The Cocktail N25 is certainly pleasingly solid, all its socketry of high quality and the aluminium front panel usefully adorned with an unusually wide though necessarily short full-colour 4.6-inch TFT LCD screen. The best streamers: from budget to premium.So with all this, you see where Cocktail’s bold claims come from. The DAC is an ESS Sabre audiophile ES9018K2M, the widely-praised and highest performing low-power DAC on ESS’s books, delivering (from the chip) 127dB of dynamic range and -120dB signal to noise (THD+N). The circuit design carefully separates analogue and digital paths for the power supply, while the signal paths are kept short and symmetrical. The N25, though a full-width component, is kept nicely short in height at just 75mm, its casing fully metal, its front panel CNC-cut from 10mm-thick aluminium. So that more or less covers the myriad tasks the N25 can deliver, but of equal importance to its claims of greatness is the circuitry and component quality that Cocktail uses to achieve it. Over the home network it can share its access to networked or attached files – or, as we’ll see, recordings – via UPnP, Samba, and even FTP protocols. If you use one of the USB-A sockets for the second optional dongle, Bluetooth Out, you could send its output to a pair of wireless headphones or a Bluetooth speaker. Most unusually the N25 also offers a range of digital outputs which can be similarly switchedįrom fixed to variable output, providing a locally controlled output via coaxial, optical, USB-A or even HDMI audio out. Or the outputs can be variable level, which means you can plug the N25’s outputs straight into a pair of power amps, then using the N25’s own remote or volume knob to control the system. You can set its analogue outputs to fixed level, for playing like any source into an integrated amplifier which has its own volume control. Potentially a game-changer for many users, the N25 can be used not only as a source but as a preamplifier. Optionally, the N25 provides Bluetooth transmission via another dongle, allowing playback from the N25 via Bluetooth headphones or speakers.Īnd the N25 is fully Roon Ready, an endpoint for anyone investing in Roon’s software subscription. There’s also point-to-point streaming with AirPlay for Apple device owners and Bluetooth for others, which includes the aptX HD codec for only slightly lossy high-quality playback, and aptX Low Latency as well. Even more surprisingly it has DAB+ radio built in, or FM if you prefer it (you select one or the other, and use the ‘string’ antenna supplied). With that Ethernet networking the N25 can access built-in music services – internet radio, podcasts, Spotify Connect, Tidal including MQA for Masters playback, Deezer, Qobuz, even HighResAudio. We’d also note that while a Wi-Fi connection requires an additional optional dongle, the Ethernet socket is fast gigabit, so if possible avoid connecting it through any 10/100 Ethernet switch, which would restrict its inherent speed. And while it may take a little research and some care before using, it’s worth trying out and perhaps adding to your selection of tools the next time you’re fixing a Mac.There are additional digital inputs: one coaxial, one optical and – that sign of modern componentry – an HDMI ARC input to play sound from a compatible television. There’s a reason Onyx has been among the tools of choice for Mac techies for almost two decades now, the final program you ran on a client’s computer to clean things up before you wrapped things up. It’s to Joël Barrière’s credit that the program is able to dive into system components as well as it does, and Barrière’s does his homework and listens to user feedback to create an excellent freeware program while only asking for donations in return if the customer is satisfied with the product. There are some handy FAQ links on the Titanium Software website as to common issues Onyx works to address. Onyx has never tried to be a jack of all trades like some of the other Mac utilities, nor does it go out of its way to welcome the user with a tutorial video. The Restore Defaults option under the Maintenance tab also comes in handy and provides an easy escape if you’ve changed a system setting and things appear to have gotten out of hand. Onyx is the kind of program you research before using and given its potential reach into your operating system’s components, it behooves you to read up on it or look into some YouTube tutorial videos to get familiar with how to operate Onyx, which items to repair via clicking checkboxes in the menus, which items to avoid, and how to safely use the program. The customizable Maintenance tasks screen in Onyx.
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