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One summer in the mid-2000s I purchased a pair of Cambridge Audio components for my red-headed, tango-dancing Texas girlfriend. She quickly saw through my ruse to install some solid hi-fi in her New Jersey home away from home—but eventually she acquiesced, and soon Michael Martin Murphey (she), the Beatles (me), and Miles Davis (us) filled our weekends with music. Inspired by a Sam Tellig column I read around that time, I paired a Cambridge Azur integrated amplifier and CD player with a pair of Triangle Titus XS minimonitors. The sound produced by this quartet was clean, precise, and…
This is one seriously beautiful piece of hi-fi. I was instantly compelled to touch the large, concentric volume/source select control knobs that dominate the center of the faceplate, which permit navigation and volume selection at the touch of its single creamy dual dial. The control dial is assembled from 31 precision-milled engineered parts, all made "from aerospace-grade materials," per Cambridge's website. The substantial metal remote-control handset replicates the dials' functions and adds Skip, Mute/Unmute, Power Off, and four programmable buttons—but I preferred the feel of the Edge…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-channel integrated amplifier with Bluetooth and digital inputs. Inputs: 1 pair balanced, 2 pairs unbalanced, analog; coax and TosLink S/PDIF, USB, digital; Bluetooth, Audio Return Channel (ARC). Outputs: 2 pairs five-way binding posts, XLR/RCA preamplifier out; ½" headphone (12–600 ohms impedance recommended). USB audio input: USB Audio Class 2.0 supporting up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256. Bluetooth: 4.1 (Smart/BLE enabled) A2DP/AVRCP supporting formats up to aptX HD. Continuous power output (RMS): 100Wpc into 8 ohms (20dBW), 200Wpc into 4…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Kuzma Stabi S turntable & Stogi tonearm; Thorens TD 124 Mk.I turntable, Jelco 350S tonearm; Denon DL-103, Hana EL, Ortofon Quintet Bronze cartridges.
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook computer running Audirvana Plus; LG BD550 BD player (as transport); ATC CDA2 Mk.II CD player; Halide DAC HD, PS Audio NuWave DACs; Western Digital T2 Mirror Drives (2).
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 A23 MC step-up transformer, Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier, Shindo Laboratory Allegro preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion.…
There's no place for fashion in epidemiology, aeronautical engineering, or the mining and storage of uranium. Fortunately, domestic audio is less serious, its goals more scattered and ambiguous, than those and a thousand other pursuits.
And so, throughout the 20th century, any number of trends in domestic audio popped up their heads, some remembered as fads, others as legitimate approaches to playback. Among the latter are amplifiers whose output sections operate in single-ended mode, in which the entire signal waveform is amplified by a single device (footnote 1)—usually a tube, most…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
A few seconds after I first powered up Ken Micallef's review sample of the Edge A (serial no. HT C10972 6856 0020) it turned itself off, its front-panel light glowing red to indicate a fault. I suspect that, despite the protection afforded by the impressive packaging, the box had been dropped somewhere on its way to me. As Cambridge's Dominic Baker was visiting the company's US office, in Chicago, he stopped by my Brooklyn test lab on his way back to the UK with a second sample for me to measure (serial no. HT C10925 6853 0026).
This second sample of the…
With the Carys powered up and the preamp's volume control turned down, a faint hum was audible from both speakers, but only when I placed an ear within inches of a woofer—never from my listening seat. Early in the listening period I played around with all the variables that came to mind, and discovered that while this hum wasn't present when I briefly swapped my push-pull Shindo Haut-Brion back into the system, it also wasn't affected by my choices of speaker cables, interconnects, or output tubes, or by the physical location of my phono step-up transformer. Plugging the Carys into my Shindo…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-ended, tubed monophonic power amplifier. Tube complement (each amp): two 6SN7, one 300B, one 845 or one 211. Inputs: 2 single-ended (1 RCA, 1 XLR). Output power with 845 power tube: 27W (class-A, 14.3dBW), 50W (class-A2, 17dBW). Output power with 211 power tube: 27W (class-A, 14.3dBW), 70W (class-A2, 18.45dBW). Input impedance: 150k ohms. Output impedance: separate connectors for 4, 8, 16 ohms. Signal/noise: >80dB below rated output. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz, ±0.5dB, at full power output.
Dimensions: 12.25" (310mm) W by 10" (255mm…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT TSD 15, Ortofon SPU A Wood, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Koetsu Onyx Platinum cartridge.
Digital Source: Mytek Liberty D/A processor, Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 & T2 step-up transformers, Shindo Laboratory Monbrison (2017) preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93.
Cables: Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Luna Red, Shindo…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured one of the Cary CAD-805RS amplifiers (serial no. 180218) using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before doing so, I installed all the tubes, following the guide in the manual, and checked that the bias current for the 300B driver tube was the recommended 60mA, using the front-panel meter. I checked the bias current several times while performing the measurements, but it hadn't changed. I took complete sets of measurements from the 4, 8, and 16 ohm output-transformer taps with the 845 output tube that AD preferred,…