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What Hi-Fi? said:Cambridge Audio opted for a ground-up rebuild for its CXA81 amp – and it has created a thing of lasting beauty. Featuring a reference standard ESS Sabre ES9016K2M DAC, the CXA81 works wonders with your digital audio and video sources. With two optical digital inputs and one coaxial, you can connect up to three digital sources, such as a games console, TV and a CD transport – the Cambridge Audio CXC makes the perfect match. When comparing a CD-quality file streamed from Tidal or Qobuz, and even hi-res titles, to its CD cousin in the CXC spin machine, the results pretty much bore out what most people say about these things — the CD typically sounded better. How much better depended on the CD and the file in question, and at times I would say the differences between a CD and a stream were negligible. But I would give the overall edge to the Cambridge CXC when it comes to sound quality, where it offered a more nuanced and resolute sounding presentation as compared to streaming’s sometimes slightly sloppier and less well defined presentation. We’re not talking night and day differences, but the Cambridge CXC won this tight sound quality battle by a pit and land. [footnote 2] You have the right to access, update and amend personal information that we hold about you. If the law in your country allows us to impose a fee for giving you access, we will communicate this to you in response to your request. We collect personal information from you in a number of different ways; you may share that information with us, or we may collect it using other means. In this section, we explain the different ways we collect personal information from you and some ways in which that information will be used. For more detail on how we use your personal information, please see the section titled "How do we use your personal information?". Information you share with us
In 2018 where many people feel CD has run its course, and with so many people having left CD for computer audio replay, the Cambridge Audio CXC is a well-made CD spinner that sounds very good, and is fairly priced. To provide updates to you about any changes to Cambridge Audio’s policies, terms and conditions and any other matters which we may need to tell you;I can’t find fault with the CXC’s sound. It’s notably free of the digital artefacts that plague many budget-oriented models, and it responds well to a change in DAC. Personally I feel that the DAC will have a more profound affect on the sound; so providing a CD transport delivers the 0s and 1s to where they need to go with minimal error, it’s doing a top-class job. The California “Shine the Light” law gives residents of California the right under certain circumstances to opt out of the sharing of certain categories of personal information (as defined in the Shine the Light law) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes or in the alternative, that we provide a cost-free means for consumers to opt out of any such sharing. We do not currently share your personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes. Provide the Services; communicate with you; marketing and advertising; personalise the Services; improve the Services; business operations; with your consent And that’s where our comment about it being a modern product for a new hi-fi world comes in. The once humble digital to analogue converter is becoming a ubiquitous and increasingly vital hi-fi component.
Buying a CD transport means that you are buying only half the CD player – the first half that spins the discs and reads the digital information. You then need to buy the other half of the machine via an outboard DAC. In most modern surround sound receivers, there is already a DAC included. To provide updates and services to our connected products (which includes updates and upgrades to software and our apps); As always, we’d recommend a wired connection for the best sound quality. This streamer is capable of playinghigh-resolutionfiles of up to 24-bit/192kHz, upsampled to 384kHz, through the USB type B input for your computer, along with optical and coaxial inputs. Also included are a pair of RCA and balanced XLR outputs, along with two digital outputs. The differences I heard when comparing playing CDs on the CXC to playing music stored on my Synology NAS to the Pi 4 and converted to Coax out by the Denafrips IRIS II DDC were, for all intents and purposes, not worth mentioning. I’d have been hard pressed to know which was which when listening to the exact same music that was playing from the CD or playing from the file I ripped from that very same CD. They sounded, through the Denafrips ARES II DAC, more or less identical.
Our main reason for collecting and using your personal information is to provide and improve the service, products and experiences that you expect from us. Information you share with us And that’s only based on its sonic performance. Take into account its broad range of connections and features, and this is easily an amplifier that could last for as long as you wish – probably until you’re ready to spend a fair amount more on a significant upgrade. The CXA81 perhaps sounds a little forward, but its level of expression is such that it is sympathetic to more minimal, sombre recordings as well. Feed it a solo piano work or chamber quartet and it is only too pleased to show you its more caring, gentle side. CDs are also enjoying a resurgence for the first time in over 15 years. According to data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), CD shipments in US rose by 47 per cent in 2021 compared to the previous year (from 31.6 million to 46.6 million). It's still shy of the billion discs sold in 2000, and vinyl (and streaming of course) outstrip CD sales by far, but it's nice to know that those of us who never replaced our disc collection aren't alone.
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