Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 - Digital to Analogue Converter with Toslink, S/PDIF, and USB Inputs Featuring 24-bit Wolfson DAC - Silver

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It mutes the line outputs with a time-delay relay whenever headphones are inserted, a brilliant touch! Beautiful; this is as clean as a state-of-the-art laboratory generator, and as good as the state-of-the-art Benchmark DAC1 HDR.

They aren't very bright by day, and swell at night — except at night, you can't read the panel inscriptions.Whatever the theory says, it's good to be able to choose. The same is true of absolute phase, which can be inverted digitally by the DacMagic. All this wizardry is achieved by a Texas Instruments digital signal processing chip, aided and abetted by DAC chips from Wolfson and some decent op-amps and passive components. You'll be spending a lot of time turning this knob, and it's plastic and not that deep, so grip isn't that wonderful. Better value than ever but with the same class-leading performance, the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 is a true audio bargain. We started with some 24bit/192kHz files courtesy of our reference streamer via the coaxial input. R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion sounds detailed and fast. It's light on its feet and capable of impressive subtlety in both voices and instruments.

Is it a jump in performance on the original? Yes. It sounds better and does more, and if you value the extra features then the DacMagic Plus could be ideal.There are two coaxial inputs and a single optical one, all switchable from the front. Add to this the USB input and gold-plated analogue RCA outputs for connecting to your hi-fi and the DacMagic 100 has every angle covered.

As most commonly implemented, it has rather limited attenuation at exactly half the sampling frequency and, as a result, allows a little bit of aliasing distortion to occur if there is any audio above 20kHz. There is also pre-ringing on transients, though this has never been shown to be a real problem. This is very good, and better than many other DACs, and about as good as onboard CD player DACs. (onboard DACs are usually better at handling overshoots than computer-fed DACs because external DACs seem to have forgotten about DSP headroom.)No problems here; for all I know, this could just be noise. It measures the same as reducing the digital input level.

The input LEDs blink if the input goes away, for instance, if your computer is asleep and your DacMagic is left on on your desk. There might be some drivers for tweaks, I have no time to explore when there's so much great music to enjoy instead of tweaking. 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. Several LEDs each labelled with a sampling rate –‘44.1kHz’, ‘48kHz’, ‘96kHz’ and ‘192kHz’, for example – light up to signify it. So if you’re playing a CD-quality file, the ‘44.1kHz’ LED will illuminate. Likewise, LEDs for MQA and DSD light up when those types of files or streams are detected. Cubierta totalmente metálica y con amortiguación acústica, dotada de un grueso panel frontal de aluminio metalizadoThat 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. The Cambridge rides the dynamic ebbs and flows nicely, showing its grace in the quieter moments and its authority in the louder ones. The Cambridge Audio DacMagic is practical and good-looking too and we would rate it all-round as one of the best audio bargains we've come across in a while. Digital Inputs: USB, (2) TOSLINK or coaxial RCA digital inputs. Also a flat USB connector for a dedicated, optional BT100 bluetooth receiver. The Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus is an extremely high-performance DAC, with performance unsurpassed at any price. It also has the best jitter immunity I've ever measured, and this is from any of its inputs. Standards of CD replay being what they are, it probably won't lift many modern players beyond recognition, but it could give a new lease of life to some older models and for computer-based music replay it is an excellent choice.