DacMagic Plus

[admin_exported]

Does anyone know why What HI FI gives the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus 4 stars in their video review and yet on Richer Sounds VIP email it shows What HI FI giving 5?

Malcolm

 

[Overdose]

I expect someone does, not me though.

 

[quadpatch]

I would imagine someone mixed it up with the orginal DACMagic. Which is funny since it's their company, I'm sure they wish it got 5 stars.

I was considering it the DACMagic Plus a while back. It was a close match between that, the Asus Xonar Essence One and the Yulong D100. I'm sorry CA but but the WHF review and your video describing how awesome the multi up-sampling was put me off.

 

[SteveR750]

I would imagine someone mixed it up with the orginal DACMagic. Which is funny since it's their company, I'm sure they wish it got 5 stars.

I was considering it the DACMagic Plus a while back. It was a close match between that, the Asus Xonar Essence One and the Yulong D100. I'm sorry CA but but the WHF review and your video describing how awesome the multi up-sampling was put me off.

Why?

It's not the ultimate barometer.

The Arcam A38 is another good example - great amp but not well liked on these parts.

 

[Andy Clough]

Does anyone know why What HI FI gives the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus 4 stars in their video review and yet on Richer Sounds VIP email it shows What HI FI giving 5?

Malcolm

Good point. I'll take it up with Richer Sounds. For the record, we definitely gave the DacMagic Plus four stars. Clickety

 

[Andy Clough]

Spoke to Richer Sounds and unfortunately there was a printing error on page 48 of the March 2012 issue of the magazine, where the DacMagic Plus was shown with 5 stars. As stated above, it should have been four. Hence the confusion.

 

[quadpatch]

Why?

It's not the ultimate barometer.

The Arcam A38 is another good example - great amp but not well liked on these parts.

Not the ultimate no but a good guide none the less. The WHF review did specifically draw attention to sound quality and since I had heard other less than glowing opinions about that it couldn't stand up against rivals which were regarded in a much better light. The choice I ended making based on all the research I did seemed to pay off very well. Of course I cannot buy the DACMagic to test it just in case it might be better for me.

The trouble with DACs is that you have to read a lot of reviews and then go on faith. There is no way you can test them out properly. With the DACMagic I know you could go in to RS and try it out but I don't think that's any good. I have tried lugging my laptop and headphones around to try out DACs and found it to be a waste of time, without considerable time with it in your own environment to really see what they're like I found reviews to be more reliable, especially since 95% of available DACs cannot be tested in shops anyway. In cases like this I am happy that we have reviewers like WHF around, I only wish they would reviewed more things like this *hint* . I was not suggesting that you should ever rely on a single review.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all of your replies and comments, I wonder how many will buy this based on the 5 stars and be dissapointed?

Malcolm

 

[The_Lhc]

Thanks for all of your replies and comments, I wonder how many will buy this based on the 5 stars and be dissapointed?

Only the massively shallow.

 

[Andy Clough]

They shouldn't be disappointed. It's still a very good product.

 

[SteveR750]

Thanks for all of your replies and comments, I wonder how many will buy this based on the 5 stars and be dissapointed?

Malcolm

The same ones presumably who fell for the tax raising stunt last week....