Displaying items by tag: dac - StereoLife Magazine

Digital audio has come a long way in recent years. There was a time when all you needed was a computer, a modest collection of files on a hard drive and a DAC connected over USB. Today, we have music servers, network transports, dedicated operating systems, control apps, streaming services and an entire infrastructure that some audiophiles take just as seriously as their amplifiers or speakers. For a long time, I found myself somewhere between those two worlds. I was eager to try anything that promised a better way to listen to files, seeing it not just as a matter of convenience but as a chance to get around some of the limitations of CD. I extensively modified my PC to make it quiet and efficient, and just about every DAC from a familiar hi-fi brand found its way onto my desk: the Meridian Explorer, Primare DAC30, Hegel HD25, Atoll HD100, iFi Audio iDSD Micro and Marantz HD-DAC1. Back then, this was seen as a harmless eccentricity. For most audiophiles, the only serious source of music was a CD player, but that began to change quickly. Today, streaming is a galaxy of its own, with streamers, servers, dedicated operating systems, control apps, streaming services, specialist power supplies and even LAN cables with prices that can make your head spin. For some people, streaming is simply a more convenient way to listen to music. For others, it is another area where they can spend hours searching for small improvements. But even the most ambitious system needs one more key component: software for playing music. You can use one of the free apps, download the one supplied by your streamer’s manufacturer or switch between them depending on where you want to access your music. Or you can bring all of that together with a specialist app such as JPLAY.

In 2026, Arcam celebrates its 50th anniversary. The British company's story began in Cambridge, where two engineering students and friends, John Dawson and Chris Evans, combined their interest in music with their technical expertise to establish Amplification and Recording Cambridge, later known as A&R Cambridge. Its first major product was the A60 integrated amplifier, introduced in September 1976. It not only gave the fledgling company a successful start, but also established the direction it would follow for decades to come. Although Arcam's catalogue eventually expanded to include disc players, digital-to-analogue converters, streamers and sophisticated home cinema electronics, amplifiers remained at the heart of the company's identity. To mark its golden anniversary, Arcam has introduced two new components positioned at the top of the Radia range - the A50 Signature integrated amplifier and the CD25 compact disc player.

Hegel is introducing two new integrated amplifiers built around the same core platform but aimed at different types of system. The H200, described by the manufacturer as "The Connected", combines a 2 x 150 W amplifier with a digital-to-analogue converter, network player, MM phono stage and headphone output. The A200, or "The Classic", retains the same power output and key circuit solutions, but is an entirely analogue design intended for use with external sources such as streamers and DACs. Both amplifiers employ a Class AB output stage delivering 150 W per channel into 8 ohms. The H200 and A200 are designed to remain stable into loads as low as 2 ohms, while the damping factor of their output stages exceeds 4000. Both models also feature Hegel's SoundEngine2 technology, which is designed to detect and reduce distortion at the point where it occurs, before it travels further through the signal path. The basic amplifier architecture is therefore shared, with the main differences concerning connectivity, features and the role each model is intended to play within a system. Rather than creating one heavily equipped amplifier for everyone, Hegel has developed two versions - a complete network-enabled model and a more traditional integrated amplifier without a digital section.

Topping has never been particularly shy about squeezing ambitious specifications into inexpensive little boxes, but DX1 II is a much more substantial update than its familiar name might suggest. The original DX1 was deliberately simple - a USB-powered DAC and headphone amplifier built around AKM's AK4493S, with a single USB input, RCA output and 3.5 mm and 6.35 mm headphone sockets. DX1 II keeps the compact desktop format and USB-powered operation, but almost everything around it has changed. There is a new ESS converter, fully balanced analog architecture, considerably more headphone power, optical input and output, 4.4 mm connections, parametric EQ, a display and remote control, plus features aimed specifically at PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch users. In other words, what started as an inexpensive way to improve computer audio has evolved into a surprisingly complete little DAC, preamplifier, headphone amplifier and digital signal processor.

One of the traditional arguments against active loudspeakers is that their electronics age faster than their cabinets and drivers. An amplifier module can become outdated, streaming standards change and DSP platforms improve, while the acoustic part of a well-designed speaker may remain perfectly capable for decades. Buchardt Audio has been thinking about this problem since developing its first active models, and its latest product tackles it unusually directly. Rather than asking owners of A500, A500SE, A700, A700 Limited Edition or Anniversary 10 speakers to replace them with an entirely new generation, the Danish manufacturer has created the Mk2 Upgrade Kit - a user-installable package that replaces the complete amplifier, DSP and power-supply platform inside the existing cabinets. Selected models receive a new tweeter as well.

AudioQuest DragonFly is one of those products that hardly needs an introduction. The original model appeared in 2012 and helped turn the USB dongle DAC from a niche computer-audio accessory into a genuinely mainstream hi-fi product, with more than 300,000 DragonFlys sold worldwide since then. Black and Red followed in 2016, Cobalt arrived three years later, and then the series went quiet for almost seven years. Copper finally breaks that silence. Rather than simply updating Cobalt with a different finish, AudioQuest has substantially reworked the internal architecture, giving its latest DAC-preamp-headphone amplifier more output power, lower current consumption and a new copper-plated enclosure intended to improve RF noise dissipation.

Ferrum has spent the last few years building a compact ecosystem around digital conversion, headphone amplification and power management, but one obvious piece has been missing - a network transport of its own. That gap is now filled by Broen, the Polish company's first dedicated streaming product and a natural partner for the Wandla DAC family and Hypsos power supply. The model was previewed at the Audio Video Show in Warsaw and the Paris Audio Video Show in late 2025, but has now reached its final production form. Its name means "bridge" in Danish, which neatly summarizes the concept - Broen is designed as a digital gateway between streaming services, local music libraries and an external DAC rather than another all-in-one streamer with conversion and analog circuitry squeezed into the same chassis.

Marantz is refreshing the entry point to its traditional hi-fi range with two full-size components - the Model 70 integrated amplifier and the matching CD 70 player. The new duo follows in the footsteps of the popular PM6007 and CD6007, but the transition involves considerably more than a change of model numbers. Both products adopt the visual language previously associated with more expensive Marantz components, while the amplifier gains HDMI ARC, two-way Bluetooth connectivity and a revised amplification section. The CD player, meanwhile, combines conventional disc playback with high-resolution files from USB storage.

Focal has introduced the Diva Alta Utopia, the most advanced model in its family of active wireless loudspeakers developed in partnership with Naim. The French brand is clearly positioning this system very high - not as a luxury network speaker for an elegant living room, but as a fully fledged high-end system intended to replace a traditional stereo set-up made up of loudspeakers, amplifiers, streamer, DAC, cables and the rest of the usual audiophile infrastructure. The difference is that here, everything has been built into large active loudspeakers.

FiiO is expanding its range of desktop audio equipment with the Level 1, a compact integrated amplifier designed to drive passive loudspeakers. The new model combines a Class D power amplifier, a built-in digital-to-analogue converter, Bluetooth connectivity, traditional tone controls and outputs allowing the system to be expanded with an active subwoofer or an external power amplifier. All of this is housed in an aluminium enclosure with wooden side panels. The Level 1 is slightly different from the products with which the Chinese company has traditionally been most closely associated. Rather than another portable player or DAC with a headphone amplifier, it is intended to serve as the heart of a proper stereo system built around conventional passive loudspeakers. This may explain why the front panel carries the JadeAudio logo. Owned by FiiO, the brand is positioned as a younger, more modern alternative with a particularly strong focus on value for money. JadeAudio benefits from FiiO's technical resources, engineering experience and proprietary solutions, but products developed under this project carry their own JadeAudio branding.