To Doug Schneider,
In your review, you used the Cambridge Audio 851C in your high-end system with reference components.
This product ranks very highly, but you did not print any comparisons of your reference DACs to the Cambridge DAC’s performance. Could you elaborate now?
Thanks,
Bill
Cambridge’s 851C is an extremely well-built, great-sounding player, so you can match it with components of the highest caliber, which is why I used it in my reference system.
Insofar as how its DAC section compares to other external DACs, it ranks right up there in terms of tonal balance, detail, refinement, soundstaging, imaging, and clarity -- all the main areas. You can find something that has higher resolution, but to do that you’d have to spend quite a bit more -- the Calyx Audio Femto ($6850), which I reviewed for SoundStage! Hi-Fi a little while ago, and the Meitner Audio MA-1 ($7000), which I’m not reviewing but have in-house, are the next steps up. So the 851C accomplishes a lot for its $2000 price, since there’s really not one area where it falls back.
Where the 851C gets a little difficult to compare with other DACs is in certain aspects of its sound -- it has a very lively, incisive, and immediate sound that makes most other DACs sound a touch laid back by comparison. This has nothing to do with the 851C’s price -- it just seems to be the way the Cambridge Audio design team has voiced it. That sound, at least from my experiences, makes it unique. Whether someone likes this character, mind you, will depend mostly on taste. . . . Doug Schneider
