Advantages: great clarity, can recognise delicate sounds, for the price its unbeatable! Disadvantages: it wont break any windows in terms of volume! it lacks any digital input!
For a budget amplifier you get oodles of clarity! its punchy, and delivers the most delicate of high frequencies too....
i have paired it up with an old pair of Kef Cresta 3's and have used several diffent speakers and different cables....
the first lot of cable i tried was specially handmade gold in, silver out @ £600 per meter! and the current cable is cheapy £2 bell type wire, and to be honest, it made very little difference in the quality... maybe a tad clearer, but nothing vastly notable).. so as another plus, it will make a very low budget system sound very good!
so positives are
amazing sound quality, from bassy club music to delicate classical, it delivers all with a convincing realism, and thats using a standard cd player on my pc! its bass is very punchy if need be and is quite apparent even at low volumes!!!
clarity is ...
Advantages: Great playback of CD as well as DVD Disadvantages: None that come to mind.
it. I hate to hear music from a CD played in some sort of psuedo surround mode. Even concert DVD's just don't seem right to me in surround. (And I've heard £50,000+ systems too!!) When did you ever go to a concert where some of the musicians were behind you? Or even to the side, for that matter. Music should be listened to coming from (preferably) just 2 speakers in front of you, IMHO. Don't even let me get started on the subject of subwoofers... End Tangent!
The CambridgeAudio Azure 540D is a very capable player. It has all the connectivity you are likely to need other than HDMI (I'm on a bit of a downer on HDMI at the moment, so I don't see that as an ommission) but including a very good downmixed stereo sound out (Jargon decode - it makes surround sound encoded music DVD's sound nice ;-) ).
In summary, I would buy one ...
Advantages: Audiophile quality design and build Disadvantages: takes up more shelves on your hi-fi rack and needs more cables. Big Deal!!!
and a fair bit of rock and live stuff.
This set up gives extremely good results with lots of detail coming through and excellent sound staging. One of my favourite CD's is now the Counting Crows live double album, the first cd particularly is a joy to behold on this system as if you close your eyes you really would think that the singer and the guitarist were sat in front of you and you would be able to point to where they are stood. Put on something more lively such as Nirvanas 'Smells like teen spirit' and it doesn't falter in the slightest with plenty of punch but retaining all the subtle detail. Skunk Anansie's 'Charlie Potatoe Head' proves too much for most domestic stereos with it's heavy intricate bass guitars turning into a bit of a mash. However, the CambridgeAudio amps (along with the Mission 734i's) don't miss a beat with every ...
