Cambridge Audio Azur 851N

Thanks for the update treebeard1.  Keep us updated as the 851N burns in and you become comfortable with feature set.  One thing I would like to know though is the performance of the Internet Radio.  How's it sound?  I'm in the Detroit area - where there really are few classical and jazz stations. I think I would really take advantage of Internet Radio - if the sound was acceptable.

@markv,
I don’t listen to internet radio much. I just tested it out and I see a couple presets from my local area were still present and working. However, it was a mess when I tried to browse for stations. First, there is a list of countries to browse from and the US is not one of them. If I browse by genre I get the usual suspects, classic rock, 70s hits, 60s hits, etc. Some worked and some didn’t.

Overall, I would not base your buying decision on the 851N radio streaming capability. Just install TuneIn Radio on your phone, use the 851N bluetooth (which is quite good), and be done with it. I don’t know why they bother with curating their own stations. It’s already been done much better by others.

FWIW, I did listen to streamed stations at 128 kbps and sounded very good.

Thanks treebeard1.

Has anyone tried to use balanced out instead of rca to preamp? Any sound difference?

Balanced will always be 3dB better than unbalanced. No more, no less