Cambridge Audio DACMagic 200M (open box)

Design of the Dacmagic 200 

FRANCESCO BETTUCCI SENIOR ELECTRONICS ENGINEER

“The goal for the DacMagic 200M was to improve upon the DacMagic Plus - a widely appreciated product, but one that has been on the market for a while now. Technology moves fast, new hi-res audio formats are available and the customer expects Bluetooth as standard. With a standalone DAC, you can dedicate more components (and space) just for digital to analogue conversion, while in integrated products there’s always compromises. We’re really pleased with the performance of the ESS digital to analogue converters we chose for this project. Two ES9028Q2M chips working in a dual-mono configuration allow us to achieve first-class performance and great soundstage recreation. Plus, they keep the DacMagic 200M as an affordable hi-fi upgrade just like its predecessor. For the output stage, we used a number of German-made Wima capacitors - chosen based on listening tests and often used as a gear upgrade by hardcore enthusiasts. The CPU in the DacMagic 200M is also a significant upgrade over the Plus. Rated for 1000MIPS (millions of instructions per second) where conventional USB products use CPUs that are rated for 500MIPS. This allows for much faster USB operation and significantly reduced jitter.”