the deck i've *always wanted*

[Nick's Picks]

is finally reality..and inexpensive.
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=272&Title=Azur+740C+

i'm on this...like a cheap ass suit.

[Nick's Picks]

exactly.
it makes it a DAC as well.
now, does it take 24bit ? not sure.  I guess that could be the ball buster.
but..., me no care.  I dont do much 24bit anything any ways.

[janka]

The specs say it'll accept a 24 bit signal for DAC.

So what's your plan Nick DSD master > 16bit CD > 24bit upsampling playback?

[som]

Is this the model that Sterophile reviews this month? I was impressed with the writeup, but then at the end they compared it to the Rega Apollo (a player I've been toying with, and when I say "toying with" I mean "keeping in the back of my mind for when I am either divorced or win the lottery and thus have $1000 to spend on a CD player"), and the description of the Rega as a bit warmer made me swing back that way again.

What is it about this deck that appeals to you?

Edit - I see from the previous posts what appeals to you!

[janka]

is finally reality..and inexpensive.
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=272&Title=Azur+740C+

i'm on this...like a cheap ass suit.

You hanging out in your basement today? Northamptonaudio has this in stock for $999. Not what I'd call an inexpensive cd-player or DAC even as a combo.

http://northamptonaudio.com/Cambridge_Audio/cambridge_audio_740c.asp

[Nick's Picks]

yes.., just finished.

what, a grand for a sweet digital source?  you've got to be kidding. thats cheap, IMO.
compare that to a decent transport and decent DAC.

ok, i'd probably start going DSD>24/96 w/this.

[janka]

yes.., just finished.

what, a grand for a sweet digital source?  you've got to be kidding. thats cheap, IMO.
compare that to a decent transport and decent DAC.

ok, i'd probably start going DSD>24/96 w/this.

so if you do DSD>24/96 the cd-player function isn't of much use. You then have a thousand dollar DAC that you still need a source for...just sayin'

[Nick's Picks]

huh?
you lost me.

in any case...
its my dream deck.  upsampling redbook, and 24bit DAC input.

[janka]

I just meant for the 24bit playback you still would need a source component. PC, squeezebox etc.

[jmz93]

I'm missing something basic here... why would you want to up-sample a 16bit/44.1K cd source? What can actually be gained by doing this?  What does adding extra 0's and 1's to the data stream do to the resulting audio?

To me anyway, the process sounds roughly analogous to taking a low-res dot matrix printout - remember those? - and trying to guess accurately to make it look like the best color laser printing. Sounds like a guess ...

[Nick's Picks]

it just "works"...
there are benefits to how the signal is decoded at a higher bit / sample rate.  even if it was lower to start with...
the article in Stereophile goes into a little more detail.  I'm sure its posted online.
as for source ..., know I get it.
SB3 is in the plan for me

[Weirdness]

I wonder what the difference betweeen the 740c and the 840c is?  I didn't realize that the 740c had digital inputs, thought that only the 840c would do this which I have been eyeing up for awhile.  Great idea in terms of features and apparently they are great sounding units.  Just answered my own question here, the 740c uses Wolfson DAC's and the 840c uses Analog Devices.  Anyways, let us know what you think if you take the plunge.   

[som]

Supposedly the upsampling totally eliminates jitter.

[carlbeck]

Remembering back to the tests we did way back when I preferred the non up sampled source everytime. I think this is an OK deck but there are much better ways to spend 1k in stereo land. I would rather my old ECD convertor for one or one of the many transport & DAC combos currently available.


Typical Nick, gets all jacked up on techno garble specs & doesn't listen to it, what a tech geek!

[Stagger]

Indeed. Tweeter is a dealer for these and the 840C (the model above it) has never impressed me much. Then again, we have it in a rack with a Krell SACD Standard which isn't quite fair...