Cambridge Audio Azur 550A Integrated Amplifier & 550C CD Player (TAS 200)

Azur Thing

Cambridge Audio must employ mind readers. I know it’s got my number. I feel as if Cambridge made the new Azur 550A integrated amplifier and the 550C CD player especially for me—took into account my listening expectations and connectivity considerations as well as my budget. I’m not paranoid, but someone was watching. But if you must know I don’t mind that my privacy has been violated. My music and I are having too good a time.

Outwardly the Cambridge Audio Azur 550A and 550C—each priced at $599—are the same handsome components they were in an earlier incarnation as 540v.2 models. But they’ve been revitalized with thicker brushed-aluminum front panels, a contoured wrap-around top plate, and no visible screws. Sweet. There are nifty new dual-layer damped feet that improve performance via resonance control. The front panel is coherently laid out around the central Bunyanesque volume control—actually an improved high-specification Alps volume pot designed for better tonal stability and channel balance at lower levels. A smaller balance wheel resides to its immediate right, accompanied by a mini-jack for portable music players and a row of input pushbuttons, and to its left by bass and treble knobs, a tone control bypass, and headphone jack. Per Cambridge practice, the back panel features “downside up” input labeling for the majority of us who attach wires and interconnects by squinting over the back edge of the amp. As with its predecessor there’s no option for an internal phonostage, but CA continues to offer the 540P and higher-gain 640P phonostages at $109 and $199 respectively.

The real story lies on the inside. There’s a robust 60Wpc on tap thanks to the oversized toroidal transformer and a redesigned output stage bristling with new high-current Sanken output transistors. There’s also extensive use of WIMA polyester caps and metal-film resistors. The double-sided surface-mount technology reduces the signal path to a minimum. Additionally, Cambridge Audio’s CAP5 protection technology has been fully updated and retuned.

The Azur 550C compact disc player retains the Wolfson WM8740 DAC, a select audiophile grade 24-bit/192kHz-capable converter. It also features a Cambridge in-house-developed audio-only transport (with a new bracing mechanism for rigidity) rather than the computer-derived CD-ROM drives that are designed for data-streaming—a difference of significance for Cambridge engineers. This is accompanied by a new servo chipset and processor. There are an improved high-contrast display, dual user-selectable filters, and a digital output, too. Finally each unit is supplied with a newly designed Navigator remote control with a center thumbwheel, which unifies the amp and player and iPods docked with the optional Cambridge iD50 docking station. Furthering a commitment to greener power, Cambridge developed both units to be Energy Star certified by designing an ultra-low-power standby circuit that uses less than 1W.

As I cued up familiar reference music I was immediately entranced by the rich spectrum of audio criteria the amp was expressing. The midrange was richly detailed, with natural acoustic timbres and lower-midrange heft and transparency. But what really raised my eyebrows, conveying the weird sense that the amp was personalized for me, was its uncanny ability to grab a recording, lock in images, and mount a soundstage with unerring tonal balance and harmonic energy. Dynamically, this amp had legs. I revved up some of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” and even side-stepped the clutch for another chorus of Tom Waits’ “Come on Up to the House.” But, no dice. The amp lends a weight to recordings that belies its modest sixty watts. There’s a sense of grandeur and scale and sophistication that is generally the hallmark of much larger uptown efforts.

It’s worth noting that with 60 watts per channel speaker-matching is always a bit more perilous for an integrated like the 550A than for a fully-rigged flagship amp like CA’s own 200Wpc Azur 840W. However even pressing up against an immovable object, which low-sensitivity loudspeakers tend to be, the Azur 550A never lost its composure or behaved out of character. Asking it to drive a Magico V2 might seem as insane as urging a team of chihuahuas to pull a sled in the Iditarod, but amazingly the 550A was more than game, exhibiting only minor sonic subtractions. Its character remained sweet and stable even though complex layers of images were a little less focused, dynamics softened, and the soundstage shorn of a portion of its manicured perimeters. My point here is not that the 550A is likely to be matched with a Magico; rather it’s a performer that still retains its musicality in the face of a very demanding high-resolution loudspeaker.