After living with my new Mede8er and Dac Magic for a week or two I thought I would put down a few thoughts of how I perceive them working together as a digital music source.
Overall:
Very very good quality sound for the money. To the point of making mid level and lower high end traditional sources obsolete. I have a few complaints, make no mistake but in general the music is very detailed and clear.
Complaints (bear in mind my degree of discontent is very mild, but they are issues nevertheless):
1) High frequencies can be a touch shrill sometimes, perhaps fancy interconnects may help, I didnt try anything exotic. Only noticeable very occassionally. Can make some tracks fatiguing.
2) Overall presentation of the sound is ever so slightly "polite" for my tastes, especially mid and low frequencies. This is something I often find with English designs. To me it lacks that last smidgen of vitality that transforms the music into becoming "real" rather than a recording if you see what I mean.
3) Med8er firmware is in quite a state of flux at the moment. The latest upgrade isnt stable apparently. I decided to wait till its stable before upgrading from the as shipped firmware which works OK (with the exception of Internet Radio which has the wrong embedded IP settings apparently - supposedly fixed in one of the firmware upgrades).
3) Mede8er user interface a little clunky, especially in comparison to the Squeezebox.
My setup:
Mede8er accessing Flac files via wireless dongle from my external hard drive connected to laptop in the study all networked via wireless ADSL router. The Mede8er is feeding the Dac Magic via Apogee Wide Eye SPDIF coax cable which in turn feeds a VA Predator amp (via cheapish "Makro specia"l Prosound RCA analogue interconnects). The amp drives Sonor Audio Cadence speakers. I compared the sound from this setup to that from the original CD that the FLAC file was made from played on Electrocompaniet EMC 1 via the VA Predator to make up my mind about the Dac Magic/Mede8er's sound.
DAC Magic Detailed Comments:
The detail resolved is astounding, I think it out resolves the EC CD player occasionally which is something I wasnt expecting at all. It lacks a small amount of vibrancy and "immeadiateness" which the EC does so effortlessly, but hey we are talking about a 10 times differential in price between the two units! I think the Dac Magic's weakness, if anything, is the analogue side of its equation. I'm not qualified to judge its electronics but to my mind its "cell phone charger" type power supply with teeny teeny wires isnt quite what I'm used to seeing powering hi-end equipment, even sources. So I suspect with some extra work done on its analogue side it would be simply astounding. I also like the fact that it has provision for three digital inputs (1 USB and 2 RCA/Toslink), and that you can select sources on the front panel.
Mede8er:
Clearly a cutting edge product which is still evolving, in an evolving market place. It basically does 4 things:
1) Plays music files of various formats including FLAC which was my choice. From a technical point of view it does this well passing through high resolution files to the DAC (although with the current as shipped firmware the Mede8ers volume control is active, even when audio is set to "digital pass through", which you have to set to max if you want good quality - the music is very aneamic at lower volume settings).
2) Plays Internet Radio (not working on the as shipped firmware due to a change of IP address of the Internet Radio gateway or whatever it is pointing to - apparently fixed in later firmware releases - I havent bothered fiddling with all of this yet).
3) Shows photos - this works quite well IMO. Simple slide show with enough options to keep me happy without becoming a pain to setup/use. Takes a bit of time to render preview slides over the wireless network for large images, but not a major issue.
4) Play movies - havent played with this much although its actually the prime function of the unit. When I get all my music copied I'll start exploring this.
I set up my Harmony 525 remote to run the screen/amp/Mede8er combination which has made a big difference to ease of use, so while the Mede8er interface is still clunky, its tolerable to use.
So in summary I'm quite happy with this little investment from a sound quality point of view and would recommend that anyone thinking about upgrading their CD player to have a look at this combo, or at very least the DAC Magic with some media server as a very cost effective alternative for high quality sound IMO! Could even make a DVD player obsolete in the long run if movies become legally available in digital file format.
Overall:
Very very good quality sound for the money. To the point of making mid level and lower high end traditional sources obsolete. I have a few complaints, make no mistake but in general the music is very detailed and clear.
Complaints (bear in mind my degree of discontent is very mild, but they are issues nevertheless):
1) High frequencies can be a touch shrill sometimes, perhaps fancy interconnects may help, I didnt try anything exotic. Only noticeable very occassionally. Can make some tracks fatiguing.
2) Overall presentation of the sound is ever so slightly "polite" for my tastes, especially mid and low frequencies. This is something I often find with English designs. To me it lacks that last smidgen of vitality that transforms the music into becoming "real" rather than a recording if you see what I mean.
3) Med8er firmware is in quite a state of flux at the moment. The latest upgrade isnt stable apparently. I decided to wait till its stable before upgrading from the as shipped firmware which works OK (with the exception of Internet Radio which has the wrong embedded IP settings apparently - supposedly fixed in one of the firmware upgrades).
3) Mede8er user interface a little clunky, especially in comparison to the Squeezebox.
My setup:
Mede8er accessing Flac files via wireless dongle from my external hard drive connected to laptop in the study all networked via wireless ADSL router. The Mede8er is feeding the Dac Magic via Apogee Wide Eye SPDIF coax cable which in turn feeds a VA Predator amp (via cheapish "Makro specia"l Prosound RCA analogue interconnects). The amp drives Sonor Audio Cadence speakers. I compared the sound from this setup to that from the original CD that the FLAC file was made from played on Electrocompaniet EMC 1 via the VA Predator to make up my mind about the Dac Magic/Mede8er's sound.
DAC Magic Detailed Comments:
The detail resolved is astounding, I think it out resolves the EC CD player occasionally which is something I wasnt expecting at all. It lacks a small amount of vibrancy and "immeadiateness" which the EC does so effortlessly, but hey we are talking about a 10 times differential in price between the two units! I think the Dac Magic's weakness, if anything, is the analogue side of its equation. I'm not qualified to judge its electronics but to my mind its "cell phone charger" type power supply with teeny teeny wires isnt quite what I'm used to seeing powering hi-end equipment, even sources. So I suspect with some extra work done on its analogue side it would be simply astounding. I also like the fact that it has provision for three digital inputs (1 USB and 2 RCA/Toslink), and that you can select sources on the front panel.
Mede8er:
Clearly a cutting edge product which is still evolving, in an evolving market place. It basically does 4 things:
1) Plays music files of various formats including FLAC which was my choice. From a technical point of view it does this well passing through high resolution files to the DAC (although with the current as shipped firmware the Mede8ers volume control is active, even when audio is set to "digital pass through", which you have to set to max if you want good quality - the music is very aneamic at lower volume settings).
2) Plays Internet Radio (not working on the as shipped firmware due to a change of IP address of the Internet Radio gateway or whatever it is pointing to - apparently fixed in later firmware releases - I havent bothered fiddling with all of this yet).
3) Shows photos - this works quite well IMO. Simple slide show with enough options to keep me happy without becoming a pain to setup/use. Takes a bit of time to render preview slides over the wireless network for large images, but not a major issue.
4) Play movies - havent played with this much although its actually the prime function of the unit. When I get all my music copied I'll start exploring this.
I set up my Harmony 525 remote to run the screen/amp/Mede8er combination which has made a big difference to ease of use, so while the Mede8er interface is still clunky, its tolerable to use.
So in summary I'm quite happy with this little investment from a sound quality point of view and would recommend that anyone thinking about upgrading their CD player to have a look at this combo, or at very least the DAC Magic with some media server as a very cost effective alternative for high quality sound IMO! Could even make a DVD player obsolete in the long run if movies become legally available in digital file format.
