Systems: $4000 stereo

By Michael Jones

June 2007

This month AudioEnz has asked five dealers to put together a home theatre system with two constraints; the price should be around $4000 and the system should be designed to work in a small room. Here's what The Listening Post came up with:

The Listening Post, Hamilton

Cambridge Audio 640C mk2 CD player

Cambridge Audio 640A mk2 amplifier

Jamo E875 loudspeakers

The key to putting together any musically satisfying system at $4000 is balancing your compromises. The simple, and I guess obvious truth, is that at $4000, what ever you buy is going to have limitations. The trick is to choose a combination of equipment whose compromises are in the areas that are least important to you.

For some people that means putting together a system that can’t do deep bass, but sounds magical through the midrange. For another person, it could be choosing a system that can rearrange your internal organs, but which might not let you hear exactly what the second violins are doing during the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth.

Obviously in the space we have we can’t cover all the bases, so the system we’re recommending is one which consistently impresses us with its ability to sound “real”. “Real” means that instrumental and vocal textures sound like what we hear live. “Real” means that it has adequate authority and speed in the bass to handle a variety of music, not just chamber, acoustic or small ensemble jazz. “Real” means you can suspend your disbelief and imagine you’re at the performance. “Real” means you get the musical message, and feel the emotion of the performer. No mean feat for $4000 if you ask us.

We’re going to start with the Cambridge Audio 640C V2 CD player. This little honey is smooth, sweet, and remarkable engaging for $2000. Now the bit we really love is its $999. In the words of What Hi Fi? Sound and Vision “..if we could give a product six stars, then these CD players would get them.”

The matching Cambridge Audio 640A V2 amplifier is a natural partner for the 640c V2 CD player, and has that same smooth, rich presentation. This multi award-winning amplifier is also $999, and like its disc spinning cousin, is a little ripper.

When it comes to speakers, the Jamo E875’s open, detailed, and more natural presentation are a wonderful compliment to the body and warmth provided by the Cambridge Audio electronics. We know Jamo will be replacing these in the next quarter, so you can pick up a pair of these at $1495 till the new model arrives. This is $500 under their retail price of $1995. We don’t know what the new model will be like yet, but we can tell you that E875’s are something very special for $1495. Two of The Listening Post team run this series of speaker in their own home systems. I can think of no higher recommendation than that.

That leaves us $500 for good Analysis Plus interconnects and speaker cables to ensure the electronics and speakers can deliver their best. Once again, we’ve chosen Analysis Plus for their very neutral, natural, and honest presentation.

The end result is a system whose compromises very rarely get in the way of the musical message. It’s a system which presents musical textures and timbres in a natural fashion, allowing you relate to a performance, not just listen to a hi-fi. We think that’s pretty cool for $4000.— Romesh Anandaraja

Source: www.audioenz.co.nz