DACMagic Plus stock now available :)

[Marcus]

http://headphones.com.au/psingle?productID=583

Hooray!

[Antihippy]

Oh wow.

How's the amp section on this?

[Marcus]

Adequate

[epoch_frail]

An early “reviewer” (Gwarmi) at head-fi went in hard to discredit it, for whatever reason. Embarrassed himself by failing to read the instructions regarding USB 2.0 initialisation then wrote of its performance compared to a DAC / Amp costing four times as much.

The “review” was seriously flawed, but no less stupid than the number of posters who thanked him for helping them dodge a bullet

[Drubbing]

Cos reviewing it against a product costing 4X as much is a valid comparison? Head bloody fi.

I seem to remember the DM getting hammered fairly regularly over there when I was looking at buying one. It clearly wasn't $100, therefore not in "Giant Killer" territory.

[epoch_frail]

Cos reviewing it against a product costing 4X as much is a valid comparison? Head bloody fi.

Yeah I don't know why I expect anything more (or rather anything less) from head-fi.

Anyway, looking forward to some more reasoned impressions of the new DM, wherever they come from.

[Marcus]

I honestly don't think I'll have time to do DAC stage testing before the new year - I expect it to be at least as good as the DM, and that's fine with me.
The headphone stage I'm not really impressed with. It works, it will drive efficient headphones, but I would suggest it be the first upgrade.

[Drubbing]

Just a flawed idea IMO, if they weren't going to put a decent amp in it. It appears to be built down to a price, rather than up to a standard.

In a market that has the Matrix for $80 more with a standard DM or equivalent DAC, it's pretty slack market research on CA's part.

[Marcus]

A $200 headphone stage would have bumped the price up even more and while it's something WE are all interested in, there's a lot of people out there who don't want the DAC for headphones.

The market is moving very quickly at the moment and Cambridge are a pretty big ship so they don't turn quite as quickly as smaller manufacturers do.

Leaving the DM at a lower price may have been a good compromise, maybe they will re-release the DACMagic in a smaller, more streamlined (and cheaper) design

With the standard DM, people HAD to buy a headphone stage if they wanted to even use headphones at all.

[matt_d_19]

Just a flawed idea IMO, if they weren't going to put a decent amp in it. It appears to be built down to a price, rather than up to a standard.

In a market that has the Matrix for $80 more with a standard DM or equivalent DAC, it's pretty slack market research on CA's part.

You just made me sad.

[Drubbing]

With the standard DM, people HAD to buy a headphone stage if they wanted to even use headphones at all.

Yep, I'm aware of that, but when you're selling a $500 DAC WITH a HO, you're limiting the phones market for the DM+ to those who want easy to drive phones. I'd suggest the market for a $700 DAC/amp which hasn't got much of an amp, is a lot smaller, and so still a poorly thought out product. Those who just wanted a good DAC for use with other devices were already pretty well served by the DM.

For those looking for a DAC/amp combo for easy to drive phones, there's plenty of stuff available for half the price that will do a good job. I'm not bagging it, I just think they've fallen between markets with it.

[Marcus]

The BT100 Bluetooth adaptor will be available soon as well - stream music from your bluetooth phone etc to the DM+
Price will be around $120

[grevillea]

Jesus, not sure what they are putting in the water cooler at CA : guess they feel the need to make up for lost time:

http://www.whathifi.com/news/world-excl ... cmagic-100

I guess it has been a long time since the original DM hit the streets.

[Marcus]

Yeah, heard a rumour about that a while back but with Cambridge you never know if/when they might actually release the product

[grevillea]

Marcus, the Australian pricing will be interesting given the current strength of the Pacific Peso against the pound. Even 250 quid is still less than $400.