Cambridge Audio 840c Impressions and Comparisons

[tkam]

Cambridge Audio 840c Impressions/Comparisons

This is going to be a two part review. Up first is part one the Impressions section. Part two will be a comparison of the 840c against the GNSC Opus 21 and APL Philips SACD1000.

Equipment Used

Pre-amp: Modwright SWL 9.0SE

Power amp: D-Sonic Magnum 500M

Speakers: Selah Audio 3D

Other CDP's: GNSC Resolution Audio Opus 21 and APL Philips SACD1000

Impressions

The Cambridge Audio 840c has made a pretty big splash in the audio world. It has received numerous accolades including The Absolute Sound's Robert Harley who proclaimed it the best cd player under $5000. Now typically I?d ignore that kind of praise especially from a professional reviewer. However the 840c?s technical merits and features along with the positive praise admittedly had me intrigued. The 840c uses a custom asynchronous upsampling solution from Anagram Technologies to upsample incoming signals up to 24-bit 384 khz through a 32-bit Analog Devices DSP chip before feeding it to two AD1955 dac chips running in dual differential mode and finally to it's op-amp based output stage. All that technology is applied not only to CD's played from its transport but also to the pair of digital inputs that it features. It's this combination of state of the art technology and multiple digital inputs that makes the 840c standout in a very crowded field. The real question though is how does all that technology actually sound?

I'll admit it's the 840c's digital inputs that finally pushed me over the edge and had me searching Audiogon for a good deal and checking out the prices at dealers. Luckily I was able to get one for $1100 on Audiogon and the buyer was pretty close so shipping only took two days. Upon arrival I was pleasantly surprised with the build quality of the unit. The front panel is solid aluminum 7mm thick while the top and side panels are extruded aluminum, all-in-all making for a rigid chassis. After popping it open the use of linear power supplies and a nice size torroidal transformer became readily apparent. The transport also looks pretty solid and has a deliberate (if not slow) motion to it. Overall I think the 840c has a classic understated look, the front panel is well organized and laid out in a sensible manner. The back panel contains a pair each of unbalanced (rca) and balanced (xlr) analog outputs, two digital inputs (choice of spdif coax or toslink for each one), digital output, rs-232 input, IEC power inlet, voltage selector and power switch.

After hooking it up and switching on the rest of my gear and letting it warm up for a few minutes I sat down in the sweet spot and started listening with remotes in hand. When I get a new piece of gear I have a few albums that I typically go through to help me get a handle on the general sound of the gear and what if anything its doing very well or totally fucking up. Up first is The Blue Notebooks by Max Richter, it's a modern classical/electronic album and has become one of my favorite albums to come out in the last 5 years or so. Aside from the wonderful music this album has a few things going for it that make it great demo material and an even better test disc. For starters the sound stage, it's very wide but more important is its depth and the many musical layers within, next there is dynamic range, followed by detail and last is the bass which varies from subtle to thundering. One thing about the 840c playback that caught me immediately is its detail retrieval. It's able to flesh out every little nuance and texture of notes. It's also particularly good at bringing out details in the background music or deep within the sound stage. A good example of this are tracks #2 and #4 both have the use of a typewriter as background for the voice of Tilda Swanson (spoken word she's not singing ). Not only is each key strike clearly defined but so is the movement of the paper as it slides along the typewriters cylinder. Track #9 features heavy use of Organ and is a solid test of bass reproduction, detail and also PRaT. The 840c bass had a tendency to be a bit boomy on this track but overall it handled itself nicely. It was able to portray all the texture and nuances of the bass on this organ with ease. It did a wonderful job of giving you the feeling of the rushing air of the organ versus just the sound of the bass. PRaT is a crucial element on this track if it's not keeping up it can sound slow and mushy if it's too fast it just won't sound right at all. The 840c passed the PRaT on this one with flying colors, pace and timing were perfect. The album as a whole has this underlying sad and kinda haunting feel to it and that the 840c does a wonderful of capturing and portraying this.

