Cambridge 840C, YES it is as good as the reviews

HI
I demoed a 840 from a dealer a while back and thought it was quite good. However for me, I still prefer my 20 yr old CAL aria. It has been modded with better output caps but thats it.
The 840 is clearly better at resolution and has a better dac chip set. However In comparison with my cal; instruments and orchestras just sound more real, have more life. Low end extension was better with the cal, but high end better with the 840. Resolution is not the most important thing for me, realism of timbre is . I mainly listen to classical music.
To be clear I found nothing offensive with the 840, and have not tried any 5k players as that above what i would spend on a cd player. I would be quite disappointed if I could not get something better for 5K.

Giant killers don't exists in high end audio. Period. Of course a $4k CDP sounds better than the very compromized (in terms of design and execution) Cambridge. This is a fact. The concept could be priceless, but the selling price is the limitation. You could stuff a Ferrari engine into A Volkswagen Beetle. It still is a VW Beetle... with a Ferrari engine.

Chris

To put a little perspective (and humour) into this, lets consider what players were -- at one point -- under 5k.
The Lector CDP 7T,X,Y,Z. The Edge player HP reviewed, along with the Bluenote Stibbert (remember that? Vanished! Poof! Somebody threw a good spell -- Disappartus!-- at it, and it no longer graces TAS' pages), Marantz SA11s, Ayrec CX-7E, Musical Fidelity A5, Meridian G08CD (EFG), and the EAR Acute (it's cute!, but it was actually, last time it was mentioned, $5495. Alas, not quite a member of the under 5K club).
SO: does the Cambridge sound superior to all these? In that case, it must: not only image well, BUT, it must Focus (remember, imaging's nothing if you can't tell which direction the piano is facing! You Must, I say MUST, have specificity, focus and 3-3-3D imaging). It must have space (and time) and width (spreading hips??) and depth (like the Appalachians). It must have tender, delicate highs, wispy, etheral and harmonically vivid as a sunset. It must have completely perfect tempee, rhythm and boogie like Chubby Checker, and be as pure as snow on Christmas Eve. It must reveal that the first violinst wears Fruit-of-the-Loom underwear and is wearing Piaget men's cologne. On top of all that, it must be as alive as the Hills-Are-Alive- With-The-Sound-of-Music-Alive.
Who could do all this and still only be...a machine? Paris...ick...Cambridge Audio, the 840C, made by GOD Himself!
Now that we've settled all that, lets be real. Some of us have heard it, some haven't.Some of us who have heard it haven't heard ALL of what it can do, and don't have Wilson Maxx speakers, and don't listen to live music, and don't care what live music sounds like, but like their systems to sound a certain way so they don't like it but the Elixir of Life CD player is faaaaaar superior -- and they just HAPPEN to own that one.
I imagine it's a fine player, except that Harley doesn't listen to rock, so he never mentioned if it can rock, doesn't listen to vocals, so he didn't say it made Ella sound like ELLA!!! (but he does like jazz) and he hasn't heard everything under 5k. His article's pull quote, though, WAS (a bit) foolish: "The best cd player under 5K for....$1499" or whatever the exact wording was. He -- and the magazine -- set themselves up for this. I also imagine it really IS wonderful, but nobody can anticipate "everyone" and what "everyone" looks for. Otherwise, somebody would be perfect, and nothing made by man is perfect. I mean, if the Magico V3, as an example, is so lifelike as to be spooky, why buy a Revel, or, lets aim the gun squarely at Dave Wilson,why buy a WATT at all? Clearly the Magico sounds like real life, and not too much else does, according to TAS. Maybe they're right.
Still..I'm still gonna listen to an 840, and hear for myself what it sounds like. Maybe we all should, just to have a sense of what's even possible at less than 30K. But listen to live music first, so you actually KNOW what a violin, a guitar, a flute, French horn, piano or contrabassoon sounds like.

P.S....Dazzdax, you're a bit wrong about giant killers not existing in High End audio.

Try listening to a pair of Antique Sound Lab Hurricanes and then say that again with a straight face. The Hurricanes are quite dazzling amplifiers, especially back when they were $4400. Their sense of "life" was -- and is -- exceedingly high. To do better would be a very, very expensive proposition, their (very slight) darkness notwithstanding. That's why, 5 years later, HP still has them on his list. Seen anything else,other than the Goldmund Reference, The Infinity IRS, Jadis JA-200, and the Alon Grand References last that long on his list?? I haven't. And for 30 years worth of reviewing, that's a pretty short list. There most certainly ARE giant killers, but, as in fairy tales, they happen only "once upon a time..."

It is hardly surprising the the 840 Azur sounds great, since the Cambridge is using the Anagram technologies processing inside, it's bound to be good. Some of the best players in the world for the last eight or nine years used Anagram - like the Audio Aero he mentioned in his previously-owned list.
Perhaps the technology is less expensive now and is trickling down to lower priced units?