Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 Network Music Player

Vince Hanada has posted a review of the Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 network music player ($1149) at SoundStage! Hi-Fi. His conclusions:

“If you’re centralizing your music library and are interested in streaming music, there aren’t a lot of great options available. At the low end, a media player like an Apple TV or a Western Digital WDTV Plus would work, but these options are fussy, with differing levels of file compatibility and sound quality. But for only around $100, such options are doable if you’re willing to fiddle around and to compromise on sound quality. As I mentioned in the introduction, Meridian, Linn, and Naim have the 1% covered with multi-thousand-dollar streamers. Which leave us with the Goldilocks of the streamer world: the Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6, which seems to hit the “just right” spots of sound quality, ease of use, and versatility.

The Stream Magic 6 occupies a unique position in the audio world in being three components in one: a DAC, a streamer, and a digital preamp. Usually, when a component is designed to do so much, it falls flat on its face by not doing anything particularly well. Not so the Stream Magic 6 — it fulfills its promise as a high-quality DAC, a high-quality digital preamp, and a high-quality streamer by sounding phenomenal in all three functions. To top it off, Cambridge deserves a lot of praise for its slick iOS app, which makes possible whole other levels of interaction with and usability with the Stream Magic 6. Try as I might, I could find nothing else that works as well. Cambridge Audio’s Stream Magic 6 gets a huge recommendation from me.”

You can read the full review here.