Advice concerning music streamers Pro-Ject & Cambridge Audio Magic 6

[harry_t]

Hi all!

Many people do not like the fact that Cambridge audio stream 6 is produced in China. Others believe that audio stream magic 6 is a far better streamer than Pro-Ject's stream box. Probably i'll buy one of those... so what do you thing? Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Harry

 

[shafesk]

hi harry_t, as far as I am aware all the streamers with the exception of Linn are produced in China, Being produced in China is not necessarily a bad thing, it infact leads to dramatically lower costs and increased competition. BnW make their flagship diamond series there. I think its quite unfair to say that because a product is built in China that it will be worse than a product built in any other country.

 

[harry_t]

Thanks shafesk! Of course this practice about China is unfair but many people mention it when comparing products...so it is a bit confusing. Concerning the 2 above streamers you think we have a winner?

Regards,

Harry

 

[andyjm]

hi harry_t, as far as I am aware all the streamers with the exception of Linn are produced in China, Being produced in China is not necessarily a bad thing, it infact leads to dramatically lower costs and increased competition. BnW make their flagship diamond series there. I think its quite unfair to say that because a product is built in China that it will be worse than a product built in any other country.

Even if Linn assemble their products in the UK, it would be very difficult to build any electronic device these days without components sourced from Asia, and in particular China.

The team who designed the Raspberry Pi had originally planned to build the device in the UK in an attempt to support UK industry. It turned out that the majority of component manufacturers now manufacture only in Asia, with a concentration in the Shenzhen area in China. It proved much more expensive (and challenging) to ship multiple separate components from China to assemble the boards in the UK than have the boards assembled in China when the component manufacturers were just down the road.

 

[harry_t]

And what about Naim? Where Naim's products are being produced and why are so expensive?

 

[andyjm]

The problem with high end hifi is that it is a low volume niche product where design and development costs get amortised over a small number of units. Making the numbers up, if a Naim amp costs £100,000 to develop and they only sell 100 units, it has to cost at least £1000 per unit just to cover development costs before the cost of parts and assembly are added in. For software intensive products where development costs are high ( streamers and the like) it is very hard for low volume niche makers to survive as the products end up being too expensive for the market to bear.

I guess this is one of the reasons Naim allowed themselves to be bought out last year to get some economies of scale.

 

[harry_t]

Thanks andyjm, nice point! Moreover, maybe NAIM's better marketing strategies than its competitors play also a role concerning significant higher prices. I mean expensive streamers are really a niche market or companies like NAIM appear to look that way? Even if cd players dissapear i suppose that NAIM would still charge a lot more than the average. The question after all is if a streamer of 2.500 euros is that better than a streamer of 800 euros? Who knows...

 

[andyjm]

Back in the day when parts and assembly costs were a significant portion of the final price, there was (probably) a link between price and performance. The more expensive box had better quality components, put together more carefully and set up more accurately - leading to better performance.

These days, particularly for digital and software intensive devices, that is all ancient history. The parts cost of a high end streamer are a fraction of the selling price, by far the largest cost is software and hardware development. So the final price is all about how many boxes are sold, not about the component quality or the performance of the device.

Back to your example, it is quite possible that the 800 euro streamer is far better than the 2500 euro streamer, it may just be that the manufacturer of the cheaper streamer sells more...

Just as a FYI, It is my belief the hifi market as we know it will cease to exist (certainly for digital products) within 5 years at the most. How many hi end niche phone manufacturers do you know?

 

[harry_t]

Many in favor of expensive quality cd palyers or streamers claim that one part of the higher cost is the presence of a far superior DAC than other lower cost devices. According to them superior DAC translates to a better and more quality sound experience.

 

[andyjm]

Many in favor of expensive quality cd palyers or streamers claim that one part of the higher cost is the presence of a far superior DAC than other lower cost devices. According to them superior DAC translates to a better and more quality sound experience.

While there is more to a DAC than just the D2A converter chip, as far as I am aware, Naim use a Burr Brown PCM1704 DAC chip in their designs, which is a geriatric design from Texas Instruments that Naim claim has excellent sonic qualities. It is available for $25.