Solid State Preamp Reviews

I couldn't tell exactly where the mikes were placed, but in the three Embryons desséchés (Dried Embryos), I felt I was back home, sitting next to my childhood piano teacher. The piano sounded as I imagine it sounded to M. Thibaudet while he was playing it. In the first movement, both Thibaudet and the Azur 851A got the cabaret-like "purring" of the holothurian just right. Pianist and amplifier seemed in sync—I could feel the varied forces of Thibaudet's fingers as they struck the keys. At this point in my listening I could best describe the sound of the Azur 851A as relaxed and enjoyably colorful, in a class-A triode sort of way. It sounded more naturally toned and weighty than my Creek 3330 or my Line Magnetics LM-518IA, and showed none of that off-putting grayness or brittleness often heard in low-priced, high-powered amps. The only negative thing I noticed with this totally engaging Satie recording was a bit of stretched-taffy softness (as distinct from a fuzzy-furry softness).

Sweet Pea
"Poor little Sweet Pea, Billy Strayhorn, William Thomas Strayhorn, the biggest human being who ever lived," said Duke Ellington. "[H]e successfully married melody, words and harmony, equating the fitting with happiness." When I listened to Ellington's 1967 tribute to Strayhorn's grand talent, ". . . and his mother called him Bill" (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSP-3906), I felt not only that happiness, but the sadness in Ellington's heart. "Lotus Blossom," the last song on side 2, was recorded after the session in Studio A was completed. It was late; Duke was sitting at the piano, improvising, dreaming, thinking about Billy. Through the Azur, I could not only hear the musicians talking as they packed up their instruments in the background—I could hear (and see) the room. I swear, I thought I could feel the screens on the mikes! (Hallucination auditive?)

As I said at the beginning, with a high-quality, "essentials only" line integrated amplifier, the sound character can be easily upgraded and refined with the choice of superb sources and the amp-speaker combination of your dreams. For the tribute to Strayhorn, I was using some slightly more exotic audio bits: Zu Audio's DL-103 MC cartridge, Intact Audio's nickel-core 1:10 MC transformer, April Sound's BB1 tubed phono stage, and the DeVore O/93s. With this setup it was easy to enjoy the tone and rhythms of Ellington's piano, but it was also clear that these notes and tones had originated in his heart. Record after record, the Azur 851A showcased a transparent beauty, and something I can describe only as sonic effervescence. Music had a bubbling, exciting energy that I had never experienced with an audio component at this price level.

The Doctor is in
On side 1 of Dr. John's In the Right Place (LP, Atco SD 7018), one Mac Rebennack tune, "Same Old Same Old," opens with Allen Toussaint on electric piano. On any same ol' day in the Kingdom, it should have you up, bobbing your head and step-marching like an old drunk on his way to the bar. Listening through the Azur 851A, I could barely put my laundry away—I just kept marching and bobbing as I played the song four times. I never really liked Dr. John—once I started hanging with Boozoo Chavis, Clifton Chenier, and Professor Longhair, I got too hip to step down to faux voodoo. But now I was digging Dr. John and his catchy pop zydeco as I never thought I would. I wasn't even feeling like taking out the DeVore O/93s and putting in the KEF LS50s. The Cambridge Azur 851A was doing it all. I forgot about audio and was dancing to some artist I don't usually enjoy. Maybe it was because I'd surrounded this excellent integrated with some well-chosen stuff. The total price of my Dr. John system was about $15,000, including cables, jambalaya, and Bananas Foster.

Theophany
In case you haven't guessed, I'm a texture freak and a color whore. I don't need gear at any price if it can't do wood, metal, and animal skins, and I'm willing to trade a bit of transparency or soundstage definition to get them. A great midrange should be overflowing and "ripe" with texture and color. In fact, only rarely have I heard enough texture. Amps or speakers that many audiophiles call transparent achieve their apparent transparency, I believe, by losing small-signal textural and color information. I also believe that how well an amp or speaker conveys temporality and mass at low volumes indicates the level of distortion it's producing.

With these thoughts, I replaced the DeVore O/93s with the KEF LS50s and slid into the CD player Sir John Kenneth Tavener's Theophany, with Richard Hickox conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (CD, Chandos 9440). As I mature, my need deepens for reverie-inspiring music with long, slow beginnings. The dreamy but chillingly dramatic Theophany is just such a work.

A theophany is a visible manifestation of a deity, and Tavener describes his work as "an attempt to show the presence of God in all things." Throughout, the sounds of soprano, bass, and orchestra float over a prerecorded tape that, among other things, portrays the "unearthly sounds of God." Tavener has said that, in conceiving this work, he "heard such strange sounds in his head that he could not imagine them being created by human means."

Theophany unfolds in three sections that move from dark stillness to light, and sonically from near silence to startling cacophony. Tavener's orchestral vision is forged in rich colors and bas-relief textures; rhythm and harmony are minimized. To understand this music, the listener must surrender to the full implications of the composer's highly structured and extremely painterly use of tone and texture. Driving the KEF LS50s, the Cambridge Azur 851A seemed to show me everything. For the first time ever with this music, I felt it was all there before me.

I became a Tavener zealot. I played the CD over and over, day and night, for three days. The other work on this disc, Eis Thanaton (Ode to Death)—with Hickox conducting the same singers and, this time, the City of London Sinfonia—features stirringly prayerful counterpoint between Stephen Richardson's hypertextured bass and Patricia Rozario's solemn soprano. Tavener composed the ode in response to the death of his mother. I find the music literally frightening in how it swings from enchanted hopefulness to a morbid rejection of all earthly pleasures.

Review samples of Tekton Design's Enzo XL speakers ($2100/pair) arrived amid my Eis Thanaton obsession, so I installed them and pushed Play. That was yesterday morning, and I'm still feeling all tingly as I listen once again to Rozario and Richardson. Driving the un-broken-in Enzos (review to come), the 851A presented music with deep, deep, well-defined, tuneful bass, elegantly stated detail, and startling dynamics. What a giant-killer match!

Right now I'm sitting, listening, and thinking: I love all the newest amps from Pass Labs—I'd buy one if I could, but I can't afford them. Steve Guttenberg swears by his. In John Atkinson's review of the Pass Labs XA60.5, he called it "the best-sounding amp I have ever used." That is quite a statement. But now, as I type, I'm still listening to Rozario's ethereal soprano singing into that huge, stone-walled space, and I'm not kidding—the Cambridge Audio Azur 851A is sounding like a modest man's Pass Labs amp. I'm talking under $5000 for amp, speakers, and cables that play with the impact, sophistication, color, and refinement of systems costing maybe $20,000 or more.

Conclusion
Cambridge Audio's Azur 851A integrated amplifier appealed to my listening habits and taste. To this audiophile, the Azur 851A represents a versatile and extraordinarily musical cornerstone on which to build a truly enjoyable high-end system that can play all types of music with righteous aplomb for little cost. My only caveats concern its charming azure lights and their programmed ability to flash aggressively scary warnings, and those nice little plastic tone controls, one of which got stuck and stopped working. Why not give me old-school, hermetically sealed, military-spec pots and switches? If they work in an F16, they'll surely outlast all these fashionable, programmable, namby-pamby, chip-based interfaces.

Nevertheless, in my room and with my recordings, Cambridge's newest integrated made me binge and gorge, disc after disc. Nights of listening with the Azur 851A left me drunk on music and high on moderately priced audio. Earnestly recommended!