Next up Nevermind (MFSL) by Nirvana, the quintessential album of the 90's and one of the best rock records of all time in my opinion. This isn't a record where I'm listening for many of the audiophile adjectives that we like to use so often. But what I'm listening for is the grimy, gritty atmosphere, the hard hitting drums and the raw guitar energy. Nevermind is one of those rare albums that captures how an entire generation of people is feeling in that brief moment in time. With the 840c the emotion, angst and anger of an entire generation is vividly heard and felt throughout the album in Kurt's voice. The 840c does a really nice job on this album of just letting the music flow, bass lines from the drums are felt as much as they are heard and the raw gritty and sometimes distortion heavy guitar is there in all it's glory with Kurt's raw unabated voice topping it all off. While listening with the 840c I could picture myself back in '94 in the mosh pit of some grimly club just enjoying the hell out of the music. Almost forgot to mention, on Something in the Way it's remarkable how well the dread and sadness in Kurt's voice cuts through all the music. Very haunting stuff.

On to some female vocals, for this section I listened to four albums by three different artists. Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor, I really like her voice, it's unique and has this forceful edge to it. Regina's vocals tend to have a sharp biting leading and the 840c handled this very well without ever sounding hard or harsh. I thought the 840c did exceptionally well with the bass on Begin to Hope it's tight and punchy when needed and deep when called for. Another one of my favorite female artists is Tori Amos and her albums Little Earthquakes and Scarlet's Walk are her best and they've never sounded better than through the 840c. She has wonderful vocal range and is always completely engaging. One of my more recent finds is Katie Melua and her 2nd album Piece by Piece it's one of my favorite vocal albums and I can easily listen to it all day long. Her voice is so smooth and soothing and utterly seductive. I dunno maybe it's just me but I can't get enough of her. One of the things I found while listening to these three albums is how well the 840c is able to flesh out all the little intricacies of the womens voices. I don't want to get too much into comparisons just yet but this level of detail and resolution is very reminiscent of my Opus 21. I'd say when it comes to female vocals that Cambridge Audio has a real winner on it's hand with the 840c. If you couldn't tell the more I'm listening the less and less detailed this is getting and thats mostly due to be just getting drawn into and enjoying the music instead of taking detailed notes like I planned to .

Next on the list is one of my favorite electronic artists The Knife and their two outstanding albums Deep Cuts and Silent Shout. Both albums are great showcases for frequency response, sound stage and PRaT. Again the 840c excellent bass response shines throughout being tight, deep and forceful. It really has no problem hitting the lowest octaves with authority. I should also comment on the 840c's treble reproduction. It's very sharp and refined without being or bright or showing any excess sibilance. Both albums contain some pretty complex and heavily layered music the 840c does a good job of keeping the layers separate yet within the same coherent stage. I've heard these albums on lesser gear in the past and they can get a bit jumbled up but thats not the case here at all

I'll finish off this part of the review with one of my favorite albums of all time Neon Golden by The Notwist. Ok I don't really have much to comment on this regarding the 840c other than that it sounds excellent with it. It's just such an awesome album.

Now to finish off part one of the review I'll conclude by going over some of the strengths and weaknesses of the 840c. Cambridge Audio has managed to raise the bar extremely high in it's price range with the 840c. It's physically well built and sounds well beyond it's price point. It excels in a few key areas, detail, resolution, bass and PRaT times. The 840c in my opinion is completely unmatched in it's detail levels at anywhere remotely close to it's price. Theres some serious magic going on in the digital section of the player and it really shows up in the detail. One area I'd like to touch more on now is it's sound stage. It does a great of job of having both a wide (side to side) and deep (back to front) sound stage. Its also remarkable in how well it handles mult-layered complex music within that sound stage. All that said though at times I feel the sound stage is a little too diffuse, it could use more focus and precision. I think the 840c's weaknesses lie in two places, one is it's midrange it might be too neutral and smooth for it's own good. I know personally that I often prefer my midrange to be warm and fuzzy sounding . Also the display is horrible. I don't know what they were thinking using a white back light with black text. It's very hard to read unless you are just a couple feet a way from it and on the same level with it. I'm about 8 or 9 ft away from it and it's very low to the ground and I find it very difficult to read.

