Every so often a company comes along that genuinely makes you rethink what’s possible, and Wadax has most certainly done that. Based in Madrid, they’re a relatively young company, formed in 2006 — but their roots run far deeper than that suggests. Founder and chief engineer Javier Guadalajara grew up immersed in the world of audio and music.  His father Angel had been distributing high-end audio in Spain since the 1950s, so a love of music and a fascination with how to reproduce it faithfully is, you might say, in the blood.

What sets Wadax apart, though, isn’t heritage — it’s a singular obsession.

For more than two decades they’ve been wrestling with the question that the industry and audiophiles have almost obsessively talked about –  why does digital, no matter how good it gets, still sound digital?

Wadax’s answer to this dates back to 2004, a proprietary feed-forward error correction process called musIC, which corrects the timing and phase errors that conventional converters simply can’t escape. It’s deeply clever engineering, but it’s all done in service of something rather human — capturing the emotion and physical energy of live music.

Their flagship Atlantis Reference range has undoubtedly been the pinnacle of high end digital audio, but to be fair its position in the marketplace puts it out of touch for all but the vast majority. But, Wadax have been making giant strides to make that magic a little more attainable with the development and release of their Studio Collection. A range of products designed to sit well underneath the Atlantis Reference, but whilst still offering a tantalising slice of that magical performance.

Wadax unlocks the emotional messages encoded in digital music by manufacturing the best – and most beautiful – digital sources on Earth

The starting point for the Studio Collection is  the Studio Player, this is Wadax’s digital Swiss army knife if you will – an incredible all in one digital player which incorporates a CD and SACD Player, a Network Streamer and a Digital to Analogue Converter in one elegant box. Simply give it power, a network connection and an XLR cable to your pre-amp or integrated amp and you are good to go, although it is important to stress than the Studio Player can also be connected directly to a power amplifier using its own volume control.

Studio Player is the ultimate expression of everything that encapsulates Wadax as a company in a single box. It performs to an amazingly high level, more so than its price point would suggest, the way in which its paints and present the music in front of you is something to behold and if you are chasing that ultimate goal of emotional engagement it is an experience that is very hard to ignore.

To get the Studio Player to achieve these incredibly high performance levels Wadax have incorporated a significant amount of ‘trickle down technology’ from their ground-breaking Atlantis Reference.  For example, they both share the same DAC board and analogue output stage. Studio Player is expandable and modular by design, it has been developed to be easily upgraded as and when new new developments become available.

Whether you are playing CD, SACD or streaming Qobuz or Tidal either via Connect, J-Play or Roon the Studio Player takes the musical signal and redefines almost everything you thought possible, digital or otherwise.

All the Studio Player is an complete solution in one box it was always conceived to the be in first product in the wider Studio Collection. Wadax drew upon all their wealth of knowledge and expertise to create a complete new eco-system built around the Studio Player and as you explore and experience these additional Studio products you will find that the performance is elevated to a whole new level…..prepare to have your reference point ripped up and realigned.

The Studio Player was unveiled at the Munich High End Show in 2024 and it really stood out as a superb single box solution, but forward 12 months to Munich 2025 Wadax previewed 2 new Studio Collection products to compliment the Studio Player with the launch of the Studio PSU and the Studio Clock.

Both the PSU and Clock dramatically enhance and further develop the already superb performance of the Studio Player. You can add either both products to the Studio Player, either at once or over time or simply add one of them. Many customers will leave the Studio Player as a single box as well to be fair, it is all dependent on the customer, system requirements and of course budget.

The Studio Player is priced at £38,500, the PSU is £27,950 and the Clock is £26,950, but the Studio Collection won’t stop with these 3 products. In the inaugural High End Show in Vienna this year Wadax announced the arrival of the Studio Transport and the Studio DAC.

Wadax have created with the Studio Collection 10 different levels of performance and a Studio Player on its own, with all of its performance, ability and effortless presentation is classed as Level 1, which is the starting point.

There is no pretending or hiding from the fact that the Studio Player is an expensive item, but when you break down the features and functionality and factor in the exceptional performance levels I’d argue the Studio Player represents excellent value and in the world of Wadax it is a lot more attainable than anything that has gone before it. It plays music with real atmosphere and drama and it is incredibly engaging and involving, if you want to be emotionally moved and connected to your music the Studio Player is a truly sensational product.

We frequently discuss system synergy and how important it is to get the best from your system and the Studio Player has a couple of brilliant tricks up its sleeve in this regard. It has both adjustable output levels and output impedance levels which allow you to really fine tune the output to match your system to allow you to maximise performance levels, there are 3 different output levels and 16 different impedance settings and is something which should not be underestimated.

