Amplifiers

Cambridge Audio 840E Pre-Amp / 840W Power-Amp

Cambridge Audio has upped its game with a high-end, two-box amp

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Last reviewed: July 2nd

The new 840E/W represent a new era for Cambridge Audio in terms of price and performance

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The 840E and 840W amplifiers see Cambridge Audio topping off its successful Azur range of products with a high-powered and highly flexible pre/power combination.

Traditionally, Azur products have been at the budget end of things, but these amps represent something new and hit £2k.

A versatile amplifier

As well as acting as a straightforward stereo power amplifier, the 840W can be used in either a bi-amped or bridged mono configuration. When bi-amping, one 840W of the pair powers each speaker so that its tweeter and woofer each has its own dedicated amplifier channel.

Alternatively, the bridged mono mode allows two 840Ws to be used with each configured as a 500-watt monoblock. With the flick of a few switches and the repositioning of a few interconnects you could have four (or more) of these economical fire-breathers configured so that you have 500 watts on tap for every individual drive unit.

There's no doubt that there's some very clever electronics lurking within the 840W.

Enhanced audio

The amplifier uses Cambridge's second generation proprietary Class XD technology, along with a new output stage that has been carefully adjusted to integrate with this novel topology.

The power amplifier, though, doesn't have any monopoly on advanced technology. The 840E preamplifier boasts its own share of sophisticated circuitry.

For example, rather than use commonly available, off-the-shelf op-amps for the critical low level gain stages, Cambridge brewed audiophile modules, called Terrapins, which it designed with the sole aim of extracting the best audio performance from the amplifier.

The 840E uses a sophisticated resistor ladder and relay-based attenuator for volume and balance control. Although this provides 1dB incremental volume adjustments, we found that much of its range seemed wasted in our system: with Mute being at -95dB and our normal listening level being around -20dB, that's 75dB of attenuation that we were never going to use.

Even at our late-night-listening level of -30dB that is still a whole bunch of resistors hanging around doing nothing. Each channel features an individual array of relays and resistors to enhance the preamp's stereo separation and imaging performance.

User friendly kit

All the information the user needs is presented through a customisable front panel display, which can be dimmed or switched off when not needed. The display, which is described as user-friendly - as is every display these days - actually is and is a joy to use.