A lot to be said for older stuff

As some of you knew I recently purchased a Cambridge Audio DACMagic 1 for £30 from Richer Sounds.

This is an old budget dack from 1994 and it having used it for a week now its significently improved the sound of my £300 (in 2001) CD Player.

With everybody especialy the HIFI magazines saying how much digital technology has improved you would expect the DAC to sound a lot worse but its clearly instantly a lot better as there is so much more detail and punch, I now have real bass too the only trade off is a slight loss of smoothness.

Also I am using a late 1980's Rotel preamp as a switch and phono stage for my project, the phono stage in this beats the pants of my Marantz amps.

My point of this thread? Well with little money buying second items to imrpove new items can work very well.

The magazines are always going on about how the Sony CD570 is twenty times better than the 530 for example when really its the same CD player with a new case and a couple of different capacitors in the output stage.

I am pretty sure its possible to built a system for £100 with second hand stuff that will sound like a new £400 system so technology can't have moved on that much.

 

AT, a very valid point that isoften over looked. When it comes to source components I would agree, my own player is 7 years old, does a passable job. To try improve would take some serious investment, one I'm not willing to make at the moment.
Older amps too have a certain some thing thats missing in todays box shifting arena multi corperate churn outs. Wm

 

The good stuff does.

I have an 8 year old cd player used as a transport into a DAC that's a 6 year old design, into an amp that although released in '98, is an updated version of a mid-90s design, and the speakers are "hot rod" versions of a speaker that appeared in 1994.

For what I've paid for this collection, I've not heard anything that will touch it for what I want.

 

Shhh!! Don't tell everyone or s/h prices will shoot up just like LP12's have

My god, the idiots buying these on eBay because its 'the thing to have' - it's like the classic car fiasco of the late 80's. Hmmm. Ferrari Dino, Sir. That'll be half a million please.

Gotta luurve those HiFi mags. Each month there's some amazing new piece of kit to set the world alight. I'm just waiting for the return of twin & earth as the next messiah if the interconnect world :duck:

 

I think the dac magic was excellent, I still don't think cd players would really better it.
a little bit brightish, if you listen carefully, but makes it sound really detailed.
John Westlake, pink triangle designed it.

The new cambridge amps I think are Mike Creek, as is the tuners, the t500 is the same as the t43 without remote.

 

My ATC integrated is quite an old design now but if you want 150 Watts per channel AND high quality (it's Class A for the first 100 Watts), this amp is still the one to beat even at £2400.

Second hand for around a grand, it is a stunning bargain.

And it's built to last.


My venerable Alpha 9 is five years old now and still beating off all-comers.

These are around 300 second hand now and represent another stunning bargain.

 

If you think the DACMAGIC is good, you should hear my soundcard (I upgraded FROM a DACMAGIC)

Seriously, some modern stuff is coming on leaps and bounds. The next soundcard fashion looks like it will be the £150 EMU 1212M, which is already looking like a superb card (better than mine by some distance if the early reports are anything to go by).

 

??

 

Hehe, good one!

 

Didn't creative buy EMU a few years ago? If so then presumably this new EMU chip is on the replacement card for the audigy 2?

 

I used to like rod hull when I was a kid, shame he had to throw himself off a roof

 

Highly accalimed amplifiers of yester years such as The Pioneer A400 and A300R Precision can get in the ring with modern amps and put up a good show round by round.

Yesterday, I set up my TE modded A300R/P next to an Arcam A85 and the A300R/P still impressed me.

 

I guess its possible, but the EMU card has specifications far greater than the Audigy 2, and from what I've read so far, while its compatible with games, it certainly doesnt have the gaming features that the Audigy has, but the Audigy doesnt have the range of options, the high spec or the DSPs that this card has...

 

DacMagic was designed by John Westlake, former Pink Triangle Tech. It has been said that the design is very similar to the £1000 Pink Triangle DAC but priced lower to target a different market segment.

Digital conversion is accomplished by a pair of Philips TDA 1305 "18-bit" hybrid chips (the Naim CD 3.5 uses one).

DacMagic 2: Dual Philips TDA1305 hybrid DACs with symmetrical dual differential circuitry. Three separate transformers feeding 19 independent power supplies. DacMagic 2 is an improvement over the DacMagic 1.

DacMagic 2i: Many significant improvements. Design revisions resulted in reduction in distortion by as much as 50 per cent, gold-plated printed circuit boards and connectors, and better quality low-noise transformers.

Dacmagic 2 Mk II: same as Dacmagic 2i but with AD 712 JN output chips (about £1 each).

DacMagic 3: was the last of the series.

Hi-Fi World Reviews at
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/bgcdconvertors.html

The Dacmagic 2i was reviewed with the Marantz CD-63SE CD player at
http://202.186.86.35/audio/story.asp?file=/1996/5/05dac

Dacmagic 2 Mk2 at
http://www.audioreview.com/CD,Players/Cambridge,Audio,Disk,Magik/PRD_116831_1586crx.aspx

 

That's not hard! The Arcam A85 is the aural equivalent of watching paint dry. Duller than ditchwater....

 

So whats the main different from the DAC magic One and Two?

I am going to try my system again later without the DAC to make an accuarate comparsion.

With the DAC there is so much extra detail but the last couple of days it has started to get a little harsh so maybe the DAC in the Marantz is slightly better in the long term having said that the kind of music I listen to suits a little brightness.