Comparision

*UPDATED 1/9/08*

Figured it's time I add at least some general comparisons before finishing off the specifics in the next few days.

As it turns out the Cambridge Audio 840c and the GNSC Resolution Audio Opus 21 are two very similar sounding players. Almost identical tonality and nearly the same extension at both frequency extremes. Don't get me wrong, while they do sound quite similar I doubt you'd mistake one for the other. The Opus 21 has a flatter frequency response, a touch more resolution and a cleaner top end. The Opus 21 also has a distinctly different sound stage, it's equally wide and a little shallower, but it's precision in both instrument separation and positioning far surpass the 840c. During this comparison I did notice that the 840c has a bit more sparkle up top than I had realized before and I think it's attributed to an ever so slight bump up in the lower treble. One area where I preferred the 840c pretty handily is the bass region. While both players have equal low-end extension the 840c has more punch and authority.

On to a slightly more interesting comparison the 840c against the APL Philips SACD1000. The APL SACD1000 is a completely rebuilt SACD1000 more than it is a modded one. It has a custom CS4398 based dac, custom clock and it's output stage is a 6h30 doing I/V duties driving a pair of Lundahl output transformers. I haven't spent as much time comparing these two as I did the 840c and the Opus 21 but it's safe to say that the APL SACD1000 and 840c are two very different sounding players. The 840c has a linear/neutral signature while the APL SACD1000 has a warm and full signature. The 840c has better resolution and extension across the board and has a much larger sound stage. The APL SACD1000's sound stage is quite a bit smaller in it's scope but it's extremely cohesive and has an intimate feel to it. The APL SACD1000 also has a pretty good bump up in the lower mid-bass region which I'm sure is part of the reason for it's fuller sound. Last thing to mention for now is the midrange differences. The 840c's is smooth and natural/neutral while the APL SACD1000's is so warm and liquid it's almost too much . I have to admit for those times when I really want a warm, full and intimate sound it's hard to beat the APL SACD1000.

*UPDATED 1/18/08*

I've done a heck of a lot of listening over the past week or so, comparing all three players as often as possible. With the Opus 21 and the Cambridge 840c I've compared them both playing cd's and using their digital inputs fed from a Squeezebox. The APL SACD1000 has no digital inputs so it wasn't part of that testing obviously. One thing I didn't directly compare since the 840c lacks the ability are the volume controls on the Opus 21 and the APL SACD1000. The Opus 21 uses an analog volume control vs the APL SACD1000 being a digital control directly on the dac board.

I know one of the things people wanted to hear about was comparing the attributes of the 840c I considered weaknesses (too diffuse soundstage and a midrange thats possibly too neutral). So I'll start off with that. The midrange of the Opus 21 is really quite similiar to that of the 840c it shares the same general neutrality but it does a better job of fleshing out textures and other harmonics. I'm not going to say that it's richer sounding but it does sound a bit fuller. Male vocals especially have more weight to them with the Opus 21 than they do the 840c. Now if I bring the APL SACD1000 midrange into the mix it's a whole different ball game. If you like a rich, textured, full and warm midrange then I think the APL SACD1000 just might be for you. Vocals have tons of weight behind them and female vocals especially just sound ridiculously glorious. It's really rich, and liquid too the point of being over the top at times. It's hard for me to say that midrange on the APL SACD1000 is better or worse than the Opus or 840c because it's just so different sounding. It's a completely different presentation and approach to it so much so that I think it's truly a preference thing. Overall I prefer the midrange of the Opus and the 840c but there are times when the rich, full midrange of the APL SACD1000 is just to die for. It's nice to have the option .

