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Praise for DacMagic

Just wanted to give some very positive feedback for the Cambridge Audio DacMagic DAC. It doesn't seem to get much attention around these forums, but I am enjoying it immensely. In my opion, terrific value for the money.

During the past few weeks, I have used it with great success both within a PC music server and 2-channel environments.

Who knows, I may end up switching it out for a better DAC in the future, but for now I am quite pleased.

As a side note, I was not impressed with it at first when used to enhance an NAD C541 CDP. On a whim, I switched out the NAD for a modest Sony DVD player that is around 5-7 years old. Then, everything came into place and the music was rich and detailed. The Sony DVD/DacMagic combination blew the doors off the NAD/DacMagic combination. Go figure...
headshrinker2
soundbit
62 posts
 
Great information, thanks. For those of you who use a Squeezebox Touch were you able to hear the difference of the Touch DAC vs. routing through the DAC Magic before the PS upgrade? How did the upgrade effect the sound?
wolf_garcia
6,695 posts
 
The Squeezebox Touch has it's own sound...sort of sweet and "lower middy", but altogether not bad. In my compulsive quest for the cheapest possible upgrades I discovered that used DACMagics are around $300, and meet my needs for balanced outs and multiple ins (for Squeezebox and CD digital coax outs). Happily it made a LARGE improvement over the 'Touch alone (more coherant, sweeter, more accurate seemingly), makes my old but well designed Marantz CD player (a sturdy "changer" actually...NOBODY talks about those) sing, and added 3 blue lights! Might have something to do with the "re-clocking jitter reduction", upsampling, and better dacs/filters. The 'Touch lands the fish and the DACMagic cleans it. The P100 is sort of a calming presence except for the blindingly bright LED. FYI, the DACMagic "plus" comes to the US later this month, and looks way cool.
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
I'm really enjoying the DacMagic especially now with the Pangea P100 power supply. I can't solder to save my life so the $100 for the P100 Power Supply from Audioadvisor was worth it to me.
wolf_garcia
6,695 posts
 
I bought another P100 for my 640P phono preamp...I love those damned things. Seems to make the 640P warmer and more accurate...or something...and having 2 P100s next to each other in the back of my rack looks like the headlights in some space vehicle that landed there. A nice, somewhat mysterious vibe. Combined with the red filter I stuck on my Littlite, there is now a more serious red/blue theme happening...holiday appropriate!
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
CA have just released the Dacmagic Plus

- 24bit/384kHz upsampling
- Audio File Play via Bluetooth
- Volume Control
- Headphone jack
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