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Labarum
10-05-2010, 08:38
Another place compares the Touch used alone with the Touch Supported by a Dacmagic.

The consensus seems to the the Dacmagic is better, but not by much.

How does the Beresford Caiman improve the Touch? Marginally? Dramatically?

Any Beresford DAC will improve an SB3, but I have read the Touch has a rather better analogue output than the SB3 of Duet Receiver.

Stratmangler
10-05-2010, 09:32
The DAC Magic upsamples everything to 24/192 - see page 17 of the manual http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets/documents/AP239051DacMagicUserManual01English.pdf so cannot be regarded as accurate - it substantially manipuates every signal you put through it.

So it might be said that things sound different with the DAC Magic, but that's all that can be said.

I might be able to get to listen to a Touch & Caiman this coming weekend, but as you say, the analogue outputs have been bettered, so differences may be subtle.

Edit - found the thread over on the Squeezebox forum.

Themis
10-05-2010, 17:55
I did the test (long ago). The Touch has a bit of an "upsampling" sound, it's a bit polite. Less polite than a DacMagic (as I remember it), but more polite than a Caiman.

It's hard to say which is better, as it clearly depends on taste and on the other components (amp+speakers).
In my case, I prefer the Caiman to the Touch analog out.

But the differences are small. Small enough so that I could safely advice someone having a Touch to not invest into an additional dac, unless he's of the "dark" (perfectionist) side of hifi. ;)

Ali Tait
10-05-2010, 18:37
Yes agreed Dimitri,the analogue out is very good.I do use mine with my modded Audio Note dac zero though.To my ears it is better,though the difference is not night and day.The Touch on it's own is a very good piece of kit IMHO.