Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M vs WiiM Ultra

Both are desktop DAC/amps, $399 against $349. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?

The Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M reaches 100 dB on 565 of the 567 models here, the WiiM Ultra on 562.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationCambridge Audio DacMagic 200MWiiM Ultra
Power into 32Ω300 mW150 mW
Power into 150Ω65 mW22 mW
Power into 300Ω32 mW6.0 mW
Power into 600Ω16 mW3.0 mW
Output impedancenot publishednot published
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$399$349
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
565562

A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadCambridge Audio DacMagic 200MWiiM Ultra
32 ΩPublishedPublished
150 ΩPublishedDerived
300 ΩDerivedPublished
600 ΩDerivedDerived

Both makers publish a power rating, which is less common than the table above makes it look: of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load and only 2 publish one at all four. Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M publishes at 32 Ω and at 150 Ω; WiiM Ultra at 32 Ω and at 300 Ω. Every other row is worked out from those — between two published loads, or beyond them holding voltage constant, which understates rather than flatters.

So the two columns are not equally firm row by row: at 150 Ω only the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M figure is the maker’s own and at 300 Ω only the WiiM Ultra figure is the maker’s own. On those rows the derived number is the one to doubt first.

What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.

The headphones that tell them apart

3 headphones reach 100 dB on the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M but not on the WiiM Ultra — Sennheiser HD 600, Symphonium Crimson, Symphonium Helios.

562 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Sennheiser HD 600: Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M has +7 dB of headroom there against -0 dB. 7 dB is about 5.4 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M and WiiM Ultra because neither maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsCambridge Audio DacMagic 200M headroomWiiM Ultra headroomCambridge Audio DacMagic 200M hissWiiM Ultra hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+33 dB+30 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+13 dB+10 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+22 dB+19 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+18 dB+12 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+15 dB+12 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+11 dB+4 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+7 dB-0 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW+5 dB+2 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M costs $50 more than the WiiM Ultra. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 3 more models driven to 100 dB.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M and WiiM Ultra. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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