playback, digital to analogue conversion and a headphone stage in one small box from the Swiss company Wattson Audio, where design, manufacturing and assembly all take place. LE stands for Lounge Edition. The LE version has since been retired, and the current Madison keeps the same circuit topology with revised exterior detailing.

Key specs that matter

Two WM8742 DAC chips work in differential mode, one per channel. Over the network the unit plays PCM up to 32 bit and 384 kHz and DSD up to DSD256, or 11.2896 MHz, while the 75 ohm coaxial RCA and Toslink digital inputs accept PCM up to 24 bit and 192 kHz. Analogue output is 2.0 V RMS at 0 dBFS from the RCA sockets and 4.0 V RMS from the XLR sockets. Signal to noise ratio is above 120 dB, and total distortion with noise measures under 0.001 percent. The 6.35 mm headphone jack delivers 150 mW into 32 ohm, 50 mW into 150 ohm and 10 mW into 600 ohm.

Engineering and use context

Wattson mills the trapezoidal enclosure on CNC machines out of a solid aluminium block. It measures 174 x 185 x 52 mm, weighs 1,075 g and was offered in light grey or dark grey, with the Wattson emblem embossed on the top. Network connection is a 100 Mbit per second Ethernet port running a proprietary bit-perfect asynchronous streaming solution. The streamer is Roon Ready and supports Audirvana, AirPlay, Qobuz Connect, TIDAL Connect and UPnP or DLNA, and the Wattson Music app for iOS gives access to TIDAL, Qobuz, airable radio stations and DLNA servers. Volume is set by a 64-bit digital attenuator in 0.5 dB steps, verified to within 0.1 dB. Every Wattson streamer is built around the company's own ARM-based Ethernet interface, and its digital processing uses time-domain spline filtering shared only with CH Precision products. Power comes from an external 5 V DC medical-grade supply, and consumption is 50 mW at idle and 3.5 W during playback.

Pairing

The built-in volume control lets the Madison LE drive a power amp or powered speakers on its own through its balanced or unbalanced outputs, without a separate preamplifier. The same unit can serve a headphone system on a desk, and the S/PDIF inputs accept a television or CD transport as extra sources.

Alternatives

The Wattson Audio Emerson DIGITAL is a network streamer from the same maker that acts as a bridge with S/PDIF and AES/EBU outputs for an external DAC.