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To the extent that each can be succinctly summarised, the linear phase is clean and tidy with a particularly well-controlled bass, but can sometimes seem a little clinical by comparison with minimum phase, which seems slightly warmer but perhaps a shade less precise. We hook the Cambridge up to a Macbook Pro via USB type-B, feed it Arab Strap’s Fable Of The Urban Fox (16-bit/44.1kHz) and are instantly impressed by the articulacy of Aidan Moffat’s trademark poetic storytelling through the 200M. It not only communicates his unmistakable Scottish accent but also the masterful cadence of his delivery. In some ways it’s most impressive as a desktop device, if for no other reason than it’s a colossal improvement on the sound of an unassisted MacBook Pro. Connected via USB-B and playing content (of various genres and file types) from the TIDAL desktop app, the gains in detail, heft, integration, focus, soundstage definition and plenty more besides, are obvious and significant via the Class A/B-powered headphone output. 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.
In the 740/840 models it upsamples to 384kHz: here, a more modest version upsamples to 192kHz, but adds the flexibility of three filter types: 'linear phase', 'minimum phase' and 'steep'. The differences between these filters are in some ways subtle, but may be significant in determining the DAC's sound. Then, of course, there is the format handling. This is 2021 where you can actually secure the odd thing in 24/192kHz you might want to listen to, so naturally, we’ve moved onto chasing some much bigger numbers. The 200M supports 24/768 and DSD512 via the USB input which should be enough for all but the most truly determined vapourware chasers. Something that isn’t Since then, the DacMagic has existed in one form or another in the Cambridge Audio range. Recent attention has been more focused on adding digital inputs to the amplifiers themselves though so the 200M is the first new DacMagic in a rather long time. Is this still a fine way of boosting your digital capabilities or have the changes that the DacMagic name started moved to the point where you don’t need a standalone DAC any more? Devised by software specialist Anagram Technologies of Switzerland and licensed – exclusively, to date – to Cambridge, this uses high-power digital signal processing technology to perform the digital filtering function. Cambridge Audio’s latest top-of-the-line DacMagic continues the legacy of the long-standing DacMagic model, the original of which earned Cambridge its first What Hi-Fi? Award in 1996. The 200M is 25 years and several evolutionary steps along the DacMagic line in terms of features and performance, but it hasn’t lost sight of its vision to sit among the very best at its level. The DacMagic 200M is a talented all-rounder: a safe buy indeed.With the DacMagic 100 connected to your Mac, open the ‘System Preferences’, and navigate to ‘Sound’.
There’s also a USB input that’s good up to 32bit – although it’s of the less common USB-B type. That's fine in terms of connecting to a laptop or other USB-ouputting source, but it's 2021 – we'd like to see an easy USB-C option too. On the inside, business is taken care of by a pair of ESS Sabre ES9028Q2M digital-to-analogue converter chips. These make the 200M compatible with PCM digital audio files up to 32but/784kHz standard, as well as DSD512. With MQA compatibility on board too, there isn’t a digital audio file worthy of the name that the Cambridge Audio can’t handle.
at 1kHz 0dBFS 24-bit signal with 22kHz low pass filter = 0.001% at 20khz 0dBFS 24-bit signal with 80kHz low pass filter = 0.003% If your DacMagic 100 is operating in USB Audio Class 2.0 mode, set the output sample rate to 192,000Hz.
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