Mission 778S & 778CDT NEW streamer & deck
Meet the Mission 778S. Heavenly sound descends with this much-loved speaker brand’s first network music player and their new 778CDT CD Transport, of which more, below.
The Mission 778S is compact, versatile and delivers the sweetest of streams, designed in partnership with audio streaming specialist Silent Angel Cambridgeshire.
Loudspeaker specialist Mission launched a compact integrated amplifier called the 778X – the first new amp under the Mission brand for almost four decades. It proved an instant hit, keenly priced at £549 and delivering a mix of classic styling, modern facilities and superb sound that continues to ensure its best-selling status in 2026 and beyond.
Building on this success, the company’s next audio electronics mission was to design a network music streamer in the same compact chassis as the 778X – ideally matched to that classy little amp, as well as Mission’s award-winning range of speakers, but equally well suited to partnering with products from other brands. Thus, the 778S was born.
Mission’s first network music player measures just 236x98x357mm (WxHxD), yet packs in fabulous streaming tech, a high-performance DAC and impressive connectivity. Its symmetrically arranged front panel features two rotary controls – ‘select’ and ‘volume’ – which flank a dimmable OLED display.
A broad range of digital inputs includes dual-band Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet for network streaming, together with USB-C for PC/Mac connection and two USB-A ports to plug in USB storage devices. In terms of audio outputs, balanced XLR and single-ended RCA sockets are supplied for connection to an 1 analogue amplifier, alongside coaxial, optical and USB-A digital outputs to hook up an external DAC. There’s even a headphone output, so the 778S can be used as a standalone ‘head-fi’ music streamer without requiring connection to a stereo amp and speakers.
Mission’s new streamer is clearly a versatile device. But its greatest asset is its heavenly sound – the voice of an angel, with a mission to bring sonic rapture to music-loving souls on this earthly plane…
Mission 778S: powered by Silent Angel
Mission’s objective was to create a compact music streamer with celestial sonic skills at a down-to-earth price. Following an exhaustive search for a suitable streaming technology specialist with which to partner, the company settled on Silent Angel.
Formed in 2014, Silent Angel has spent the last decade cultivating an excellent reputation for its network streaming platform, around which its own highly regarded products are built. The company’s technology is cleverly designed, giving its accessibly priced music streamers a clear sonic advantage over other sub-£1,000 devices. It is stable in use, delivering unerring quality however you stream, with an accompanying app that is built for performance and simple to use. When selecting a partner to aid Mission in its quest to deliver an excellent quality/price ratio, Silent Angel was the clear winner.
Mission and Silent Angel have worked closely together to develop the 778S, integrating a custom version of Silent Angel’s streaming engine with Mission’s own circuit designs. ARM Cortex-A72 and Cortex-A53 multi-core CPUs supply ample processing power for seamless operation, and a specialised app based on Silent Angel’s VitOS software provides a crisply designed and user-friendly interface on iOS and Android devices.
Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, Spotify Connect and TuneIn Radio are all embedded, each service supported to its highest audio quality, while AirPlay 2 offers another way to stream via Apple devices. And because Mission’s streamer is fully UPnP/DLNA compliant it connects seamlessly with other DLNA devices on a home network – NAS drives, for example – with the option to control the streamer via third-party UPnP/DLNA apps.
The 778S is certified Roon Ready, with RAAT (Roon Advanced Audio Transport) protocol built in. This ensures it works seamlessly as an endpoint in a Roon-connected audio environment, controlled by the 2 Roon app – the software of choice for many audiophiles building high-performance integrated digital music systems in their homes.
Proprietary circuitry lets the music shine
The 778S fuses Silent Angel’s streaming technology with Mission’s own first-rate electronics, including a DAC stage built for sonic excellence. At its heart lies the ES9038Q2M, a high-specification 32-bit DAC chip from the ESS Sabre series, accompanied by proprietary clock and power supply circuitry to make the most of ESS Technology’s HyperStream II architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator.
