Divorcing my DacMagic. Suggestions?

[souptin]

Cogs creaking and everything.

 

If I was to go for an ndac I would most likely be feeding it via toslink from the macbook. Then I might investigate the hiface/evo etc a bit further down the line. All subject to if I liked what I heard in the first place. If their description of the buffers and multiple clocks is accurate then I'd expect the unit to show much of it's potential even when fed from a less than ideal signal.

 

My other thought was to go a completely different route and try a metric halo uln-2 via firewire. Which would be a bit cheaper, but I'd most likely have to get it via mail order and see what the return policy was in case it didn't work out: I can't find any dealers who have both, so directly comparing uln-2 to ndac would be difficult.

 

[downbeat]

Hi, in response to your question about the DAC-X, I tried a DAC-XP with my mac mini, it did not sound good. It sounded very good with the Cyrus cdxt-se transport, but almost broken on my mac. I had a dacmagic at the time, and even fed by the cdxt-se transport I didn't think it was 'night and day' better.

My chord qbd76 however...

 

[Tipper]

.

You seem to be shopping by price. I understand a lot of people do this but I’m not convinced this is the best way to go about it.

You say you’re planning to use this new Dac with a Cyrus One and Cyrus speakers. I’ve never come across any speakers made by Cyrus so have absolutely no idea about their sonic qualities.

The Cyrus One was a reasonable amp in its day, but a match for a £2000 + Dac?

You also say you have the Naim CD 3.5 and the Apogee Duet.

Once again, not bad CD players but a modern CD player in the £800 to £1000 bracket is likely to out perform both.

A £2000 Dac is going to want some pretty serious kit after it to make use of the sonic benefits it may have over a Dac at half that price if price is how you’re going to judge a components sonic ability.

Add to that after a certain price the sonic improvements you’re going to hear get progressively less as the price increases…….

You don’t say your displeased with the sound your current system gives you and you also imply the Cambridge Dac Magic wasn’t way outclassed by your current set up.

Given all the above I think unless you’re planning a complete system upgrade you would be wasting your money if you spent more than £500 on a Dac.

You can get some pretty amazing Dacs around this price.

I recently initially replaced a quite heavily moded Exposure 2010 CD player with a £130 Dac (HRT Music Streamer 11) and that was an overall improvement on the CD player. For a rough comparison I had my modded Exposure against the Moon CD-1 and there was nothing in it.

Since then I’ve had the opportunity to listen to the basic HRT next to the Dac Magic and I thought the HRT gave a better performance which I put down to the asynchronous transfer and lack of USB noise.

I would forget about how much money you have to spend and check out a few by specification initially and then pick one or two for a home trial.

No one can advise you on which Dac to choose and suggestions that you spend £2000 on a Dac for the system you describe are based mainly on what you can afford and very little to do with system sonic character or suitability for your system as far as i can see.

 

 

[souptin]

@downbeat: thanks for that info re the dac-x, very interesting to hear.

 

@tipper: yup, guilty as charged re "shopping by price" - damn that sounds so demeaning! I prefer to think of it a setting a budget. My longer term plan is to replace amp and speakers in the next few years, so a dac that outclassed my current setup would be ok. Make more sense now? Of course, upgrading from 'source first' may not be sensible given how much the dac & computer interface side of things has been changing recently.

 

If I was thinking of a dac that seemed a good fit with the cyrus setup, I'd probably stick with the Duet, but I have other plans for it.

 

[Erwin S]

Souptin,

 

You are in the UK, right? I found this demo model. Only 900£! Seems almost to good to be true. I would like this one myself if you don't fancy it, but I have no way in knowing this to be trustworthy. What do you think?

 

Link:

EDIT: LINK DELETED because the seller did not provide all the info I requested and the payment was to be with Western Union, which is reputedly prone to fraude...

 

 

[microtone]

I replaced my Dacmagic with a Meridian G61R. It provides you with an outstanding DAC, room correction, programmable pre-amp and Meridian's own music-orientated surround sound options (Trifield, Ambisonic etc as well as the usual DTS and Dolby options). This is probably the best purchase I have made in the last 10 years - really good with USB and SPDIF but also provides inputs for all my other (analogue) sources. The only reservation is headphones - there is no dedicated headphone output, so I am driving my headphone amp from the pre-amp outputs. Not ideal, but an acceptable compromise from my perspective. The quality is outstanding - using Quad electrostatic speakers and valve power amps - I have never had a better sound.

 

[Barmy]

I´ve been told Meridians sound clinical.

I have a dacmagic, but can only compare it to a Cyrus cd7 (and

Arcam alpha 9) on my Nuforce ai-7 class d amp (and Kelvin labs cl. A)

and Acoustat spectra they sound extremely good.

I know there is always better but i dont want to spend a couple of grand extra for a moderate improvement.

At least second hand stuff is affordable in the UK, here in Holland they really take the piss! (I wrote a topic about it, but its in dutch)

 

[AudioExplorations]

I just got an ex demo weiss dac2 last week (£1.5k ebay), upgraded from m2tech hiface + beresford caiman. Literally can't believe just how incredibly good this thing sounds.

 

[gilesd]

Hi

I'd seriously look to the Arcam rDac - either previous model that is very good £ value now, or the new model with 5 stars from What HiFi. Ditch the as bought PS for a new PS for the rDac which really makes a noticeable difference on bass tautness, imagery and depth - this combo blew away a friends DacMagic in a side by side test listening on CD, Spotify & iTunes. The CD playback via coax rather than analogue was also much improved (saved a CD player upgrade). Should go with your Cyrus set up well. Use the CD input on the Cyrus to connect the DAC - its the best connection point / route in the amp.

 

Happy searching and listening!

 

PS: Full set up is:-

Cyrus 2 & PSX (overhauled twice but still giving great service for 20 yrs! - I recomend AlsAmps here in Scotland to overhaul the Cyrus - after listening to mine Al went out and bought a series 2 for himself :-))

Marantz CD 7300 (via QED Coaxial to DAC)

Arcam rDAC (with DC1 PS from Custom Hifi, Leeds)

Power Max Plus mains cables into the CD player, PS for DAC and Amp PS

Kimber Tonik (from rDAC to Amp)

Wireworld Ultraviolet 7 USB cable from DAC to Laptop - also can use wireless dongle but hard wire best quality playback for computer

Mission 773 Speakers (via Chord Silver Screen)

Speakers and CD player on wooden cone feet

Also, for the office - a Fubar II DAC and Kimber USB cable for the laptop running to a Cyrus 1 (25yrs service!) and Mission MX1’s