Cambridge Audio Azur 640 CD player and amplifier

Quality out of the blue

By Brent Burmester

June 2004

Cambridge Audio Azur 640C CD Player and 640A Integrated Amplifier. $899 each

On review as a team this month are two components from UK budget specialist, Cambridge Audio. One of them is very good, and everyone should have the other one. So, yes, they have my cautious recommendation.

We’ve got a little ahead of ourselves. The items so lavishly endorsed are two of Cambridge’s new Azur range of hi-fi components. You may be familiar with the high reputation of the company’s Classic Series, low cost items designed with an ear tuned for maximum sonic performance. That range gave us the award winning D500 SE CD player and it’s illustrious predecessors, but the fit and finish was never what you’d call robust. Without placing any additional strain on your wallet the Azur range seeks to rectify that failing, and ups the stakes in terms of audio quality.

Built to last

The standard of construction on the 640C CD player and 640A amp is encouraging. The casework panels are secured by small flush-fitting allen bolts, the front panels are aluminium plate, and the sides incorporate a wavy curvature. These are not flimsy articles. The CD player comes off a little better in this regard, with its blue LCD display and positive feeling buttons. The amp’s plastic knobs are not so inspiring, and on both the screen-printed Cambridge Audio logo looks a bit agricultural, but otherwise the look and feel belies price.

Amp it up

As an entry-level combo these deserve serious recommendation. For $1800 you’re getting precision, power, refinement, and versatility in proportions that six months ago would have seemed unobtainable for under $3000. True, the amp lacks a phono stage as standard, but it has five line-level inputs and can switch between two sets of speakers.

Tone controls are defeatable, and the resulting sound is detailed and uncoloured, unless it’s a mild tendency towards a shiny top-end. Soundstaging is good, if not remarkable, but the clarity of diction and instrumentation is a bit special for a sub-grand amp. Happily, it’s also fully drivable from afar thanks to the very classy system remote. While it doesn’t sound any bigger than its rated 65 watts per channel, it would be totally unreasonable to expect the 640A to be any better at its listed price.

Solo source

For me, however, the star of the duo is the 640C. It’s not just a good $900 CD player, it’s a good $2000 CD player. Really. This thing sucks information off your CDs like it was equipped with a vacuum cleaner, rather than a laser.

It’s no wonder when you consider the advanced digital technologies packed away inside the slender box. The DAC is the top-of-the-line two-channel contender from the Scottish boffins at Wolfson Microelectronics, and is able to cope with a data handling spec of a 24 bit word sampled at 192kHz. Cambridge Audio make no mention of upsampling, so perhaps the high performance of this player is explained by the ease with which a 24/192 DAC handles the pedestrian 16/44 CD standard. Or maybe it’s the care taken with power regulation, or the quality of the Sony optics, or the proprietary re-clocking circuit to minimize jitter? Maybe the acoustic damping in the chassis, also a feature of the 640A, plays an important role?    

Doesn’t matter. The fact is the 640C is a revelation, and while it lacks something of the musicality or scale of much more expensive players, it really will impress the jaded audiophile who’s long-since lost interest in what’s happening at the cheap end of the market. Rotel and NAD might be justifiably nervous, but Naim and Meridian had better watch their backs as well if you can get 90% of their performance for 30% of their price.

The 640C and 640A are as much as I’d dare hope for in a sub-$2000 pairing, and must be the stand-out selection in their price bracket. If I was getting into hifi all over again, this is where I’d start.

For your nearest Cambridge Audio dealer