I was pretty excited when I got an email from CA this morning regarding this new streamer.
From the email
We wanted more - for us, for you, for the music.
After 3 years and countless hours of listening sessions at our London HQ, we made it happen with the all-new EX Series.
The EXN100 Music Streamer and EXA100 Integrated Amplifier are a major upgrade from our CX Series, taking you and your music closer to the flagship Edge performance.
Aficionados may also recognise the EX Series as the spiritual successor to the iconic Azur 851.
But for every nod to our proud heritage, the EX Series offers something new: from its stunning design to its pioneering feature set.
I have the excellent CXN100 streamer and was hoping this would be a bit of upgrade on that (the price certainly is!). Depending what you are looking for it does have a few upgrades, eg ARC, larger screen, but disappointingly (for me anyway) it uses the same DAC (ESS ES9028Q2M) as the CXN100. Although according to the hot of the presses What HiFi review “The DAC module is the same 32-bit ESS ES9028Q2M Reference chip as used in the CXN100 streamer. Cambridge Audio claims its engineers have managed to eke out even greater performance from this DAC chip than before, with a carefully tuned signal path, and significant changes made to the post-DAC analogue stage using premium components chosen for better clarity, separation and stereo imaging”
I have no need for ARC and I find the display in the CXN100 is large enough so I reluctantly came to the conclusion that the £700 price hike is probably a deal breaker.
Although maybe a year or two down the line I may change my mind if the price comes down, especially if enough people with real world experience of the CXN100 compared to the EXN100 say it’s a worthwhile and noticeable upgrade!
Why change the DAC chip when it’s a top class chip. The Chip is only a small part of the process and changing of the chip doesn’t really change as much as you think it’s just marketing stuff to use the latest and greatest. Most improvements to devices like these are achieved by focusing on better engineering of other parts of the chain that affect the analogue output stage component’s and better hygiene between the digital and analogue sections. Which it looks like they have done here. The chip is a small cog in a larger wheel. This is why not all DACs perform or sound the same even if they use the same underlining DAC chip. Some will say it’s all subjective, but so is life, embrace it and if you don’t hear a difference you don’t buy it. If you do you go with what you prefer. No right or wrong. Only opinions of which we will all differ on.
This is why I come here lol. For advice from people who have more knowledge of this stuff than I have.
Every day is a school day as they say and you’ve certainly given me food for thought.
I’ve just noticed that CA do a 60 day home trial with free returns, so that might be a route I’ll consider.
I’ve started seriously looking at streamers for my setup. My only standalone DAC is a Cambridge DacMagic 100, and I really like the sound, so I’m excited to see this product. I’m sure the CXN100 would be more than sufficient (heck the MXN10 seems like it would be too), but frankly I like the larger chassis and screen. Looking forward to hearing this.
HI, I just had a few hours listening to the cxn v2 cxn100 & the exn100. The differences between them were noticeable in thier own ways, but to my ears hands down the exn100 sounded remarkably better in soundstage separation & overall quality. I think the extra money on the exn is well worth it.
I just had a demo with cxn100 & exn100 for a few hours at Richer sounds. It took 3 songs to make my mind up. Exn100 is beautifully sounding the soundstage was remarkably better then the cxn100 but to be fair to the cxn100 it did sound nice. I know the exn100 is more expensive but in my opinion well worth the extra money.