On to the second weakness of the 840c, the diffuse soundstage. The Opus oddly enough doesn't seem to have quite as deep of a soundstage but what it does do better than the 840c is instrument separation. By this I mean each instrument has a very well defined point within the soundstage. It's clear where one instrument starts, ends, and where the gaps are between it and the next instrument and so on. In this regard the Opus 21 is a highly precise piece of gear. Again with the APL SACD1000 it's clearly a different presentation, it's soundstage isn't huge or extremely well defined. It's intimate and within that more limited space it's a solid performer. With the APL SACD1000 that artists always seem like they are very close to the listener and again I think this is a bit of a preference thing. I think it works amazingly well on certain female vocal pieces where the close proximity of the artist makes for a truly engaging experience. But I think the rest of the time it takes away from the overall presentation too much.

There was also a request to compare the 840c to the Opus regarding male vocals. For this specific comparison I used Jack Johnson's Brushfire Fairytales and In Between Dreams. The 840c sounded natural and smooth with both discs but I did occasionally notice that Johnson's voice sounded a shallow at times. It's a little hard to explain but it just seemed at times that his voice wasn't as deep or filled in as it should have been. This was something I was able to confirm with both the Opus 21 and the APL SACD1000. With the Opus 21 I only noticed it once and it wasn't as severe as it was on the 840c. With APL SACD1000 it was almost totally opposite, his voice was very powerful too the point of being overbearing at times. I do think the 840c and Opus 21 share a really similar tonality with the Opus 21 fleshing textures out a little better and I think that explains what I heard here.

Now the part of the comparison that I was looking forward to most was comparing the digital inputs on the 840c to the one on the Opus 21. The 840c has two sets of digital inputs each set has a coax and optical input while the Opus 21 just has a single coax input. The 840c can accept a 24-bit 192khz signal vs the Opus 21 handling a max of 24-bit 96khz. Unfortunately I didn't not get to compare them at their maximum levels as I only used a Squeezebox and it's 16-bit 44khz output. Of course I used only FLAC files ripped w/ EAC for testing.

The 840c's multiple digital inputs are one of the reasons I was interested in the player to begin with and I'll say that they don't disappoint at all. There is very little difference between playing cd's and streaming flac from the Squeezebox through the coax input. I felt that there was a slight drop off in resolution using the optical input but it was pretty minimal. Otherwise the coax input sounded nearly identical to playing the same cd from it's transport. I wish the same could be said of the Opus 21's coax input but it can't be. There's enough of a resolution loss that it loses it's lead over the 840c in that regard when using the coax input. I also noticed some odd soundstage compression when using the Opus 21s coax input. At this point I wonder if it's purely due to the 840c being a newer player and using a newer (and possibly superior) spdif receiver chip? Oh and the Squeezebox is really a wonderful device it's easily one of the best $300 I've ever spent in this hobby.

Almost forgot to mention one of the more important attributes that I feel the 840c and Opus 21 both excel at: PRaT. For me the Opus 21 has been the king of PRaT for quite some time, it has effortless pacing and flows beautifully with the music. No other CDP has been able to get my foot tapping or my head bobbing as quickly as the Opus 21 can. The 840c is a close 2nd in this regard it doesn't have the same effortless pacing or spot on rhythm but it's awfully close. It's not negligible by any means but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the music much if at all.

Conclusion

I think it's pretty apparent that the 840c and Opus 21 share a similar overall approach and presentation. Almost identical tonality and the similar attention to resolution and neutrality.i The 840c does hold up pretty well but the Opus 21 is the better player. It's soundstage has a higher level of precision and seperation, the midrange is a touch richer and it lacks the lower treble bump that can give the 840c's treble a bit of a hard sound. While the 840c does have superior digital inputs, in terms of functionality the Opus 21 makes up for it by having a built-in volume control. No need for a pre-amp if you don't want just hook it up straight to your power amp.

I still find it hard to put the APL SACD1000 in this comparison since it's such a different sounding player. While it doesn't have the resolution, soundstaging or even tonal balance of the 840c or Opus 21 it has boatloads of warmth and harmonic richness. I still find it to be fine sounding all around cdp but it's strengths and weaknesses make it almost a niche player. It of course lacks any digital inputs but like the Opus 21 has a built-in volume control allowing it to be connected directly to power amps.

