Cambridge Audio CXC - Separate CD Transport for HiFi System Featuring Gapless Playback and Custom S3 Servo in an Acoustically Dampened Metal Chassis - Lunar Grey

Product Information

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The natural question then becomes, ‘why would anyone want to buy “half” a CD player?’ The answer is similar to the reasons why people buy separate preamps and power amps instead of integrated amplifiers. Part of it is sound quality and part of it is flexibility. In theory, the CD transport and separate DAC each has a dedicated power supply instead of being shared and there will be less interference (noise) affecting each unit. Of course, theory is theory and reality is reality. Yes, a CD transport and separate DAC may indeed sound better than a one box CD player, just as a separate preamp and power amp can sound better than an integrated amplifier; but in audio, there are rarely absolutes.

Another advantage is increased flexibility. Chose to match with one of the Cambridge CXA digital amplifiers or use your own choice of DAC entirely. By starting with such a high quality transport design, the CXC could see you through many system and DAC upgrades without being in the least bit out of place.

In the end, playing CDs strikes me as a lifestyle choice. Spending time with the Cambridge CXC was a very pleasant reminder that real time and attention spent listening to music pays dividends and sometimes having less to choose from makes the experience more thoughtful. Devoting one’s time and attention to listening to an album at a time, coupled with the experience of having and holding a real object in hand that includes artwork and liner notes in addition to pits and lands, allows for a different, and potentially deeper, connection to the music beyond sound. I’ve owned many CD players over the years, but very few dedicated CD transports. More often than not I’ve opted for the single-box approach, favouring fewer components over what I feel are often minimal sound quality gains achieved when using a dedicated transport and DAC. Our main reason for collecting and using your personal information is to provide and improve the service, products and experiences that you expect from us. Information you share with us At What Hi-Fi? we review hundreds of products every year at our state-of-the-art testing facilities in London, Reading and Bath, and some of those, inevitably, are CD players. We have complete control over our testing environment, and we test as a team of audio experts with a combined wealth of over a century of experience.

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We are always impartial in our testing and ensure we hear every CD player at its optimum – connected to the appropriate kit and placed on a sturdy and level surface. We'll use them in their best use case with different partnering amplifiers and speakers, as well as play plenty of discs in different genres of music through them. Naturally, we also evaluate all the different features a player might support, and how easy it is to use. The Cambridge CXC is a CD transport only, so inside you'll only find 'half' of what's usually inside a CD player. Although this may sound unconventional, it has many benefits. The most obvious of these is cost effectiveness, but there are sonic benefits to be had, too. Without an onboard DAC (Digital to Analogue Convertor), the power supply only has to drive the CD transport. By being dedicated to this task it can provide a clean, stable power supply for the highest performance possible at its price.

Crash reports: These allow us to improve the software on the units by understanding when, how and how often the software crashes. As well as looking at aggregated data, we will look at individual crash reports to fix specific bugs, or in response to customer support queries. The crash data includes information on what the device is doing just before the crash and other UPnP devices on the network. Remember that childhood game of War? There are ongoing battles over MQA and I have as much interest in those battles as I do in arguing over Billie Eilish’s figure or fingernails. And, while I can’t claim to own many CDs in a rough condition, I was unable to find a disc that could trouble the CXC; even the aforementioned ’21st Century Breakdown’ played without issue. SummaryI can’t find fault with the CXC’s sound. It’s notably free of the digital artefacts that plague many budget-oriented models, and it responds well to a change in DAC. Personally I feel that the DAC will have a more profound affect on the sound; so providing a CD transport delivers the 0s and 1s to where they need to go with minimal error, it’s doing a top-class job. The timing is tight and gets your foot tapping almost immediately. We described the original’s sound as ‘wonderfully entertaining’, and it’s nice to hear that Cambridge Audio has retained that quality in the V2.