That’s a shame - they look entirely sensible (but high tech) and not like a demented service robot when viewed from the side too 
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Yes. I have a pair of Strada’s (MK I’s) paired with two, small REL subs in my office system.
A formidable combination…
Regards.
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This was a speaker I always wanted to try!
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Those look like the skeleton of my ice cream cones.
I have always wanted to hear those!
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Just swapped out my beloved Schiit Bifrost 2 Multibit, Raspberry Pi4 and Roon for a brand new Cambridge Audio CXN V2 streamer/DAC.
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…500 hours from now and you are going to be over the moon.
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I visited Jamie Pauls today owner of Audio Experience in Palatine, IL at his new location. I listened to a pair of Estelon X Diamond mkII speakers connected to a MSB Reference Dac with Roon end point card and a great MSB Amplifier. He was also using a Stromtank for power and a new Acoustic signature turntable for analog playback. To say it was good would be an understatement! Dead silent black background just great music! I love the Estelon speakers! There is a Innuos Statement also pictured but not connected. The MSB reference is an expensive piece but it was the Dac, preamp, and Roon endpoint and sounds fantastic.
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MSB and Taiko Extreme are expensive units I hope one day I can listen to (unfortunately not affordable for my pocket) in your shoes I would have asked to the dealer to compare to the Statement to find out the difference between them.
I suppose you enjoined so much the audition though
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I did ask because when I walked behind the rack I noticed the Innuos Statement didn’t have any power cable or usb. I said what is playing and he said the MSB with a Roon card a Ethernet to fiber converter powered by an IFI power supply and he said the Innuos can’t complete with the MSB. The MSB setup was around $62k US dollars so it should sound better than a $20k statement IMO.
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Had I met Jaime before George my system would be vastly different. He is a danger to me.
Oddly enough, Innuos has never grabbed my attention. Other than Axpona where so many things sound the same, I don’t think I have ever heard it. I have heard MSB and in my next life I’ll have a lot of their gear. But Estelon, oh boy! Yes please! I may buy a pair just to torture my wife. Purple would work. The grapes of wrath.
[Now with fricken laserbeams]
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At the shows so far where I heard both, I preferred your speakers over the Estelon (for bass precision and coherence, which was something that jumped to me as a negative from the Estelon demos). I don’t think they are not good at that generally, they just seem to be less room compatible with the low positioned bass drivers as a possible reason.
I was listening to the XB Diamonds in a big room powered by excellent gear and the bass surprised me. But the Spirits have a good advantage. The Diamonds were 14 feet away from any wall. It was very clean.
I haven’t read anything about burn-in yet on the CXN V2, but imagined it would be somewhere around the 300 - 500 hour mark.
I can say, with the very little amount of listening I have done so far, it already sounds good. Better than the setup it replaced.
I’ve had a headache going on three days now, so IF it goes away anytime soon (doubtful), I’ll do a bit more serious listening.
Also, I was quite impressed with the review on StereoNet.com. The CXN V2 compared very favorably to the reviewer’s very own Auralic Altair G2.1 which is a $5500 unit.
Basically, the only things the Auralic has over the CXN V2 is the build quality and superior app that comes with it. Other than that, sound quality wise, they are right on par with each other.
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Just want to throw some support to Jamie. I have bought several pieces of equipment from his establishment and found him to be honest, fair and knowledgeable. We, in the audio community, need to support local b&m stores because they are becoming a dying breed. Just saying.
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A few key things I liked on the CXN V2, the upside-down writing on the back for reading, neat add. The USB in had the gourd lift on switch right there, very cool. But what surprised me was no usb out. For the price it can compete with vanilla streamers as just a streamer. If it had one it could be used with external DAC for high res. It has other spdif outputs, why not the usb?
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What is its maximum sample rate?
If not higher than 192 kHz then no point providing USB when SPDIF does that with no issues (and much easier to control noise/EMI).
Just a thought
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Not sure what it is, but no DSD I believe… maybe DoP?
EDIT: DSD-64 can pass over the Coax digital output using DOP only (not native DSD). DSD128 does exceed the specification of SPDIF. Not sure how one would do that unless the software provided does it for you. I know Roon can as that is what I have, and right now have to do that with the Sonore software due to its incompatibility with MKII, but the USB supports higher rates. I have many 128, and one at 256 and one at 512. All work but Roon DSP skips above 128. Just does not have the processing power to keep up. I have i7 10th gen, 16gig ram, and 256HD in the NUC too. way overkill for my tiny library, but DSD and DSP seem to be super taxing.
But back on subject, if one does not need that, you are right coax super easy and way less noise.
Yeah I think DSD64 (as DOP) is 176.4/24 so that might make sense
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I really enjoy my time with Jaime! I get him and love his ideas.
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Yeah, I don’t know why it doesn’t have a USB out. Maybe to keep within a certain price point?
Though a moot point for me since I have no DSD material.
This unit upsamples everything to 24-bit/384kHz via their ATF2 technology, so there’s that.
The DAC in this thing is already excellent and already sounds better than the Schiit Bifrost 2 it replaced (and that too is an excellent sounding DAC), so why would I even want to go to another external DAC from the CXN V2?
And when I say it sounds better than the Bifrost, I’m mainly referring to the fact that it seems to be a bit more spacious with an even wider and deeper sound stage. One thing I was worried about is the fact that the Bifrost is known for having a solid, tight bottom end. I’m glad to say that the CXN V2 has that same solid, tight bottom end. The top end is nice and refined as well. And this is just from a few hours of run-in and maybe an hour’s worth of semi-critical listening.
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