I've had a bunch of Dacs now and for various reasons. These include Musical Fidelity x3 dac, PS Audio III, Grace M902 Chinese made Matrix, and now the DacMagic. Each has its own character and I mainly used them to play thourgh my computer set up but also tried it out in my main system that is all Simaudio with Wilson Sophia 1 speakers. I think the Dacmagic is the best value by far. My favorite remains the Grace M902 but I sold it since I don't used it much and I sold it to buy the Matrix and the Dacmagic and still have money left over. The musical fidelity was nice and warm but too many things need (power supply, cords) to sound good. The PS Audio was sold to get the Grace and I liked it as well but I think the DacMagic is second only the Grace. The Grace is much more analytical while being very dynamic and had excelelnt bass. The DacMagic is more lush and I don't mind it with the Wilson speakers. I mainly use it to upgrade the sound coming from my 500gb Apple TV.
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...
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...