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By: Marcus Ridiculous
2nd Jul 2013
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"Cambridge Audio A1 Integrated Amplifier"
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Just to clear up some confusion. The original Cambridge Audio ceased production over 20 years ago (poss longer). This current range is that company in name only really. Cambridge Audio, along with the likes of Morduant Short, Gale etc were bought out by an Asian conglomerate.
There could well have been some original Cambridge engineer input during the design phase of this amp but it was one of the first Chinese built, rebranded pieces of kit (that's excluding the Taiwanese built NADs).
What these amps offer is a good degree of fidelity allied to better than average internal design and robust build (looks are maybe an acquired taste) for a price at about 40% of what a Cambridge would have cost at that time if they had still been in business.
To me it sounds like the above reviewer had a faulty example. Along with the Dacmagic these are solid budget audio offerings and pretty reliable too (normally). Partnered with a slightly smoother speaker they can conjure up some bargain magic.
No they don't directly compare to the original, except build, but they don't fall too far short and beat similarly priced products hands down.
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13 people liked this review.
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By: andyinteractive
23rd Jan 2012
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"Cambridge Audio A1"
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This specific brand is exclusive to the Richer Sounds group and although I would highly rate Cambridge Audio for their excellence, it is unfortunate that this model let 's the side down quite badly in comparison to it 's previous ancestors. The amplifier itself has the usual Cambridge Audio 90's retro look about it and it is built quite solidly throughout. The controls are as straightforward as you can get and the audio quality is slightly below par... but the main problem with this amplifier is that the audio output is somewhat un-balanced at low volumes. There would be little point in listening to this amplifier with the volume control less than a quarter of the way up as the audio can only be heard from the one channel. This is rather unfortunate because this issue lets this amplifier down.
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18 people liked this review.
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![[Thumbnail]](https://www.hifidatabase.com/static/gallery/0/3990-CA-A1.jpg)
![[Thumbnail]](https://www.hifidatabase.com/static/gallery/1/3991-CA-A1b.jpg)
