Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 V2 Preview

[admin]

The Cambridge Stream Magic 6 v2 isn't just a media streamer. It is a standalone DAC and preamp as well. With digital inputs, three USB ports, WiFI, and an Ethernet port, the Stream Magic 6 v2 is ready for your digital content. It can stream from services like Spotify Connect and Pandora as well as from your local drives. Every input can accept up to 192 kHz/24 bit files. It takes everything and upsamples it to 24 bit/384 kHz. With both balanced and unbalanced outputs, the only thing that the Stream Magic 6 v2 is missing is analog inputs. While the $999 price tag might scare a few away, we think the Cambridge Audio has enough functionality (and certainly enough high-end cred) to justify the price tag. A niche product...perhaps. But one that certainly has an audience.

Discuss "Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 V2 Preview" here. Read the article.

 

[Lulimet]

Nice device with nice features. A little expensive but at least they included the DAC.

 

[haraldo]

Hmmm, seems like Cambridge did not update their networking interfaces for a long time
Lack of 802.11n (higher speed wifi) and Gigabit Ethernet is surprising, any computer today will at least have this by default
Many laptops also come with higher speed 802.11ac
Maybe this is fast enough but why would you want your wifi router to suppoort the very very old legacy 802.11b?
Today it should only be 802.11 ac or maybe 802.11n.....

 

[Lulimet]

Agree that they saved a couple of bucks there, but for audio files only, gigabit ethernet and faster wi-fi speeds are not needed.

 

[haraldo]

OK.... I agree that gigabit ethernet is overkill, but utilizing a legacy 15 year old standard as the primary transport mechanism is a bit faulted, if you ask me....
802.11b has several issues, it uses the 2.4GHz band, as well as the original 802.11 standard and this may imply some difficulties, most and foremost with stability and reliability; this is an unregulated frequency band that many gadgets use, simply to lower cost. Using this unregulated frequency band means that your wi-fi is susceptible to intererence from a range of home appliances, microwave ovens, cordless phones and more...

I suggest that if you want wi-fi stability and reliability you should stay away from the 802.11a and 802.11b bands. I never made the wireless work well on the Squeezebox streamer that also uses 802.11b, probably because of the above stated reasons, so I always ended up using hardwired ethernet for this purpose (in this case 100base-t)

 

[mlknez]

Low end networking
No SMB or NFS
No DSD support
No multichannel
No MLP support
No .iso support

Another "me too" product.

 

[Slee_Stack]

You can build a very nice HTPC with a high end case, and superior features all around (maybe not balanced analog outs) for less money.

Of course, just buy the 'puck' for <$100 anyway.

If you are streaming, do you really care about DAC analog output on the receiving unit?

Leave the DAC in the end amp/receiver. Use digital til the end. Who is this for?