To wrap things up, I find at my current stage in this hobby that even though the Opus 21 is the better player I'm perfectly happy with the "lesser" 840c. It suites my tastes very well and using the Squeezebox with it's digital inputs makes for a convenient fantastic sounding source. I also no longer benefit from the Opus 21's built-in volume control since I have the Modwright pre-amp which I adore. The fact that the 840c puts up such a good fight against the Opus 21 was a welcome surprise to me as I have been meaning to downsize my sources a bit and this will let me sell the Opus 21 without having a huge drop off in quality.

Well that's it, the Opus 21 is the better player but the 840c stands up pretty well and costs a hell of a lot less and the APL SACD1000 is a unique sounding player. So the Opus 21 is likely going to be put up for sale and the APL SACD1000 might be as well. I really don't need two let alone three sources.

[tkam]

oh yeah this is also just a first draft i'll be fixing grammar errors and adding some details as i go along .

[tkam]

[PFKMan23]

yay tkam *starts preparing 20 questions*

[postjack]

All that said though at times I feel the sound stage is a little too diffuse, it could use more focus and precision. I think the 840c's weaknesses lie in two places, one is it's midrange it might be too neutral and smooth for it's own good. I know personally that I often prefer my midrange to be warm and fuzzy sounding

Spot on. I agree with about everything you said in your review. The neutral and smooth midrange is what I described as "cool", and while enjoyable to my ears, could be a weak point for those who must have the warm and fuzzy midrange, as you described it. Interesting point about the soundstage being a bit to diffuse. This is something that had not occurred to me in my listening, but now that I read it, I can see where you are coming from.

Personally I'd like to hear comparisons specifically relating to the two weaknesses described above (soundstage and midrange, not your distaste with the display ) relative to your other sources.

[xand1x]

Great review..can't wait for Part 2 This might have to be a sticky!

[tyrion]

Nice review. I'm interested how this would sound optical out from my mac mini to the optical in of the 840c. Anyone have a spare they can sound down?

[tyrion]

sure, mike, i'll fax one to you.

Just email it.

[n_maher]

Nice review, Todd. Well thought out and put together. But I find that what's missing is hour by hour updates of the burn in process. I believe that the industry standard is to update your review at least once every 15 hours. If you could add that, that'd be great. kthxbye.

[Absorbine_Sr]

An excellent review. I'm curious to see part two to see your thoughts on the 840c vs. the Opus.

[Dusty Chalk]

Why so many question marks, are you confused?

[Happy Camper]

Thank you tkam for a good review. I hope a couple 840c show up at National so some high end matchups can be done. Good to hear you can get a solid player with dac function for this price range. The dac/software is capable of SACD playback but e-mailing Cambridge on the hope of them adding this and firewire in the near future was not in their plans.

I would guess/hope that burn in would bring the soundstage into focus?

[Jon L]

Cambridge Audio 840c Impressions/Comparisons

What do you wants to see compared? Specific traits/attributes of each player?

The midrange, both female and deep male (Leonard Cohen, etc). I used to own unmodded Resolution Opus 21, so if you can compare the stock Opus 21 (before mod?) or even modded Opus 21, that would be helpful.

To me, many asynchronously upsampling CDP's tend to be less excellent in the midrange as far as density, texture, and natural (not overblown) harmonic richness. This is why I sold my Opus 21. Anagram module is just another way to do 192kHz asynch upsampling...

[Upstateguy]

Cambridge Audio 840c Impressions/Comparisons

... It's also particularly good at bringing out details in the background music or deep within the sound stage. A good example of this are tracks #2 and #4 both have the use of a typewriter as background for the voice of Tilda Swanson(spoken word she's not singing ). Not only is each key strike clearly defined but so is the movement of the paper as it slides along the typewriters cylinder.

Great write up T.

I think you mean #1 btw..