Although technically excellent, Sabre DAC chips must be implemented with care to extract their full sonic potential. The post-DAC active filter is a critical element – Mission has incorporated a Class A circuit that is perfectly tailored to unlock the full potential of the ES9038Q2M’s exceptional signal-tonoise performance and dynamic range.
The 778S benefits from a noise-isolated signal path and expertly engineered linear power supply incorporating a high-quality toroidal transformer, delivering clean, consistent power to all the sensitive parts of the digital and analogue stages. The XMOS chip, MCU and DAC each have their own dedicated supply, with multiple discrete ultra-low-noise regulators providing power separately for each stage of the digital-to-analogue conversion process – a critical contributor to the streamer’s performance.
The post-DAC analogue circuitry incorporates high-quality components and features a balanced topology, designed to eliminate noise and distortion in the signal path. This feeds the XLR outputs directly, enabling anyone connecting the 778S to an amp with balanced analogue inputs to reap the full sonic benefits. Meanwhile, those making use of the 6.35mm headphone output profit from an onboard amp with a high-quality current-feedback design and high slew rate, ensuring a dynamic and detailed performance with all manner of headphones.
New year’s resolution
Hi-res audio support is state-of-the-art, handling PCM up to 32-bit/768kHz (including fixed-point PCM via the Mission app) and native DSD up to 22.5MHz (DSD512). Every significant hi-res and lossless audio format is catered for, spanning FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), WAV, AIFF and APE, alongside native DSD in 3 DSF and DIFF form, as well as DoP (DSD over PCM). ‘Lossy’ format support includes MP3, WMA, AAC and OGG – no matter how the audio you play is formatted, the 778S delivers its full sonic potential.
Unusually for a music streamer with a sub-£1,000 ticket price, PCM audio streams are upsampled to 352.8kHz or 384kHz prior to conversion to analogue. This is not just to look good on a ‘spec sheet’; it pushes digital artefacts further away from the audible spectrum, allowing gentler reconstruction filtering and helping to maintain a clean, consistent feed into the DAC. In combination with ESS Technology’s Time Domain Jitter Eliminator, this supports the ES9038Q2M chip’s low-noise, low-distortion performance, producing sharper transients, greater dynamic nuance and a more natural soundstage.
Alternatively, users can override the upsampling facility and apply one of five DAC reconstruction filters to fine-tune the sound to their taste. These ‘sonic tailoring’ options are especially useful given the variable quality of digital audio formats and streaming services.
Mission accomplished
Mission’s official slogan – ‘music leads, technology follows’ – inspires every Mission product design, not least the 778S. From source to output, every aspect of its technical design is focused on delivering sonic excellence – a means to achieve a marvellous musical end.
Its sound is fluid, full-bodied, detailed and dynamic, engaging the listener in the music, the whole music and nothing but the music – always the Mission way. It is clearly superior sonically to popular sub-£500 music streamers yet achieves an accessible sub-£1,000 price point. In classic hi-fi terms, it is the ideal step-up model from the best ‘budget’ streamers on the market today. The Mission 778S network music streamer is available from late January in a choice of black or silver, at an RRP of £799.
Mission has built a world-class reputation for advanced audio design since the company’s formation in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire in 1977, with an engineering-led approach to product development that has resulted in some of the most popular and iconic loudspeakers ever devised.
Three things have always characterised Mission speakers. First, the cabinets and drive units use innovative materials and sport a distinctive, modern appearance. Second, the sound they produce is dynamic, detailed and engaging. Third, they deliver excellent sonic and material value for money.
Hot on the heels of the 778S music streamer, Mission further expands its compact 778 Series with the 778CDT transport.
Precision engineered to make the most of treasured CD collections . Mission adds a CD transport to its 778 Series of compact audio electronics.
The 778CDT joins the popular 778X integrated amplifier and 778S music streamer, above, completing the lineup.
The 778X amp includes an excellent built-in DAC, so it is entirely logical for Mission to develop a matching CD transport. After all, with plenty of music lovers still cherishing large CD collections amassed over many years, and CDs continuing to outsell vinyl in the UK despite the latter’s celebrated revival, the original mass-market digital audio format retains an important place among the various ways people choose to enjoy music at home.
