Cambridge Audio | What Is Cambridge Audio?

Cambridge Audio: As the name suggests, it has its origins in Cambridge, England where in the early 1960s a group of young technology graduates established a high technology R&D and prototyping business: Cambridge Consultants.

Cambridge Audio has been designing and building audio equipment since the sixties. Despite growing in size and popularity it still maintains a lean team who work in-house to create the ultimate sound reproduction. If you’ve not heard of Cambridge Audio before that might be because it is only sold in Richer Sounds. If you have heard of it that’s probably because you know good audio brands and want your kit designed in the UK.

Audio Partnership

The purchaser of the business in 1994 was the newly-established Audio Partnership, which was formed by two entrepreneurial businessmen, Julian Richer and James Johnson-Flint, who were already enjoying significant success with audio retailer Richer Sounds.

Audio Partnership was specifically formed to look for opportunities in acquiring under-developed brands with the intention of providing the investment to allow stability and growth, both in the UK and overseas. Target companies would be ideally British brands that had already developed exceptional technical and design credibility and popularity, but had been lacking in resources or funding to be consistent market leaders in the UK or other markets. Cambridge Audio was considered a perfect fit and became the company’s first acquisition and remains Audio Partnership’s prime focus some 22 years later.

A key element in the purchase of Cambridge Audio by Audio Partnership was the determination that the brand would continue as a true creator, developer and manufacturer of its own dedicated products. From the start of this new era the company was committed to the idea that Cambridge Audio should continue to create ground-breaking, original and proprietary technologies.

Cambridge Audio CXA60

Designed to capture the musical essence of high-tech digital audio and gives high-end performance at a very modest range, the Cambridge Audio CXA60 integrated amplifier turns heads (and ears) on the basis of its simplicity, sleekness, and sound.

Cambridge Audio CXUHD

When it comes to looks, opening discs quickly, and quality of playback you can’t do any better than Cambridge Audio’s $700 CXUHD 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. At least for digital audio. Analog audio output is missing in action, so melding the CXUHD with older or retro sound systems will require a converter.

The CXUHD is an all-metal (chassis and cover), mid-height unit (about one and a half rack spaces), with a brushed-aluminum faceplate and minimal front panel controls. The tray and LCD readout sit dead center, surrounded at well-spaced intervals by the skip forward, skip backward, eject, and pause/stop buttons. The overall appearance marries perfectly with the company’s other A/V offerings, and veritably shouts British upper crust.

The back of the CXUHD, where all the cabling action occurs, features one HDMI 2.0 output, one HDMI 1.4 output with ARC (for pairing with older A/V receivers), and an HDMI input for passing through signals from outboard equipment. There’s one optical and one coaxial digital audio outputs for connecting to an outboard DAC or an older A/V receiver that doesn’t support HDMI, and there are two USB 3.0 ports for playback from external hard drives or memory sticks. That latter proved problematic as you’ll see later.

Cambridge Audio Dacmagic Plus

The Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus does the seemingly impossible and improves upon a legend! The best just gets better. With a raft of improvements the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus is still the best way of improving the sound from your hi-fi, AV system, PC, laptop and now, even your headphones!

Cambridge Audio CXN

The Cambridge Audio CXN (V2) has kept all of the great sonic characteristics of the original. That same vibrancy and enthusiasm that greeted us three years ago hasn’t changed much in the time since.

We play Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie Nicks’ soulful, sweet singing is full bodied and beautifully conveyed. The way she shifts between notes is smooth, and the occasional words clipped to keep her rhythm are snappy and insightful. Even the odd vocalisation – the hums and aahs – are detailed and full of melancholy musings. Most half-decent streamers could reproduce the basics of this song, but it takes something more talented to dig into the emotional core of this track and deliver it – and that’s what this Cambridge does.

With something more bouncy and upbeat, such as Warren Zevon’s Werewolf Of London, the CXN delivers both a punchy bass and a tinkling treble simultaneously. A good streamer, tackling those few opening bars, needs to balance both the deep drum and the piano – which the CXN (V2) does impressively. The bottom end is weighty, but lithe enough to give you a good kick, while the piano is light and airy without being overly bright.

Cambridge Audio CXA80

The result is a phase linear subwoofer output signal which is clean and musical., The Cambridge CXA80 is equipped with a pair of RCA pre-outs to connect the integrated amp to an external power amplifier. Included Components.

Cambridge Audio CXC

The Cambridge CXC transport is a true CD specialist. It’s designed to do only one thing — read your compact discs with the utmost precision. This single-purpose design allows it to deliver digital data to an outboard DAC with no interference from internal analog circuitry.