So when I saw this statement in a paragraph from Cambridge Audio's product literature, the gauntlet was laid down: "Unless (streaming) sounds great, what's the point?" I read. Maybe it's just a question of habit.Īs a person who craves musical connection and loves new musical discoveries, I want streaming to work as advertised, for it to matter not just because it's convenient but because I want to listen to it. Compared to playing a CD or LP, streaming has long felt like a cheap copy of the real thing. On my main rig where the point is to focus on the music? For me, the experience hasn't lived up to its theoretical promise of being a superconvenient, endlessly rich repository of new musical discoveries. I'm a good example: On my office computer system while I'm doing something else? You bet. Streaming has long been associated in many audiophile minds with lowbit-rate lossy compressiona correct perception until just a few years ago when Tidal started streaming at 16/44.1 soon after that, hi-rez streaming came along.Īnd yet, there has been some resistance to streaming as a central listening activity. Class-D has suffered from stigma associated with early class-D that frankly didn't sound very good. The EVO 150 is a network streamer with built-in class-D amplification, two technologies that have begun to find favor among hi-fi enthusiasts after some early reticence. In hi-fi economics, $3000 is neither especially cheap nor expensive, but when you consider that the EVO 150 is a streaming DAC, amplifier, and preamp all in one and that you don't need to buy interconnects, it's an attractive price if it works well and sounds good. The EVO 150 continues Cambridge's tradition of offering near-cutting-edge products that don't break the bank. Along with a handful of other salt-of-the-earth audio companies of that time, Cambridge made near-cutting-edge gear I could aspire to own and instilled in me a belief that while audiophile products might cost more than the ones you could buy at the nearby big-box store, the advantages in performance almost always justify the difference in price. In the '80s and '90s, Cambridge Audio left an indelible mark on me, a young audio idealist of modest means. That was followed by two iconic products: the DacMagic D/A processor and the 30Wpc A1 integrated amplifier. It built amplifiers, tuners, and transmission line speakers and, starting in 1985, the world's first two-box CD player, the CD1. It sounded especially good and made history as the first amplifier to use a toroidal transformer.Ĭambridge Audio emerged from the shadow of Cambridge Consultants.
My mom and I were there with him.Īt that moment, six hours away by car, across the English Channel in the country next door, a new audio company sprung up and surprised and delighted the audio world with its inaugural product, the 20Wpc Cambridge Consultants P40 integrated amplifier. My dad, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was stationed in Paris, working security at the Canadian embassy. In 1968, I was a 2-year-old toddler living in Paris, Francemy birthplaceon the 14th floor of a diplomat-occupied apartment complex overlooking the Seine.
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