The 778CDT sports the same half-width ‘shoebox’ format as its 778 Series siblings (236x96x357mm, WxHxD), with a symmetrically arranged front panel and dimmable OLED display. Physically, it is the perfect CD spinner to include in an all-Mission hi-fi system with a delightfully compact aesthetic.
xWhat’s more, with its offer of excellent engineering and superb sonics in return for a sub-£500 price tag, the 778CDT is the ideal affordable CD transport to partner any high-performance DAC, or amp with digital inputs, from any audio brand you choose and will partner the 778S a treat.
Engineered for excellence
The 778CDT’s design is entirely focused on the mechanics of exemplary data retrieval and signal integrity through elevated engineering. Compared to CD players, which incorporate DAC and analogue output circuitry in the same chassis as the disc transport mechanism, it delivers the sonic benefit of separating the transport hardware from the DAC to reduce the impact of electrical noise and interference on the music signal. Construction is first rate inside and out, its precision-engineered aluminium chassis, internal architecture and shielded transport mechanism designed to mitigate the sonically deleterious effects of vibrations and interference. From the disc tray to the optical and coaxial digital outputs, every element has been engineered for high durability and uncompromised fidelity.
At the heart of the 778CDT lies a high-precision CD mechanism and custom-designed CD servo control system, developed to ensure stable disc rotation and clean tracking. Every aspect of the laser assembly and servo has been optimised to minimise read errors, jitter and other forms of distortion, delivering a pristine signal to the connected DAC for maximum sound quality.
The CD servo and control architecture is engineered with a robust dual-core processing framework, featuring a high-performance 32-bit RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) CPU and a dedicated MCU. This configuration ensures precise servo control and reliable error correction.
Power without corruption
Mission has designed the internal power architecture to isolate critical pathways. Power supplies to the motor and laser servo circuits are separated from the decoder stage that processes the digital audio signal, ensuring the data stream is clean and stable before it is synchronised and formatted.
A TCXO (Temperature-Compensated Crystal Oscillator) provides an ultra-precise master clock for the servo and decoder section. Powered by its own independent, ultra-low-noise linear regulator and grounding scheme to eradicate power supply induced jitter, it acts as a rock-solid timing reference. This 2 ensures that the extracted S/PDIF digital output is stable and free of timing errors, delivering audibly cleaner transients, tighter imaging and greater musical coherence.
Modern versatility
There was a time when CD players or transports would only play regular ‘Red Book’ 16-bit/44.1kHz CDs, a standard established in 1980 to enable the storage of up to 74 minutes and 44 seconds of high quality digital audio on a 12cm optical disc. The 778CDT offers greater versatility, also playing CD-R, CD-RW and data CDs, and incorporating a USB-A port at the back to plug in USB storage devices – FLAC, WAV, WMA, AAC, MP3 and APE audio files are supported. It s a good partner source to the 778S
As with data read from CDs, audio files accessed from USB devices benefit from the 778CDT’s sophisticated internal design, including the same high-precision clock system and low-noise output architecture, and a dedicated power supply to the USB input. Spinning around With high-quality construction and internal architecture that maximises the sonic potential of every disc you spin, the Mission 778CDT CD transport is available from late January in a choice of black or silver, at an RRP of £449. The 778CDT can also be purchased with the 778S music streamer at a special package price of £1,099 – a saving of £149.
MISSION
Today, Mission continues to stretch sonic boundaries at accessible prices. The brand now benefits from the unrivalled manufacturing facilities and global reach of parent company International Audio Group, with all the component parts of every speaker made in-house. Yet Mission’s roots remain firmly entrenched in Huntingdon, where design, servicing and technical support continue to be based. This, coupled with a design team brimming with homegrown talent, ensures Mission speakers – and now also audio electronics – remain as impressive today as they were when the company established itself at the forefront of the burgeoning British audio scene almost half a century ago. www.mission.co.uk