Is Cambridge 740C better than old player with DacMagic combo?
- Thread starter Peter Larsen
- Start date
I think I'm right in saying that the 740c basically uses the same dac as the dacmagic so providing the transports half decent the sound should be pretty similar
John Duncan
Well-known member
Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results...
Sliced Bread
Well-known member
JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results...
Hey John,
Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player?
Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious.
Thanks
Hey John,
Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player?
Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious.
Thanks
The 740C upsamples CDs and Digital Inputs to 24 bit / 384 kHz. The DacMagic by comparison upsamples to 24 bit / 192 kHz.
Whether this results in better SQ from the 740C or not I don't know - you might have to do a side by side comparison to find out.
Whether this results in better SQ from the 740C or not I don't know - you might have to do a side by side comparison to find out.
Gerrardasnails
Well-known member
JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results...
Hey John,
Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player?
Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious.
Thanks
Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
Hey John,
Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player?
Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious.
Thanks
Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
manicm
Well-known member
Gerrardasnails:JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results... Hey John, Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player? Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious. Thanks Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
John Duncan
Well-known member
Agreed totally manicm. I can only say that *to me*, lossless and a DAC sounded better than a reasonably good CD player, which is good enough for me. Plenty of other people on here who have found the opposite, or lie somewhere in between. But you'll notice I said "better value", since I think that's the (edit) my key point.
Gerrardasnails
Well-known member
manicm:
Gerrardasnails:JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results... Hey John, Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player? Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious. Thanks Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
I didn't quite say that. Of course cd player still sound good. I was just saying that eradicating the transport process will make a difference. The 740c with cd for instance would not better than a lossless file sent straight to the DAC in the 740C.
Gerrardasnails:JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results... Hey John, Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player? Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious. Thanks Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
I didn't quite say that. Of course cd player still sound good. I was just saying that eradicating the transport process will make a difference. The 740c with cd for instance would not better than a lossless file sent straight to the DAC in the 740C.
Transports do make different but by how much will depending on the rest of your system (ie, how revealing your amp and speakers are). IMO, at this range of equipments, the different will be very small, in fact, too small to worry about!. Someone, however point out (up there somewhere^^^) that the DAC fitted in 740 is the different type than the one in magic so in this case the different should be slightly more obvious.
lordmortlock:I think I'm right in saying that the 740c basically uses the same dac as the dacmagic so providing the transports half decent the sound should be pretty similar
Just checked on the site - brians right. The chap at Richer said they were the same - he must have been referring to the fact they use the same wolfson chips.
FWIW I could barely tell any difference between a beresford and the 840c streaming lossless from airports despite the higher upsampling rate.
Just checked on the site - brians right. The chap at Richer said they were the same - he must have been referring to the fact they use the same wolfson chips.
FWIW I could barely tell any difference between a beresford and the 840c streaming lossless from airports despite the higher upsampling rate.
Sliced Bread
Well-known member
Gerrardasnails:manicm:
Gerrardasnails:JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results... Hey John, Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player? Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious. Thanks Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
I didn't quite say that. Of course cd player still sound good. I was just saying that eradicating the transport process will make a difference. The 740c with cd for instance would not better than a lossless file sent straight to the DAC in the 740C.
OK, makes sense. The difference in quality between the cdplayer + dac & PC + dac is going to be determined by the quality of the error correction taking place in the CD player.
Gerrardasnails:JohnNewman:JohnDuncan:Unless you *must* get rid of some boxes, I;d stick with what you;ve got. Stick a streamer in the back of the DM for better (and better value) results... Hey John, Forgive me for being naive, however I'm struggling to understand why a lossless file transmitted digitally through a streamer, will produce a better result than the uncompressed data on the cd also being transmitted digitally to the dac magic. Assuming that the cables are of a good quality, there should be very little difference between the data that the DACMagic has to work with, or are there issues around jitter etc from the cd player? Not disagreeing as I've not heard either, I'm just curious. Thanks Think about it John, with a cd transport, the information has to be taken from the disc, corrected and made sure that everything is ok before being passed on to the DAC part of the cd player. With lossless files, that has already been taken care of and the information is sent straight to the DAC.
I think this argument is becoming a bit dogmatic - to an extent. Newer CD players with all their error correction duties would then all sound rubbish and that would be the be all and end all of that. And that is patently not the case.
I'm sure the soft/PC route can be capable of astounding results but one also has to forget the technicalities and listen.
And personal taste also comes into this and hifi in general. I've gleaned from the forums here over time and am obviously generalising to a great extent but it would seem some prefer a more rounded sound and others like myself a more open, transparent sound - perhaps at some cost of 'brightness'. WHF's ripping listening test seemed to bear this out as well - personal preference definitely played its part.
I didn't quite say that. Of course cd player still sound good. I was just saying that eradicating the transport process will make a difference. The 740c with cd for instance would not better than a lossless file sent straight to the DAC in the 740C.
OK, makes sense. The difference in quality between the cdplayer + dac & PC + dac is going to be determined by the quality of the error correction taking place in the CD player.
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