Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 - Digital to Analogue Converter with Toslink, S/PDIF, and USB Inputs Featuring 24-bit Wolfson DAC - Silver

Product Information

But you have to pay for it, and with impressive competition, the DacMagic Plus is in 'very good' (but not class-leading) territory.

If you want to go wireless, there is an inevitable drop in quality – but the aptX dongle connected to our smartphones and laptop easily enough, and sounded better than standard Bluetooth connections. You will need to make sure that the digital output from the DVD player (or another source component) is set to output two-channel PCM, rather than other signals such as bitstream, Dolby Digital, DTS or multi-channel, etc. How do I install the latest USB audio driver for the DacMagic 100? Apart from anything else, we just loved the clean but always extended and tuneful bass this setting gave, with an utterly convincing sense of timing that made the most of the rhythmic qualities of any musical style. That smoothness clings to the violins leading Ólafur Arnalds’ Spiral (Sunrise Session) (24-bit/96kHz) in a way that makes it enjoyable without clouding the textural finesse or dynamic undulation of the strings that communicate the piece’s beautiful fragility. The Cambridge rides the dynamic ebbs and flows nicely, showing its grace in the quieter moments and its authority in the louder ones. Whatever your music source, you'll enjoy genuine hi-fi quality sound by using the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100. A Wolfson WM8742 24-bit DAC is teamed up with Cambridge Audio's wealth of digital engineering knowledge to create a sound that's vibrant, detailed and remarkably free from jitter. Jitter is especially prevalent on music sent via network devices or hard drives and can give the sound a harsh and unnatural quality.

£200 is all it takes to transform your old digital sources into cutting edge wonder machines

On the inside, business is taken care of by a pair of ESS Sabre ES9028Q2M digital-to-analogue converter chips. These make the 200M compatible with PCM digital audio files up to 32but/784kHz standard, as well as DSD512. With MQA compatibility on board too, there isn’t a digital audio file worthy of the name that the Cambridge Audio can’t handle.

The DacMagic 200M’s performance continues the momentum of the company’s recent hi-fi components, including the CX and Edge ranges. It’s recognisably ‘Cambridge’, characterised by a full, smooth tonality that’s complemented by an open, expressive and authoritative manner. We hook the Cambridge up to a Macbook Pro via USB type-B, feed it Arab Strap’s Fable Of The Urban Fox (16-bit/44.1kHz) and are instantly impressed by the articulacy of Aidan Moffat’s trademark poetic storytelling through the 200M. It not only communicates his unmistakable Scottish accent but also the masterful cadence of his delivery. You may not haverealisedit, but you’ve used a DAC every time you have played music through your laptop or smartphone. These products have their own built-in but usually very poor quality DAC because it’s been designed to do one small part of a devices total functions on a budget. So if you’ve been investing in some nice speakers or headphones, you’re not going to be making the most of them unless you use a separate DAC which has been designed andoptimisedentirely for makinghi-fisound quality. One tends to associate rhythm particularly with music for dancing or marching but, of course, it's no less important in a string quartet or ballad, just in a different way. All that said, we would probably live happily with any of them, but while the keen tweaker may want to experiment and perhaps adopt preferences based on musical style, we ended up listening mostly to linear.Then, of course, there is the format handling. This is 2021 where you can actually secure the odd thing in 24/192kHz you might want to listen to, so naturally, we’ve moved onto chasing some much bigger numbers. The 200M supports 24/768 and DSD512 via the USB input which should be enough for all but the most truly determined vapourware chasers. Something that isn’t Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 26th November 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.)

There are two coaxial inputs and a single optical one, all switchable from the front. Add to this the USB input and gold-plated analogue RCA outputs for connecting to your hi-fi and the DacMagic 100 has every angle covered. Linear phase is the type of filter most commonly used in up/oversampling players, since the very first Philips' machines in the early 1980s. It gives no phase shift at all within the audio band and rolls off very sharply around half the sampling frequency. Power on the unit and select the input source that you wish to listen to using the source button located on the front panel.In the 740/840 models it upsamples to 384kHz: here, a more modest version upsamples to 192kHz, but adds the flexibility of three filter types: 'linear phase', 'minimum phase' and 'steep'. The differences between these filters are in some ways subtle, but may be significant in determining the DAC's sound.