What Hi Fi Sound and Vision 06 DEC 2005

Cambridge Audio Azur 640H

£ 600 4

* * * *

The 640H is a solid addition to Cambridge’s Azur range, but not quite the finished article we’d hoped for

For
Fine build quality; spacious hard drive; some useful features; sounds good…
Against
...but could sound better; not quite as intuitive as we’d like

The Azur 640H is the standout product in Cambridge Audio’s fantastic Azur range of components.

Not in the sense that it’s better than all the others, but because it’s a rather unusual device to find among all the stereo amplifiers and CD players. You see, for £600 you get a 160GB music server/CD player/CD writer.

See, we told you it was unusual – at least for Cambridge Audio.

The front panel hosts a large, bright backlit display and navigational buttons that allow you to steer through the unit’s Audiofile operating system. Alternatively, you can hook the 640H up to a display device via its composite, S-Video and PC outputs, and fight your way through the menus via the new, yet marginally frustrating, remote control.

Great connectivity and impressive specs
Other connectivity features include Ethernet and USB ports, together with a set of phono inputs/outputs and both coaxial and optical digital outputs. You can connect the 640H up to a home network (wired or wireless) and share music files between the music server and a computer and play your music through iTunes or Windows Media Player.

You can hook up and transfer any music files from a portable Flash device via USB – but, unfortunately, it’s incompatible with hard disk jukeboxes. This includes all iPods and players that use their own operating system, such as Sony’s SonicStage. Finally, to top off its impressive list of features, the Azur 640H can even be used to burn your favourite tunes to a recordable CD.

The internal 160GB hard disk should allow for storage of around 30,000 tracks at an MP3 bit-rate of 128kbps (other options include 64/192/320Kbps and uncompressed PCM). We found that 64kbps is a waste of time – music ripped at this rate sounds extremely poor, so stay well clear.

Detail, dynamics and timing with the Azur 640H
Working as a CD player, the 640H isn’t bad at all. Music is delivered with an admirable sense of timing and there’s a commendable dose of detail uncovered. Dynamics aren’t bad, either. It shares the same Wolfson DACs as Cambridge’s fantastic 540C V2 and 640C V2 CD players, but isn’t up to the same rip-roaring standard.

Talking of ripping, when it comes to packing your CDs onto the hard disk, the good news is that dropping from uncompressed PCM (that is, CD format) to more space-friendly 320kbps MP3 files doesn’t result in a major degradation of quality. Even 192kbps is good.

There’s no doubt the Azur 640H is a step in the right direction, but it still isn’t the finished article in terms of features or performance. It’s good, but not great.