I can hear the clean well defined key strikes, the carriage return and the clock ticking and the ocean, but my set up doesn't even come close to hearing paper or what the kids are saying? I can hear them playing, but can't make out what they are saying....

It's great being able to read your review and listen to some of the same tracks you used..... It is sad and kinda creepy to hear Kurt sing "No I don't have a gun"..... brings back all kinds of memories... hasn't been anything like Nirvana since....

Anyway, nice review....

USG

[Salt Peanuts]

I think the 840c's weaknesses lie in two places, one is it's midrange it might be too neutral and smooth for it's own good. I know personally that I often prefer my midrange to be warm and fuzzy sounding . Also the display is horrible. I don't know what they were thinking using a white back light with black text. It's very hard to read unless you are just a couple feet a way from it and on the same level with it. I'm about 8 or 9 ft away from it and it's very low to the ground and I find it very difficult to read.

Great write up/review on the unit, Todd! Very spot on, IMO, and I agree that midrange is neutral and smooth, though I like that about the player. Interesting note on the sound stage - it's not something I've really focused or listened for since all my listening on it comes through headphones.

Why so many question marks, are you confused?

Incidentally, why do I get bunch of "?" in some posts, but not in others?

[tkam]

Nice review, Todd. Well thought out and put together. But I find that what's missing is hour by hour updates of the burn in process. I believe that the industry standard is to update your review at least once every 15 hours. If you could add that, that'd be great. kthxbye.

I would guess/hope that burn in would bring the soundstage into focus?

I bought it used and I've been using it for a couple weeks now it hasn't really changed since the first listen.

Great write up/review on the unit, Todd! Very spot on, IMO, and I agree that midrange is neutral and smooth, though I like that about the player. Interesting note on the sound stage - it's not something I've really focused or listened for since all my listening on it comes through headphones.

I did all the listening for this review with my speakers so it's very possible that the sound stage issue is something that wouldn't come through on headphones.

Incidentally, why do I get bunch of "?" in some posts, but not in others?

That was my fault I did the review in openoffice and copy/pasted it here. For some reason it saw some of the apostrophes as invalid characters. Typically you'll see the question marks if someone tries to use non-US English characters.

[laxx]

Heh, I get that problem all the time with the ?'s. Awesome review. You guys have me very interested in this player, espeically since it has the digi ins.

[Dusty Chalk]

Comparision

I'm going to do the comparison section a little bit differently. What do you wants to see compared? Specific traits/attributes of each player? Specific albums or tracks compared on two or all three players? General sound signature comparisions?

My big thing of late has been transients -- do well-recorded transients pop out as they should, or are they smoothed over? Because they seem to translate to the player's prat pretty well.

[luvdunhill]

do you know what transport the 840c uses, or have pics

[spritzer]

do you know what transport the 840c uses, or have pics

My guess is the DVS crap as everybody and their grandmother is using it. It is basically a DVD-ROM but it is quieter.

[tkam]

do you know what transport the 840c uses, or have pics

Here you go

[spritzer]

Here you go

It could be one of the newer DVS drives but it definitely is a DVD-ROM. Not surprising since that is standard practice today. The tray is somewhat similar to the old DVS drive I removed from the Meridian G08. I sometimes wonder how good CDP's would be if we still used the older transports with todays dacs and filters... \

[tkam]

honestly unless your talking about something like the esoteric transports the vrds, vrds-neo, or maybe the philips pro, most of the other currently available transports aren't going to be any better than a dvd-rom drive.

[tkam]

it does, other than the vrds transports the philips pro are the best transports around

[tkam]

My big thing of late has been transients -- do well-recorded transients pop out as they should, or are they smoothed over? Because they seem to translate to the player's prat pretty well.

The 840c doesn't smooth over anything, it's really good with transients, especially that initial attack. On drums for instance the initial hit just jumps out and smacks you. I'm still a little unsure of the decay though, at times I get the feeling it's not always holding onto notes as long as it should.

I also get a feeling that output stage is holding back the player from being as good as it could be. I wonder how good it'd sound with a zapfilter or a transformer coupled output.