Measurements and conclusion
Contents
Measurements Cambridge MXN10
Measuring a streamer with no digital inputs – except LAN – is not very exciting. This is because you can’t really put controlled signals into it. Except for some test signals over the network. We focus mainly on power supply noise in this case. And noise going over the Ethernet cable.
And it has to be said: the Cambridge scores just fine! We see a noise floor of -120dB on the analog outputs. And even if we put in a stimulus of 1 KHz, we don’t see anything crazy.
Noise over LAN and power supply is fine considering the price. It could certainly be lower, but then you start looking at power supply modifications: what we see is mainly the internal switching power supply.
Measurements DacMagic 200M
The DacMagic 200M really performs very nicely for a converter in this class. We see a low noise floor, fine dynamic range and a remarkably clean adapter. Yes: it could be cleaner, but it’s certainly not bad!
The DacMagic shows that it is linear from about -116dB. That’s 19 bits, which is just neat. The dynamic range also shows a similar picture: perhaps the noise is dominant around that point. The Jtest (don’t take it too seriously…) shows fine jitter values: 13ps. To really measure jitter, we would have to open it up: that goes too far for this review which is actually about the MXN10.
Should be possible to modify the power supply, especially in the AXN version which has a lot of extra space. Just increasing the capacitance by putting in a larger capacitor could be a first step (there is even an extra space for a second capacitor outlined on the board, but i don’t know if that can simply be used) and there is enough room for a toroidal transformer.
Nice review, I do must add a note, though. I am using CA as a connection point, along with my music on hard disc and then I am sending digital signal to RME ADI-DAC-2 FS, so CA is easy and cheap way to integrate all digital with any kind of DAC and so on, into preamp…