Canor’s high-end DAC comes with tubes and a surprise CD player

Many high-end CD players have a DAC. But not many high-end DACs have a CD player. That makes the Canor Gaia C2 very unusual. It's basically a premium digital-to-analogue convertor with tube output, but with a built-in, high precision CD transport too.

Canor is adamant that this is a DAC first and a CD player second, presumably because it wants you to focus on the DAC specifications. And that's wise, because those specs are impressive and promise to combine the warmth of tube amplification with the precision of Hi-Res Audio.

Canor knows a thing or two about tubes: it launched its first stainless steel integrated tube amp back in 1995. And also introduced a 4-in-1 hybrid Virtus A3 amp, which combines Class A tube and Class AB solid-state amplification, earlier this year.

The Gaia C2 has USB, coaxial, TOSLINK and AES/EBU inputs for external digital audio sources, and there are TOSLINK and coaxial digital outs, plus both balanced XLR and single-ended RCA outputs for the analogue audio.

They're encased in a hefty aluminium chassis that weighs 18kg and comes in two colour options – black or silver.

Canor Gaia C2 DAC: key features and pricing

The Gaia C2 comes with dual-mono 24-bit Texas Instruments PCM1792A DAC chips, which support PCM audio from 44.1kHz to 192kHz as well as DSD64, 128 and 256.

Their output is then routed through the dedicated tube output, which features two 12AX7 tubes, two 6922 (E88CC) tubes, a 6CA4EH tube and high quality Mundorf capacitors. The result, Canor says, "merges the warm qualities of tubes with the precise performance of a digital source".

The Gaia features a mechanically isolated, vacuum-sealed power transformer, an input power filter, short signal paths, "super symmetrical" passive filters, and a choice of two digital filtering options – Natural and Dynamic.

It's enclosed in a design that manages to combine retro cues – a large orange dot matrix display – with practicality, as that display is very easy to read even from a distance.

The Gaia C2 is available now from Canor, priced at €6,749. That's roughly £5,887 / $7,917 / AU$11,982 at today's exchange rates.