Is It Magic? NO. But It's Darn Good - The Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M ! (Take 2, Ep:37)
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- On June 15, 2021, Mark Phillips reviewed the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M ($499 in the United States) for SoundStage! Access and wrote: "It’s a jack of all trades-other DACs in its price range might do one or two things better, but you’d be hard-pressed to find something anywhere near its price that does everything as well as does the DacMagic 200M."
Read the full review here: www.soundstage...
Now Jay Soulsik give you his second impressions in this video, which indicates he liked the DacMagic 200M even more than Mark did. Watch and learn!
#cambridgeaudio #dacmagic #audiophile
The remote on this is the last thing I need. It’s a desktop DAC. The filters make a massive difference too when matching the right music to the right filter. The headphone amp is one of the best ever with the correct headphones
Good review from somebody who has experienced the dacmagic in their personal collection. Love from Bangladesh.
I ended up going with the previous version of this DAC. Because when the 200m came out. The previous version went on sale. It's the DAC that first got me into XLR. I do find the filters a bit annoying due to the little to unnoticeable difference they make. That's why later on I upgraded to the ifi iDSD neo. It's basically the same concept. DAC/preamp/headphone amplifier, XLR out and Bluetooth. It's so simple, straight forward, and easy to use. Plus my favorite part about the neo. You can upgrade the power supply to the elite one. That's what I did and it made it even better. Hopefully a review on the ifi iDSD neo dAC soon!
Have mine set up in a desktop system via XLR to a pair of Tannoy Gold 5 powered monitors, and love it. Lack of remote is not an issue for me personally.
When you said schitt Dacs, were you referring to bifrost in comparison in the video?
Hi Jay. I'm thinking about buying a DAC magic. I happen to already have a Fiio pl50 linear power supply do you think it would make any difference in the sound?
I have the Cambridge dac magic plus , but won't consider this for the simple reason , no remote , it's annoying no remote as you say ,
About 10 years ago I had the sim audio 600i moon with a true dual mono integrated amp design. But that amp had 2 transformers not one like the Hegel. It was an absolute beast. The the first 10 watts was class a. After that it would go into ab. It was $8000 usd. And it was worth every penny. I regret selling it so much.
I have the Dacmagic 200 paired with my Hegel-h95 incredible Synergy. Because my h95 do not have MQA nor DSD. Don't get me wrong the Hegel h95 has better dac but no features. The Dacmagic 200 with Hegel-h95 sound engine 2 has an incredible synergy. I'm not a big MQA fan I like dsd more. You're dead on with your review. Great great sound for $500.00 usd.
I have some old B&W CDMNT speakers and they sound too bright. This might fit the ticket to calm those highs. Great video.
I am a PC user. Planning on running this from my windows desktop into a Cambridge AXR100 into my speakers. Not sure if I'll lose quality running RCA cables? The balanced xlr amps are $$$
I bought Ifi zen one signature. It sounds good, I like it, but it gives me background noise in the speakers. With the amplifier from half to maximum this noise starts to appear. I removed all the sources, the problem is with the power source. I also noticed a boost in the middle area. Do you recommend Cambridge 200m over Ifi zen one signature? Thank you.
Jay... really enjoyed your reviews. I purchased the Cambridge DacMagic 100 over the 200 as, did not require a pre, Bluetooth, or headphone connections. The 200 sounded just a little better but not worth the $300.00 more to me personally.
How is optical sound ?
Great review! Would this pair well with an IOTAVX SA3 or is the built in wolfson DAC better a better match.
For headphones which cost in the region of £1300, how much would you spend on a (DAC +) headphone amp?
If u were in the market for a naim integrated. What’s the better buy the supernait 3 or th xs3. I Understand that Supernait has10 more watts per channel. but what’s killing me about the super Nate three is the balance control. if the balance control wasn’t there it probably be like at least $500 cheaper. I’ve heard that Super nait 2 about five years ago. and it was pretty impressive. So in your opinion overall what’s the better buy. the xs3 or Supernait 3. are they pretty much the same sounding amps. And how would you compare the Hegel 390 to the rest as well thanks.
Jay, I'm stuck between this or the little chord mojo. This will cost me 500 but I ca buy the cord for 250. Do you think the chord is a better value?
If I use this dac with Eversolo master edition will be good?
"filters have almost no difference"... I'd like to hear from you (as a reviewer) what the differences are, even if they are small.
:) difficult to describe the difference between "almost identical" sounds by definition, I am with Jay on this one :) but out of interest my interpretation of why this is the case is that the majority of modern delta sigma DACs oversample the input signal so the modulation/ quantisation noise after noise shaping should be at relatively higher frequencies and in turn the steepness of the filter should have less of an impact on the sound. I am not 100% sure this is correct and I am not a DAC designer but it seems to fit the narrative
I can here a decent difference with the filters with my Hegel-h95 and my Polk Audio sda. I'm sure because of the sda functionality is the reason why.
Better than Schiit? The Modi or the Bifrost 2?
Does this beat the dac from Hegel 390. And ur thoughts on the naim built in dac?
Topping EX5 MQA vs Cambridge Audio Dacmagic 200M?
How about vs. iFi Zen DAC as it does MQA and has balanced headphone output?
Have you tried audio lab mdac plus ?
How does one tell if a device is truly balanced or not?
@Gryff Longdong lol
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change the power plug for a decent power supply...It gets way better
Really?
@@BigBaller-he1dz yes, getting rid of the case and putting it on plastic standoffs of a 3-5 cm helps even more. For the money its a nice unit.
With "pseudo balanced" there is absolutely no benefit using balanced cables...
That's not completely true. The purpose of balanced cables is common-mode noise rejection. If there's noise to be picked up from one component to the next, a balanced cable connection can eliminate that even if the internals of the connected components aren't balanced.
@@soundstagenetwork Common mode rejection with just one sine wave? Just No! In your opinion even an RCA to RCA connection with pseudo balanced wiring using the proper cable (2 + 1 for shield) is going to eliminate noise, but NO.
@@subcoded But why are you assuming one sine wave? The majority of home audio gear with balanced outputs that are not balanced input to output internally, do in fact balance the signal at the output by creating an inverted copy of the signal to feed to the inverting (pin 3) pin of the XLR connector. Have you verified that the 200M has the pin 3 grounded on the XLR output connectors?
@@soundstagenetwork I don't speak specifically for 200M but for every component... if it's pseudo balanced (pin 1+3 grounded) the use of a balanced cable is useless...Balanced connection relies on common mode rejection which is the phenomenon whereby a signal common to two lines opposite in polarity from one another gets cancelled at its destination. In balanced lines there is always a positive signal on one cable and a negative or opposite polarity signal on the other. The idea is that anything common to both wires will eventually get cancelled at the receiving end resulting in noise cancellation.CMR CANNOT work for unbalanced connections or pseudobalanced...