Wadax, the company

Wadax products have quickly established themselves at the cutting edge of digital audio performance. But what sort of company produces ground-breaking products that depend on unique, proprietary technology?

Wadax is located in a four storey, 900 m2 building in the heart of Madrid’s diplomatic zone, surrounded by embassies and luxury residences. Quiet, relaxed and secure, it is the perfect environment in which to develop and demonstrate high-end audio products.

Here you find a 180m2 showroom/listening room, as well as the company’s admin and management offices, R&D, prototyping and development facilities. While much of the development work is based on advanced CAD/CAM systems, combined with our own measurement and modelling software, we also have mechanical prototyping facilities to prove constructional details and automated parts or systems. In fact, everything is co-located for maximum efficiency – except the manufacturing and production line.
While much of the work behind our products and proprietary technology is research led and deeply theoretical in nature, it still has to be made real, actually turned into physical products. Even then, much of the work on physical design, PCB layout, power supplies and regulation is carried out in the virtual world of Co-simulation and other modelling or measurement software, often software we have had to write ourselves. But developing entirely new technologies and creating the products to fully exploit them requires production processes, machinery and know-how that are equally advanced – and totally beyond the means of all but the very largest audio companies. Accessing the cutting-edge manufacturing technologies that we need means working with the most advanced partners and suppliers. At Wadax, our production partners are certified suppliers to the most advanced and demanding, high-technology sectors, especially aerospace and military applications. These suppliers are formally certified, an exacting and regularly repeated procedure that ensures ultimate quality and consistency across both the processes and the products produced, products that meet the most demanding, safety conscious and mission critical functions.

Working closely together, we have developed dedicated production lines and teams, ensuring that our products share that consistent quality and performance, reliability in operation and security in terms of our proprietary technologies. In addition, these partners allow us unprecedented access to ultra-sophisticated production technology and equipment, as well as the most critical QA suites available. They allow us to develop our products, safe in the knowledge that we can deliver them on demand while guaranteeing the best possible performance and reliability.

Such dispersed manufacturing is essential to maintaining the creative and innovative ethos that has established Wadax products firmly at the pinnacle of audio performance. It allows us to do what we do best. It allows our partners to do what they do best. Best of all – it allows you to enjoy the products of our combined capabilities.

Wadax Timeline
1958-1988
The origins
Angel Guadalajara, a multi-disciplinary engineer with qualifications in acoustics, electronics and signal processing is also one of the first and most successful high-end distributors in Spain during that period. Establishing and representing innovative and prestigious brands, his combined business activities and expertise establish a single holistic goal - to capture and reproduce the emotional message and physical energy present in live music. It drives his passion to research and understand the process of musical reproduction, a passion he passes on to the next generation.
1989-1997
The result of this research was the development of not only ten core technologies in the fields of acoustics and signal processing, shared with his son, Javier Guadalajara, but the creation of an equally holistic approach to that single goal. One of those core technologies was the based on feed-forward analogue processing.
1997
Javier Guadalajara started importing accumulated expertise and understanding from the analog domain into the digital domain.
2004
Wadax starts development of the musIC chip, a unique, feed-forward, load sensitive, error correction application for digital electronics.
2010
The musIC chip
After six years of R&D, Wadax starts producing the first chip designed explicitly for High-End audio.
2011
Wadax launches its first product: the Pre1 Phono
An all-in-one product with DAC, ADC, Streaming, Phono and Line-Stage functionality.
2012
First review: Stereophile reviews the Pre1 Phono
Stereophile reviews the Pre1 Phono and it enters the list of Recommended Components with a Class A ranking.
2012
La Passion active-digital speaker is presented
A concept product designed as a technology showcase to demonstrate the full potential of system wide, digital signal processing.
2014
Pre1 Trio launched
A substantial upgrade on the Pre1: A DAC, Streamer, Phono and Line-stage Stage with sophisticated external power supply that challenged the performance of the very best single-function High-End products.
2016
musIC 2 chip: first release
Seven years after the introduction of the musIC chip, the second generation of this unique ic-based technology was released, implementing the latest versions of the feed-forward musIC process and algorithm. It establishes a completely new benchmark for State of the Art digital audio playback.
2017
Atlantis Digital Line announced
The full Atlantis Digital Line is demonstrated for the first time at the Munich High-End show: Atlantis DAC, Atlantis Server and Atlantis Transport. It’s the first Wadax product to include the musIC2 chip.
2019
Introduction of Atlantis REFERENCE DAC
The most ambitious product ever released by Wadax – eclipses the already state-of-the-art performance benchmark established by the Atlantis DAC. Quickly recognized as the best currently available digital replay by top reviewers in the US, UK and Far East. All reviews report a substantial advance over existing systems.
2020
Introduction of Atlantis REFERENCE SERVER
Another new Reference! The Reference Server introduces new storage and transfer technologies that redefine the quality of file replay. For the first time ever, streaming music offers consistently superior results to disc replay.