Gerrardasnails:Helix:
Hello,
I have listened to both DAC. DacMagic, very clean sound.. Gem sounded a touch more musical.
If you have less than ideal source, for example, less than 192 kbps digital music files, DacMagic seemed to compensate them with its upsampling feature. In this case, go with DacMagic. It sounds betther than Gem with less than ideal source.
But since you mostly use lossless files, you'll be better off getting Gem. It sounds more musical than DacMagic with ideal source.
I think this says a lot. Two people have listened to both and each has differing views. For me, I would love to own a product from Chord Electronics. However, I needed a product that connected to my pc, bluray player and possibly my Sky box (tuner). The Chordette can't do that and is double the price. Maybe I was wrong to call it a gadget. I do feel as though Chord have marketed it for people with money to make their mobile phones sound great rather than to be part of their hifi system. Chord's other DACs start at 5 times the price and are on a different level both in size and ability. Once my youngest is at school with her sister, I will be investing in a DAC64, to see just how good they are. At the moment though I am very happy with my system.
I think it's quite clear cut, if you have a PC/laptop without a digital out, then go with the Gem with USB if your budget can stretch to it.
However I'm still not convinced by the Bluetooth, for starters you're gonna have to store high bitrate files or ideally lossless files on their mobiles. Some would consider that insane. How many do that I don't know, and iPhone users are out of luck - Apple being Apple, its bluetooth is severely restricted. And I doubt many built-in laptop bluetooth adapters are A2DP compliant (Chebby you're lucky).
Chord should make another Gem model with normal optical inputs instead of the bluetooth. I guess the units will really fly off the shelves then.