The Studio Player

The Studio Player is Wadax’s entry level model designed and conceived as a more accessible version of their flagship Atlantis Reference System. It features a significant amount of technology and performance which has been passed down to the Studio Player

The Studio Player is the Wadax ‘entry level’ model and it possesses an exhaustive feature set offering CD and SACD playback plus Network Streaming with services that include Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect and Spotify Connect. It is also a Roon Ready device and fully supports DLNA and UPnP.

Disc Playback

CD as a format is over 40 years old now and a few years ago many felt it was starting to disappear, CD player sales were few and far between, but recently there has been a significant resurgence in both interest and player sales. I know a lot of customers who are purchasing more new CD’s today than ever before and of course the second hand market for CD’s is incredibly strong. Of course, for many CD as a format never went away in the first, it is still an exceptional format and it has taken a long to truly understand just how capable CD is as a format, 16 bit 44.1 has an incredible amount to offer when done properly, more so than many realise or have ever experienced

Playing CD’s in the Studio Player is an absolute joy to behold, it unpacks so much information from those 12 cm discs, but it’s not the detail and resolution that sets the Studio Player apart, it’s the sense of life, energy, rhythmic drive and musicality which gives CD an almost eerie level of realism. If you crave music with texture, layers and a real sense of structure about the way the music hangs in the room the Studio Player is a magical product.

SACD is much the same to be fair, it never really took off as a format and software is relatively thin on the ground, I’ve a modest collection of albums on SACD and when done well they are a clear and obvious step up over the red book equivalent, but it’s largely irrelevant for the vast majority.

Streaming

Streaming with the Studio Player is incredibly easy and intuitive. It offers streaming with Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify, all supoorted by ‘Connect’ so you simply use your streaming services dedicated app and choose the Studio Player as the audio output and you are good to go.

The Studio Player can also be controlled by J-Play and it is fully compatible DLNA / UPnP so if you have Melco N1 (or a newer Dela) with large archive of CD rips and downloaded music you can effortlessly serve them to the Wadax.

The Studio Player can also operate as a Roon Endpoint, so if Roon is your thing so simply need to sign into your account and you are good to go. Roon is incredibly intuitive and a pleasure to use, its ability to find new music and make recommendations based on your listening is second to none.

From a networking standpoint connecting the Studio Player to a Dela S5 or S1 network also pays dividends to overall system performance, we keep the full range of Dela switches on demonstration.

Studio PSU

Wadax premiered the Studio PSU (and Studio Clock) at Munich 2025 and it was designed to further complement the performance of the Studio Player, it incorporates a lot of technology which was designed for the Atlantis Reference and that technology has been filtered down, simplified to some degree, but it places the Studio Player into a whole new territory in terms of ability and performance.

Greater weight, improved dynamics and insight, everything about the performance improves when you add the Studio PSU, priced at £27,950 many Studio Player owners will not feel the need to add the PSU, it all comes down to space, budget and how far one wishes to develop their system ultimately.

But, there is no mistaking what the Studio PSU does when you add it to the Studio Player.

There is also the option for the Studio Akasa DC Studio Cables as well, which takes performance even further.

Studio Clock

The Wadax Studio Clock is a true Masterclock designed specifically to further enhance the already world class performance of the Studio Player. The release of the Studio Clock and the Studio PSU was always going to be the start of a much bigger journey that customers could potentially undertake and Wadax have developed a complete Studio eco-system that is scaleable based on a customers performance requirements and of course budget.

The Studio Player in isolation delivers incredible performance that redefines the digital landscape at its price point, but adding the Studio Clock dramatically enhances the performance even further

The technology that Wadax have employed in the Studio Clock has been filtered down from their flagship Atlantis Reference clock.

The Studio Clock features six fully configurable Word Clock outputs, each operating via isolated 75-ohm BNC connections. These outputs support a wide range of clock speeds—up to an impressive 196.6 MHz, ensuring perfect sync with whatever you connect it to.

The Studio Clock doesn’t just pair with other Wadax equipment either, it can also serve as a master timing hub for third-party devices such as servers, routers, switches, or any audio component which is equipped with an external clock input, for example the Melco / DELA N1 and S1 both have word clock inputs.

Experience the Studio Player at Audio Therapy, this is a very special product and is something that everyone should have the opportunity to experience, Wadax have managed to squeeze out an incredible amount of performance from the Atlantis Reference into this single box and it almost makes it hard to ignore in many ways.

The Studio PSU and Clock will be joining the Studio Player on demonstration once we have our feet under the table with the Studio Player, our permanent demonstration Studio Player isn’t here yet, but we are already booking in demonstrations for once it has arrived.

Images courtesy of Boyer Audio and Santeri Lohi