Hot on the footsteps of the DacMagic Plus, the UK's best-selling hi-fi brand is excited to announce another arrival to the DacMagic family. The DacMagic 100 is a superb value entry-level digital to analogue converter designed to enhance a whole range of digital audio devices. Based on the same compact chassis as the iD100 iPad / iPhone dock, DacMagic 100 is the ideal partner for this digital dock and significantly upgrades quality of audio stored or streamed from a docked Apple device. In addition, three digital connections are ideal for upgrading the audio performance of a wide range of products including TVs, network music players and Blu-ray players. But perhaps best of all, DacMagic 100 is equipped with Cambridge Audio's latest USB audio input which allows studio master, uncompressed 24-bit / 192kHz files to be upgraded from any Windows or Apple computer.
(1) USB, (2) SPIDF and (1) Toslink Input
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Developed at Cambridge Audio's Research and Development Centre on London's Southbank, the DacMagic 100 has been created by a team obsessed with delivering the very best sound reproduction from digital music of all formats.
Since launching the original DacMagic in 2008 - the first dedicated DAC for the computer music generation - the way we listen to music has shifted dramatically. CD sales have declined rapidly and the popularity of online music collections as well as streaming services have exploded. DacMagic 100 provides an even more accomplished enhancement solution to digital music by extracting the highest quality 24-bit music data from PCs or Macs. The end result is a dramatically vibrant, detailed sound and one that's remarkably free from jitter - a problem which normally degrades music stored on hard drives or sent across networks.
DacMagic 100 key features
- New Wolfson WM8742 DAC
- New 24/96 driverless USB Audio input - or up to 24/192 USB input using free Cambridge Audio driver (available from website) allowing playback of the highest resolution audio files and kernel streaming and ASIO modes with asynchronous transfer
- Three digital inputs 1 x optical and 2 x S/P DIF coaxial connections
- RCA phono analogue outputs for connection to hi-fi or home entertainment system
- Incoming sampling rate indicator 32 / 44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96 / 192kHz
- Full metal chassis and new wraparound casework with thick aluminium front panel
- Available in silver or black
In greater detail...
The DacMagic 100 features Wolfson's very latest WM8742 digital to analogue converter which delivers genuine hi-fi quality performance from the most popular digital audio devices.
Today's consumer typically owns multiple devices which could benefit from significant audio enhancement and the DacMagic 100 offers a variety of connections. These include S/PDIF, Toslink (ideal for digital iPod docks, network music devices, TVs, Blu-ray players etc.) and USB (for computers).
Up to 24-bit content is now supported via both the USB Audio and Digital Inputs as either Audio profile1.0 or 2.0 in asynchronous mode with full support for up to 24/192 content. With Windows PCs, DacMagic 100 can operate driverlessly at up to 24-bit/96kHz resolution. A custom-designed Windows driver allows up to 24-bit/192kHz operation and supports both kernel streaming and ASIO. (Apple PCs already support up to 24-bit/192kHz USB transfer natively.)
Asynchronous transfer means the audio data is not forced into fixed size packets to fit within a standard USB clock scheme, i.e. the data is now asynchronous to the USB stream. Instead DacMagic 100 controls the flow rate and sets this for the actual audio sample rate being played. This dramatically reduces interface jitter across the USB transfer.
Typical uses
Whilst early generation dedicated Digital to Analogue converters were used to enhance performance of CD or DVD players, today's user tends to have more varied needs. A survey of DacMagic owners in 2010 concluded that 80% had a PC or Mac connected and of those, around 50% were using streaming music services.
- DacMagic 100 is designed to satisfy the wide ranging needs of today's demanding digital music consumer:
- As TVs have become slimmer, sound quality has rapidly diminished. DacMagic 100 can retrieve a digital signal from a TV or set-top box and process it into the analogue domain for vastly superior results
- DacMagic 100 can vastly improve audio performance of Blu-ray and DVD players
- Network music players and network music clients can be considerably enhanced and benefit from significantly reduced jitter
- DacMagic 100 is the perfect partner for digital iPad / iPhone / iPod docks such as Cambridge Audio's iD100
- The recent growth of PC-based DJ programs has also resulted in yet another following for DacMagic 100
Shown with optional iD100 Digital iDock for iPod and iPod $299.00 (iPhone not included)
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