Hi guys,
5 years since my last post, wow ! Well a lot has happened besides all the family things which are not for this post.
Basically all my cambridge Audio gear has failed, except for the media player, so I had a complete re think.
The story :- September 2019 one of my 851W amps would not power up due to the protection tripping. Had it repaired in Manila at a cost of P35K but when it was returned it failed with a different protection fault. I returned it & the repairers say a connector to the amp module they replaced had been shaken loose in transit. I've heard some stories in my time but this was laughable also the repair was more of a bodge.
I tried to use an 840W as a replacement as Xmas was upon us but that failed to power up. I tried the 840E but same problem, these 2 had been in storage for 2 years, perfectly OK when in the home theatre. After much communication with Cambridge Audio they told the Asian service manager in Hong Kong to sort out the problems. 851W, 840W & 840E were sent to Hong Kong, the 851W to check the work of their repairers. All were returned eventually, I won't elaborate as it is another story in itself. Then the 851E failed followed shortly after by the 2nd 851W to which the Asian service manager denied all responsibility. His answer was the gear is 5 years old so you need to buy the Edge series which is 3 times the price. That was the final straw for me, I told them to stick Cambridge Audio where the sun doesn't shine.
I asked for environmental specifications which they couldn't give me, so I can only assume that CA's gear doesn't like the humidity, heat & sea air we have here. Their gear maybe OK in an air conditioned room but I made a few calculations & the cost of running aircon would allow me to replace my kit every 5 to 7 years, no brainer.
(840E & 851E are preamps, 840W & 851W are amps).
So what did I do :- I decided to re locate my audio system into my games room. As the room is on the large side it's now my man cavern, far too big for a cave.
Next was to replace all the gear except for the subwoofer & speakers, this has taken around 9 months due to availability.
1st in was an emotiva XSP-1 preamp
2nd in was a Crosbon CR-365 power filter (which replaced the Weiduka 8.
& Choseal XLR & RCA cables.
3rd in a Marantz ND8006 CD/network player.
4th in an SMSL VMV D1 DAC.
Last but not least an Emotiva XPA-DR2 amp.
The sound is a whole lot better than the CA system, I will cover that in another post as I added the items 1 by 1 to give me an idea of any improvement or not.
I will continue the saga when I've sorted the photo's.
Hoping everyone is keeping safe at this time.