Cambridge Audio Azur 840C

By Brent Burmester

February 2008

Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CD Player. $2299.

Cambridge 840c in silver or black, plus the rear panel. Click for a larger image.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, someone reviewing the Cambridge Audio Azur 740C, I forget who exactly, wrote:

All things considered, Cambridge Audio is on a serious roll. If the 840C can maintain the same performance advantage that the 740C does over the already excellent 640C, then stand by for fireworks.

Now we need no longer wonder whether the 840C warrants the extra expenditure over its estimable junior sibling: it does – the skyrockets are exploding all around me.

While the 740C is a great player, the 840C marks a step into the world of serious furrowed-brow hi-fi. Round the back from its aluminium-plate front panel are the signs that only the initiated need apply for ownership: balanced XLR output sockets, two digital signal inputs, so the player can act as a DAC for other digital devices; and an RS232 serial port for communication with high end multi-room audio controllers. But the real bling is advertised in small letters on the white dot-matrix display in the unassuming face-plate. Prior to converting CD's familiar 16-bit binary words sampled at 44kHz, the digital data is translating into 24-bit words sampled at 384kHz. That last number is worth reading again – not DVD's 96kHz, not even DVD-A's maximum of 192kHz, but a whacking great 384kHz!

You're not wrong if you protest that the 740C can do the same, as it and the 840C share Anagram Technologies' Adaptive Time Filtering asynchronous up-sampling algorithm and a 32-bit Black Fin digital signal processor from Analog Devices. However, if I may deploy an automotive metaphor, in the 840 the fancy engine gets the suspension, transmission, steering, and chassis tuning that ensures none of its power goes to waste. Whereas the 740C makes do with off-the-rack DACs from Wolfson, the flagship model uses Analog Devices' own 24-bit/384kHz DACs, capable of wringing the most out of the incoming upsampled signal. Magic pixie dust is sprinkled elsewhere in the circuitry as well, as testified by the eradication of capacitors in the signal path.

The sound of music

If all that made you want to hurt an engineer, put down your instruments of torture and consider this: the 840C may represent only a 5% gain in musical insight over its little brother, but that amounts to an extraordinarily involving experience once you're parked in front of your speakers. A few nights ago Mazzy Star played above me in the lounge while I was trying to work downstairs, but even from there I was distracted by the sense of space and depth in the sound the 840C conjures from humble CD.

Kula Shaker's new album, Strange Folk, turned out to be an excellent showcase for the 840C's talents, as it swings from folksy to rave, and in scale from cinematic to intimate. Instruments, whether played to death or with a delicate hand, had an almost exemplary tangibility. Crispian Mills' voice, and those of any number of backing singers, were simply arresting, and I should note that the album is far from an audiophile recording. Portishead's eponymous debut is likewise a bit of a sonic shambles, but, in view of the fact that they'll soon release a new album, I gave the disc a spin and was at once sucked deeper than ever before into the damp, oppressive, yet somehow alluring atmosphere the band evokes.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the 840C's accomplishment is my inattentiveness to the usual things reviewers dwell on when evaluating a component. Bass extension, dynamism, resolution, neutrality, soundstaging, I'm pretty sure were all top-notch, because I had no occasion to think about them. It's really that good, and might be the best player I've heard under $5K. No, it is the best player I've heard under $5K.

I'm the Decider

Most equipment sent for review is pretty competent stuff, about which not much need be said. Every now and again, however, a component comes along that seems to have been made by people unaware of what might reasonably be expected of such a thing, so they happily exceed every reasonable expectation. The 840C is just such a something. If you're at the point in your hi-fi development where you need a player to help you understand what a performer means by their music, and those sort of players are never cheap, I'd advise starting your search here. If you can't afford more, just get one.

For your nearest Cambridge Audio dealer

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