![]() The Chord edges ahead in performance, delivering even greater subtlety and rhythmic precision, but it can’t match the DacMagic 200M’s impressive feature versatility. The similarly priced Chord Mojo sets a rather lofty benchmark at this price, despite lacking many of the Cambridge’s features due to its portable (and battery-powered) nature. We find ourselves settling for Short Delay – it seems the more punctual of the three in relation to timing – but it’s worth experimenting with them. The Cambridge’s three digital filters – Fast, Slow and Short Delay – offer fairly subtle differences, albeit some level of sonic customisation. The presentation is clean, open and ultimately well upheld, which is about all you can ask for from a product of this nature. But while there’s some degradation here in terms of clarity and subtlety, Bluetooth playback is exemplary when paired with a Samsung Galaxy S21 during testing. A DSD64 of Stevie Wonder’s Too High sparkles with the amount of detail revealed.Īt the other end of the scale, music transmitted over Bluetooth often equals notably muddier, more confined results compared to a wired source. There’s enough transparency to make the most of the higher-res tracks in which it supports, too. There’s much to appreciate in a hi-fi component that lets you sit back and enjoy your music no matter the genre, whether it’s Beethoven’s Piano Concerto 5 Op73 “Emperor” Adagio (MQA, 24-bit/96kHz) or Drake’s What’s Next (24-bit/88.2kHz) – and the DacMagic 200M is one of those. The Cambridge rides the dynamic ebbs and flows nicely, showing its grace in the quieter moments and its authority in the louder ones.ĭynamic shrewdness is backed by rhythmic coordination and punch, amounting to a musical presentation. 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. As the instrumentation busies the soundstage, the Cambridge has enough breadth and control to keep things coherent. The insightful midrange, also exemplified by the textured acoustic melody, is bookended by a rich, punchy low-end – the introductory bass thump is full and lush – and pleasingly present highs that round off a nicely proportioned, equally talented frequency range. ![]() It not only communicates his unmistakable Scottish accent but also the masterful cadence of his delivery. 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’s recognisably ‘Cambridge’, characterised by a full, smooth tonality that’s complemented by an open, expressive and authoritative manner. ![]() The DacMagic 200M’s performance continues the momentum of the company’s recent hi-fi components, including the CX and Edge ranges. ![]() That means one DAC chip handles the right audio channel while the other handles the left, theoretically resulting in better channel separation. The DAC architecture itself uses dual ESS Sabre DACs in a mono configuration. Still, it’s smartly presented and gives the DAC a rather tactile element – great if you plan to have it near you on a desktop and manually make adjustments, though not so relevant if it’s placed far away (those text labels are small) or tucked away in a system rack, as the compact aluminium chassis lends itself to. It makes for a busy aesthetic, not least as they’re also joined by LED, buttons and text labels for DAC filters and source selection, as well as the usual power button, volume dial, headphone jack and company logos. Likewise, LEDs for MQA and DSD light up when those types of files or streams are detected. So if you’re playing a CD-quality file, the ‘44.1kHz’ LED will illuminate. Several LEDs each labelled with a sampling rate – ‘44.1kHz’, ‘48kHz’, ‘96kHz’ and ‘192kHz’, for example – light up to signify it. The whole right-hand side of the Cambridge’s facade is dedicated to displaying the sampling rate of the audio signal being fed into it.
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