Transport for Cambridge DacMagic

J135 - I used the Onkyo by itself for quite awhile and then picked up a Musical Fidelity V-Dac after reading about it in Stereophile. The improvement was pretty apparent; the soundstaging was one thing that really improved; instruments were better separated and easier to pick out. I picked up the Cambridge DacMagic after reading about it in Stereophile and thought it was a tad better than the V-Dac in that it was a little more neutral; the V-dac for the money though is a real nice little unit.

I use my DACMAGIC with a Cambridge Audio 550C CD Player. I bought the DACMAGIC to upgrade an old NAD 541 unit, ¡but the NAD died suddenly!

After some months using the DacMagic, I think that the differences that the DAC may produce are subtle (using it with a good transport), these are more noticeable with human voices, then a lesser degree with acoustic instruments (like piano, guitar, ...). Then, the differences are much less noticeable, almost imperceptible when compared to electric instruments (like the rock music in general).

What I hear, especifically better with the combination 550C/DACMAGIC is simply more detail, more textures, better definition and enhanced image, and even I fell a more airy sound. In contrast to the 550C alone, I hear a thud sound, as if the speakers were covered by a thin pastic.

I need to clarify something: the Cambridge 550C is an excellent CD player, most people could live with the 550C very happy without an external DAC. I thank that sound of the 550C is better than my old died NAD 541 (if my listening memory don't lie to me, due to the fact that I wast not able to compare both CD players)

So I'm using an xbox 360 with the DacMagic. I have gybytes of music in my computer, mainly lossless formats: flac, ape. The music is transmited wireless to the xbox and then it is sent to the DacMagic by means of an optical cable (by DH Labs).