TechRadar has teamed up with Cambridge Audio to give away five of its superb-sounding iPod docks. The iD50 is among the best iPod docks we have encountered. When we reviewed the system back in December , it was so good it warranted a five-star TechRadar rating.
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Virgin Media has indicated it is to start using CView technology to gain an idea of how much pirated material is passed around online. 1.6 million Virgin customers will be part of the trial. As we reported last month , the trial isn’t intended to identify culprits – at least not yet – but simply to gather data to gauge the size of the piracy problem. CView is made by Detica, a subsidiary of weapons maker BAE Systems, and is also used for Homeland security issues.
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A new intuitive, low-cost user interface device (read: mouse) has been shown off by Cambridge Consultants who hope to ’squeeze’ into what is a tough market. Codenamed Suma, the device “translates the three dimensional deformation of a squeezed object into a software-readable form”. So you touch it in such a way, and your gestures are fed into the computer. Capturing complexity Its makers are hoping that Suma will be a low-cost alternative to the cumbersome motion-capture technologies that our out at the moment
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Offering broadly similar connectivity to the Cambridge and Onkyo models (video output on an S-video socket only), the NAD IPD-2 is, however, rather more closely tied to its manufacturer’s own systems. It has a data port intended to connect to a matching one on a NAD home cinema receiver, which allows advanced functions involving an on-screen display to be used. Still, normal operation is perfectly possible using either the iPod’s own controls or the NAD remote and sound will, of course, be the same. This unit also has a bit of weight added to its base, which makes it pleasant enough to use. Like Onkyo, NAD has not boosted the iPod’s output level, which remains at the 0.7-volt native output level of the device.
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Onkyo has just announced the first affordable digital iPod dock, the Onkyo DS-A3. so are analogue docks now redundant? Not according to Onkyo’s representative, to whom we put that exact question. He pointed out, reasonably enough, that not everyone will have a digital input available, nor will they want to buy a separate DAC just for an iPod. Accordingly, this dock is optimised for extracting the most from an iPod’s analogue output
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Apart from iPod-enabled products including the One and Sonata mini-systems, Cambridge makes two iPod docks, the utterly basic iD10 and the present candidate, the iD50. It is quite comprehensively featured, but Cambridge makes particular play of its audio abilities, which rely on ‘quasi differential noise cancelling’ circuits and audiophile-grade output buffers. Connections include audio output on phono sockets, composite video and S-video, and RS232 for multi-room installations.
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The real surprise here is the fact that the CD-10 exists at all. Micromega has had a fine reputation, in particular for its range of CD players. Since its first outing in the late 1980s, the range has included what is claimed to be the first top-loading CD player, (the CD-F1 Hightech in 1987) and in the following year the first separate two-box transport/DA converter combination, though we are not convinced of the veracity of either of these claims. From this reviewer’s memory, we thought both Philips and Meridian had prior claims to top-loading players and one of the early iterations of Cambridge Audio was surely the first with a two-box player?
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Some 20 years after the first stand-alone DAC – the Arcam Black Box – appeared, Naim Audio has finally joined other manufacturers at the party. For years, the company ignored external DACs completely, but with today’s proliferation of digital media and music that does not come stored on silver discs, it is no longer an option. The DAC is fast becoming a must-have component in any contemporary hi-fi system. The price of the Naim DAC pitches it well above budget favourites such as the cambridge Audio DACMagic, but comfortably below the high-end Chord Indigo DAC/preamp
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