Cambridge Audio DAC 200M

[rmlowz]

I was wondering if any of my forum friends have tried this DAC? I am on the fence. I have the original DAC magic that I have been using on and off with also a Maverick Audio Tube Magic D2. I also am considering the new SMSL 9  Any thoughts? Wanted to keep it around 500.00.

 

Thanks

Rich 

[Bubo]

Few years ago someone on the headphone forum, can't think of the name of the forum

did a study of lots of $500 DACs

Listening to them they concluded that anything in the $500 range sounded good and they couldn't tell them apart.

https://www.head-fi.org

 

I believe there are 3 technologies

Resistor

Delta Sigma

And FPGA

 

Then the analog section

Added features like upsampling to smooth the quantization error, haven't heard this yet.

Some of the DACs support Blutooth etc.....

[rmlowz]

Thanks Bubo,

Thinking it over I might up my budget would not be the first time I have done this in this crazy hobby LOL What DAC do you own?

Rich

[Schu]

13 hours ago, Bubo said:

 anything in the $500 range sounded good and they couldn't tell them apart.

 

 

this

[Bubo]

3 hours ago, rmlowz said:

Thanks Bubo,

Thinking it over I might up my budget would not be the first time I have done this in this crazy hobby LOL What DAC do you own?

Rich

I own the Emotiva XDA-1 which I paid approx $220 for new

Delta Sigma tech

They sell direct which puts them in the $500 range if sold via a distribution chain

It supports multiple inputs. coax, fiber, usb and aes. and a Remote volume control and was sold as a digital pre amp

At the time a very innovative product

For some reason Emo dropped out of the DAC business

 

Stereo police on youtube

did a bake off and decided that the resistor Shiit for $700 was the best sound

Apparently most, all, of the Shiit products bench test in first place

The company name is another story

but went with the $900 Teac for all of the extra features like blutooth

 

I would take a hard look at this unit $100

You get an excellent DAC, remote, lots of interfaces, THX headphone amp, AB amp

THX pre amp out etc.

Turn off all of the processing or

use room correction and EQ

 

and use it as a pre amp, or test your speakers in direct mode

it may sound better than your other gear.

This looks like original owner, manuals and remotes

and the THX amp is an AB amplifier

Some of the older Receivers have excellent FM tuner sections

Should be a little button on the front that disconnects, and powers off the Amp section.

Maybe just disconnects it.

 

If it sounds a little bright, use the X curve adjustment to roll off the highs

apparently it's a known problem solved with the variable roll off.

 

If you buy, be sure to remove the lid and blow it out with compressed air.

Might be a good time to clean the RCA outputs too.

https://nashville.craigslist.org/ele/d/fairview-pioneer-vsx-1014tx-receiver/7297670868.html

[rmlowz]

Thanks again Bubo,

I will check it out What model number of the Teac did you get

Rich

[Bubo]

look on website at feature sets

https://teac.jp/int/category/reference