Why Stereophile and The Absolute Sound Are Raving About Wattson Audio
Its big news when a digital front-end wins over both Stereophile and The Absolute Sound in the same season. But Wattson Audio - the small Swiss sibling to CH Precision - quietly perfecting network streamers and minimalist amps that blend precision engineering with musical warmth — just pulled it off.
Both publications recently gave high praise to Wattson’s Madison LE streamer/DAC, citing its effortless realism, texture, and emotional presence. In a world of DACs that measure perfectly but struggle to produce the visceral tone and tug of real performers communicating their art, Wattson has struck a rare balance between technical purity and musical soul.
A Swiss Take on Streaming
Wattson Audio’s team cut their teeth as design consultants for some of the most prestigious and well-known brands in the audio world before launching their own line. The result is unmistakably Swiss: compact, minimalist, obsessively refined.
Where most streaming DACs chase specs, Wattson chases connection. Their design employs a Sharc DSP chip to implement upsampling and spline-filtering, while independent left and right channel WM8742 DACs preserve channel separation and spatial information. The difference isn’t subtle. The Madison LE, for example, projects a sense of three-dimensional space and tone color that you rarely hear in digital gear under five figures.
What the Reviewers Heard
Here’s a taste of the industry reaction (summarized from Stereophile and The Absolute Sound reviews):
“…exceptional flow, presence, and vibrancy…”
— Stereophile
“Everything sounded so natural and lifelike with a smoothness and richness that are generally not associated with solid state amplifiers”
— The Absolute Sound
Links to the full reports are available on our Product Reviews page.
At Backbeat Audio, we call the Madison LE “the streaming DAC with soul.”
These are components that make digital sound analog in the best sense — not soft or colored, but deeply believable.
We’re proud to represent Wattson Audio in the Pacific Northwest and invite you to experience the Madison and Emerson streamer/DACs, along with the award winning Madison amp in our listening studio.