Cambridge Dacmagic? Real improvmt or hype?

Toslink is worst possible way to go, that is the problem. Use a good 75 ohm cable and hear the difference. I was just listening to 3 different ones this morning on my V-DAC. All three are good but noticeably different.I don't use balanced so can comment on them.

I used to be a Cambridge Audio dealer and found this piece to be quite transport/source dependent, regardless of what the reviews say in that regard. With some sources, it worked very well and I felt it was excellent value for the money. With some other sources, the performance just wasn't there. That probably explains many different opinions about this piece. I prefer 75 ohm coax, but I've had good results using a better quality toslink with it as well.

Balanced would make more of an audible difference than optical vs. coax (unless you are running over 50 feet of digital). Don't buy into the Audiophool hype.

Glass toslink is the way to go, you may want to try that out before moving on. A quick google search for one will yield several options, some inexpensive.

I love Toslink myself. But that shouldn't matter. I'm more likely to believe that the dacmagic is your weak spot considering the rest of your gear. IMHO. Have you considered trying out some other higher-end dacs in your rig? You may be surprised.

Regards

Wow you guys are the terrific! I have enough suggestions to follow to keep me busy till New Years. Thank you so much for all your responses. Thanks so much

I have never been able to notice a difference between coax and toslink, on either the dac magic I used to own, or my current dac, which is a PS Audio DL III. But I bet if you went and spent $1000 on a digital coax cable, you might just be able to convince yourself that it makes a difference ;-)

If you need to use toslink, glass is the only way to go. I use a Sonicwave glass toslink cable that I bought for about $25 on Amazon. Beat every plastic (aka fiber optic) cable I've tried.

As stated, glass toslink if the way to go if you must use toslink. A cheap plastic toslink cable can cripple even high end DACs that presumably are immune to jitter. Time and time again I hear people pushing toslink around here. My experience and many others at say the CA website, indicates that when toslink is better than coax, there is some other issue at work. FWIW, it is the same signal. S/PDIF gets converted to toslink by receivers at each end.

By using coax or glass toslink you are likely to gain some dynamics/PRaT at the minimum. To me it often sounds like what you might think the difference is looking through glass versus plexiglass. There is a diffusion that is unmistakable...

My 2 cents.