Wattson Audio Madison LE

The Madison Streamer is Wattson Audio’s definitive expression of digital playback and control. Designed and engineered entirely in-house, it combines a robust analog output stage with advanced DSP architecture—the foundation not only for its effortless musical precision and emotional depth, but also for continuous refinement over time. This flexible digital platform allows Wattson to implement meaningful performance upgrades, such as the new high-precision digital volume control, developed to enhance transparency, dynamic nuance, and musical realism. Supporting both network streaming and S/PDIF digital sources, the Madison offers balanced and single-ended outputs for seamless integration with power amplifiers, preamplifiers, or integrated systems. Compact, elegant, and uncompromising in performance, it embodies the essence of a modern high-end digital source—pure, precise, and profoundly musical. The Madison supports PCM playback up to 32-bit/384 kHz and DSD up to 256× (11.2896 MHz) via network streaming, along with PCM up to 24-bit/192 kHz through its S/PDIF input. These capabilities are not about maximizing numbers, but about preserving information during digital reconstruction. Increased bit depth allows finer amplitude resolution, lowering the audibility of quantization effects and preserving low-level detail that defines texture, space, and decay. ​ Higher sampling rates enable gentler interpolation and more accurate time-domain behavior, reducing temporal blur around transients and allowing musical events to unfold with greater continuity. The cumulative effect is not exaggerated detail, but a more natural sense of scale, flow, and dimensional realism—particularly evident in complex passages and acoustic recordings. At the heart of the Madison Streamer is Wattson Audio’s proprietary streaming engine—developed in-house around the Texas Instruments Sitara processor and refined through years of continuous evolution. This custom platform ensures uncompromising signal integrity, outstanding reliability, and seamless support for high-resolution audio, including native PCM and DSD. The result is effortless performance and a fluid, intuitive user experience. Beyond streaming, the Madison offers a dedicated S/PDIF input section with 75Ω RCA and TOSLink optical connections for legacy digital sources. Its precision clocking architecture employs ultra–low-phase-noise oscillators for the 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz families, each independently filtered to minimize jitter and noise. A high-performance SHARC DSP drives Wattson’s proprietary upsampling and spline-filtering algorithms, optimized for exceptional time-domain accuracy. Dual WM8742 DACs—one per channel—ensure superior separation, spatial coherence, and tonal purity, preserving the integrity and emotional depth of the music. Specifications Network streaming resolution: PCM up to 32-bit 384kHz, DSD up to 256x (11,2896MHz) ​ S/PDIF input resolution: PCM up to 24-bit 192kHz ​ RCA output level (0dB FS): 2,0V RMS ​ XLR output level (0dB FS): 4,0V RMS ​ Signal-to-noise, weighted (SNR-A): > 120dB ​ Harmonic distortion (THD+N, 0dB FS): < 0,001% ​ Headphone output: 2x 150mW on 32Ω, 2x 50mW on 150Ω, 2x 10mW on 600Ω ​​ Supported standards: UPnP/DLNA, AirPlay, TIDAL connect, Qobuz connect, Roon Ready, plays with Audirvāna ​​ Streaming services brought by the Wattson Music iOS app: TIDAL, Qobuz, airable radios, DLNA servers ​ Supported audio file formats: WAV, FLAC, AIFF, ALAC, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA ​ Network input: 100Mbit/s Ethernet ​ Digital inputs: 1x S/PDIF on RCA connector, PCM and 1x S/PDIF on TOSLink ​ Analog outputs: 1x unbalanced on RCA connectors and 1x balanced on XLR Headphone output: 6.35mm Jack connector​​ ​​ Dimensions (W x D x H): 174 x 185 x 52mm (6,9 x 7,3 x 2,1in) ​ Weight: 1075g (2,37 lbs) ​ Power supply: 5V DC, external, medical grade ​​ Power consumption: 50mW (idle), 3,5 W (playing)