A good word for the Cambridge Audio azur 540A integrated amp

[JPB]

A lot of people wonder what would be a good amp/receiver to drive some phones. I recently bought the Cambridge Audio 540a integrated amp (American price = $340). With my Grado SR60s, and my Philips HP830, 25% volume is enough to make my ears uncomfortable while listening to Rage Against the Machine (and I like my music LOUD). Sound is good . . . nice and full.

I would recommend this amp for people looking for an amp for phones. I haven't tried it with regular loudspeakers, though. (I have my Krell for that.) My phones are only 32 ohms, but seeing as so little volume is needed to drive them to migraine-inducing levels, I don't think they would have much problem with higher impedence phones. Am I right on that?

 

[mysticaldodo]

Nice, I'm a fan of the Azur series too. Any idea exactly what headphone amp was implemented inside the Azur 540A?

 

[Andrea]

Looking at the internals of the Azur 640a in a magazine I have, it looks like the headphone out is taken from the amp's main power stage through the usual resistor divider. I think it must be the same with the 540a. It can sound good, btw -- I'm a witness myself, having satisfactorily used a Pioneer A209-R for quite a bit.

 

[mysticaldodo]

Nice.....finally my 500th post

Both the Azur cdps are getting second revisions. I don't think this applies for the amps though.

 

[herrbns]

I can also suggest the out of production Teac A-1D Stereo Amp for Headphone usage. I also have the Teac C-1D CD player, and changing from C1D headphone out to A1D headphone out the amp adds more slam and impact to the sound, very nice! Also this is a good beginners stereo combo playing at around same level as the 540/640 cambridge combos. They can be had for around 200 Euro used each. Retail price was once 500 Euro. They were introduced in 2002 afaik but i guess went out of production because teac just doesnt have a big name in hifi besides their esoteric line

Also the technical design and layout is very clean and leaves much room for modding them. There is already a C1D mod by wbe-audio.de which brings this CDP up to levels of other players in the 1000Euro range.

 

[SiBurning]

careful with the cd players. There are quality issues. I got a bum 640 and returned it. it would skip into the songs. From what I've read online, that's how the bum players start, and they eventually die. mine also had something odd about the otherwise very nice sound.