Cambridge Audio Azur Reference

I've had the Cambridge Audio Azur Reference player over a year now, replacing a marantz cd17ki2.

it does everything the marantz did but better, unlike the Marantz it doesn't spotlight the mid at the expense of detail retrieval and overall coherance.

it is incredibly flexible, being used as my cd source and the dac for my pc based server.

It responded incredibly well to simple modifications, damping the case with Dynamat tighened up the bass no end and supporting it on footers seemed to add a little more sparkle to the top end.

Before buying it i had it in my set up for two weeks and trailed it against the Quad 99, Musical Fidelity A5, Sugden A21se and a few others up to and around the £1500 mark. It saw them all off with its well balanced and even handed approach to music replay.

For the price unless you really are searching for something with 'flavour' ie a tilted presentation, valvey, midrange spotlit or something similar then it really is hard to beat.