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The Day Is Coming To Ditch CDs And Switch To Digital Streaming With An Arcam airDAC

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The other day I looked ruefully at the hundreds of CDs that litter various rooms of my home. There’s almost every type of music amongst my collection, ranging from early early Venetian lute music, to  sampled jazz rhythms by Swedish outfit Koop – it’s a veritable feast of music trapped in an old-fashioned format. The main problem I have with all this music is finding the CD that I want to listen to and having to settle down to listen to a whole CD or face getting up every five minutes to choose a new disc to change tracks. Let’s face it, a CD is about as hip a as a wind-up gramophone.

Of course I realise that I could dump all my CDs onto an MP3 player or a phone but that would require the purchase of a 64GB iPhone or else I’d need to think about transferring all my music to a NAS server or I could use Spotify or Apple ’s iTunes Match service to achieve something similar.

Arcam airDAC offers AirPlay, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and SPDIF/Optical inputs

However, there’s a ‘but’ and it’s quite a big but. You see, I enjoy my premium Hi-Fi system, which consists of a very good integrated amplifier, a high-quality CD player and some decent freestanding speakers. The gear that I use to listen to my music really hasn’t changed all that much over the past 20 years, but the way I listen to my music has changed dramatically in that time and I’m not ready to trade high-quality audio for an MP3 player, even one that costs $900 and includes a smartphone.

Thankfully, I think I’ve found a solution to the conundrum of enjoying a smorgasbord of music while retaining sonic purity. It comes in the form of the Arcam airDAC, a high-end Airplay-compliant Digital-to-Analogue Convertor (DAC) that can also handle all kinds of music servers or digital streams, including high-resolution audio files or Blu-ray audio discs. The Arcam airDAC enables you to play music wirelessly from just about any smartphone or computer using Wi-Fi. It also offers cross-platform, multi-format capability and a performance boost on cheaper Bluetooth connections or computer-grade Wi-Fi streaming. It’s also a handy way to upgrade the sound from a mediocre CD/DVD/Blu-ray players or a Smart TV by connecting it to a Hi-Fi or home cinema system.

There is a comprehensive range of inputs at the rear of the Arcam airDAC.

This brand-new DAC comes from Arcam, a premium Hi-Fi manufacturer, based in Cambridge, England, and has been designed from the ground up to handle all types of digital sources from Macs, PCs, iPhones, Internet streams; in fact, almost anything you care to pipe through it. At the airDAC’s heart is a 24-bit 192kHz high-performance DAC chip with a supporting circuitry built from audiophile-grade components and mounted on an aluminium chassis with damped rubber feet. There’s a choice of inputs including Apple’s AirPlay and AirPlay direct protocols so that you can stream music from iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch or a Mac that’s running iTunes. In addition there’s a Wi-Fi receiver or Ethernet port enabling streaming from virtually any server or smart phone using UPnP and Internet streaming at up 24-bit/96kHz. Other inputs include SPDIF and optical for hooking up additional components. There’s also a choice of SPDIF and optical digital outputs as well as an audiophile-grade analogue line-level output.

Arcam's iPad and iPhone Songbook apps provide an easy way to choose and play your music.

Recently I had the opportunity to audition the airDAC at a sound and vision trade show in the UK and I have to say that it’s probably the first streaming device that would slot into my home audio system and deliver the sort of quality that I’m after. It’s good enough to make me think seriously about the labour–intensive process of loading my entire CD collection onto my MacPro, and that’s a job I’ve been putting off for close on a decade. Of course, this sort of quality doesn’t come at a bargain basement price; the Arcam airDAC retails at $700 (£400) and the price tag is reflected in the design and the build quality. To control your musical sources there is a free App for iPhone and iPad called Arcam Songbook, which provides access to your music libraries and enable you to control the various inputs and outputs of the airDAC. All in all it’s a neat package that could just be the answer for those of us who’ve been putting off the day when we switch from tangible media to a music collection consisting entirely of digital files. I’ll still miss the album art though.

For more information visit http://www.arcam.co.uk/

Technical Specifications 

  • DAC - TI PCM5102
  • Input - Airplay / UPnP, SPDIF/Optical
  • Frequency response - 10Hz — 20kHz, ±0.1dB
  • Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise - 0.002%
  • Signal-to-noise ratio (A –Weighted) - 106dB (24-bit)
  • Line output level - 2.15Vrms
  • Supported sample rates - 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz
  • Bit depth - 16-bit, 24-bit
  • Power requirements - 7W max
  • Dimensions (wxdxh, mm) - 190 x 120 x 44
  • Weight - 1.1kg