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Mission’s 778-Series is a compact, retro-inspired HiFi system—streamer, CD transport, and integrated amplifier—designed for high musicality with minimal footprint.
Uniform aluminum chassis echo the 1980s Mission 778, featuring large rotary knobs, shared dimensions, and engineering focused on mechanical stability and channel separation.
778S streamer uses Silent Angel networking, ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC, upsampling to 352.8/384 kHz, supporting PCM 768kHz/32-bit and DSD512.
Beyond the nostalgia-driven façade, the 778-Series reads like a deliberate exercise in system-level engineering rather than a stack of loosely related boxes. Mission’s emphasis on shared enclosure geometry is not just cosmetic; identical footprints simplify mechanical grounding and cable routing, reducing asymmetrical vibration paths that often creep into compact systems. German-language coverage highlights the focus on mechanical calm and electrical separation, which in practice suggests careful internal layout—short signal paths, segregated power domains, and minimal cross-contamination between digital and analog stages. This approach contrasts with many lifestyle-oriented mini systems where integration is prioritized over internal discipline.
From a technical standpoint, the digital front end shows a clear hierarchy of roles. The streamer’s network platform, co-developed with Silent Angel, positions Ethernet stability and clock hygiene as first-order design goals, while the CD transport doubles down on time-domain accuracy through temperature-compensated clocking and physical decoupling rather than feature creep. Some observers frame this as conservative engineering, but it aligns with a purist view: keep the disc spinner strictly digital and let downstream conversion dictate sonic flavor. The amplifier’s onboard conversion and analog stages then act as the system’s tonal anchor, with an emphasis on low-noise gain structure and a phono section that appears designed for real-world cartridge loading rather than checkbox specs.
What emerges from comparing these perspectives is a product line that quietly resists the “all-in-one convenience” narrative. Each component can stand alone, yet the voicing philosophy suggests they were tuned together, favoring coherence over headline-grabbing numbers. For forum-minded audiophiles, this reads less like a retro revival and more like a modern reinterpretation of classic British system thinking: modest dimensions, disciplined engineering, and an expectation that musical flow comes from timing integrity and layout choices as much as from silicon pedigree.
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