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Cambridge Audio DacMagic -- $400, balanced.


Hopstretch

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It's nice to see DACs in this form factor and price range, but I hope it actually pans out because if its being marketed as a computer DAC and has a stand for a "gamer" config, they might not pay attention to such trivial things as the analog output stage...

I reckon they probably did. Whatever you think about CA in general, they do a good job of picking their spots in the market and I suspect they wouldn't have bothered with balanced output unless they were seriously looking to take some customers away from Benchmark et al.

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Yeah, but it could be argued that if you wanted the DAC out of the 840c you should just buy the 840c and get a free transport.

http://www.head-case.org/forums/audio-gear-sale/4371-fs-cambridge-840c-plus-usb-option.html

:). I'm using the Cambridge 840c as a DAC too which I have for sale now in the FS forum. I actually have two and the 840C with the GS-X balanced and digital to USB sound great. I might be interested in getting the DAC magic at a later time. Thanks for posting up the new gear.

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I reckon they probably did. Whatever you think about CA in general, they do a good job of picking their spots in the market and I suspect they wouldn't have bothered with balanced output unless they were seriously looking to take some customers away from Benchmark et al.

I actually like CA a lot, and I do hope it does well. But, with absolutely so much packed into the digital end of this thing (which conveniently pads the spec sheet), combined with the $400 pricetag, there isn't much room left for the rest of the unit.

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I actually like CA a lot, and I do hope it does well. But, with absolutely so much packed into the digital end of this thing (which conveniently pads the spec sheet), combined with the $400 pricetag, there isn't much room left for the rest of the unit.

I predict NE5532s in the analog output stage... :sadcat:

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I wonder how balanced this thing is...

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about: the WM8740 is a stereo DAC (not all DACs are stereo so it's possible to get by with only 2 in its case), CA's specs page shows 2.1V on RCA and 4.2V on XLR, and they mention "2-Pole Dual Differential Bessel Double Virtual Earth Balanced", so it's probably dual-differential.

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Or maybe the Dac out of the 740C without the transport for 400 bucks.

That's mostly what it appears to be if you look at the feature specifications and overall description of the device. The only difference in the description is the 740c uses a Blackfin while I guess the Dacmagic uses a Freescale. I'm not sure that's really material, though, if they're using the same code with the same ops etc. I'd have to see what specific components it uses in the output stage to tell for sure, but it sounds like structurally it's the same but for the DSP, which means the rest may at least be modifiable to conform with or exceed the performance of the 740c.

I'm not a huge v-out dac fan but the WM8740 is pretty decent; I'd take it over the Asahi-Kasei line and certainly the Crystal Semi and Cirrus Logic dacs.

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