Cambridge Audio Azur 540A VS. NAD C320 BEE

[Tons of Fun]

Hello People
Just to let you know that I have newly registered at the behest of my employers (Audio Partnership) to attempt to provide some manufacturer support for Cambridge Audio and Mordaunt Short. I am more easily found at the AVForums run in the UK but I will do my level best to deal with any inquiries you guys have although I suspect that most of my replies will be in the middle of the night.
Cheers
Ed

[Walker]

Hi Tons of fun and others,
I have some questions about my new 540a.
I'm a little concerned about the power of this amp. I have to crank it to 12 o'clock (on some older cd's, Fleetwood Mac Rumors) to get some feel of a powerful sound. It's probably still breaking in (played it for about 30 hours now) but I must say that the lower end is almost completely lacking. The sound is very thin and not at all convincing. The detail is great, much better than my HK and Onkyo, especially in the drums it's incredible what I have been missing.
But again I could not throw a good party with it the way it sounds now, you don't feel it; basically it does not rock (yet). Is this normal for this amp (after only 30 hours on low levels most of the time) or are my speakers a wrong match?
Thanks for advice.

Cambridge Audio Azur 540A
Speakers B&W 603s2
CD-player NAD C521i
Good cables

[Geoffcin]

Hi Tons of fun and others,
I have some questions about my new 540a.
I'm a little concerned about the power of this amp. I have to crank it to 12 o'clock (on some older cd's, Fleetwood Mac Rumors) to get some feel of a powerful sound. It's probably still breaking in (played it for about 30 hours now) but I must say that the lower end is almost completely lacking. The sound is very thin and not at all convincing. The detail is great, much better than my HK and Onkyo, especially in the drums it's incredible what I have been missing.
But again I could not throw a good party with it the way it sounds now, you don't feel it; basically it does not rock (yet). Is this normal for this amp (after only 30 hours on low levels most of the time) or are my speakers a wrong match?
Thanks for advice.

Your amp is now giving your speakers what you feed it. The fact that there's less bottom end is not because your amp is not driving your speakers well, in fact it's driving them BETTER. What you used to think was good bass, was actually distortion caused by your old amps inability to control your woofer, allowing it to distort. This is a common problem with amps that have low damping factor. The fact the the drums sound better is a hallmark of a good amp.The sudden attack of a drum strike, and the shimmer of a cymble with mulitple harmonics are very difficult things to reproduce well.

With your speakers the amp is not really working unless your've got it really load. So if your worried about turning your volume up and "blowing" something don't. You want your speakers to rock? Turn up the VOLUME! You'll find that as it get's louder there's more apparent bass, as human hearing is very non-linear in the bass range. My guess, and it's an educated one, as my buddy has the same speakers as you do for surrounds, is that your speakers will ROCK is your just turn it up a bit.

[hertz]

Synergy is a big factor in achieving good audio.B&W 's are not very easy to drive speakers. Although they are specified to be around 90 db I have found them to be very difficult to drive unless you have lots of high current power.The dealer whom I know uses high power Rotel amps with them.They drive them perfectly well. Why don't you do an home demo of any high power amps like the Nad c 372, higher powered CA amps or some Rotel high power amps to drive away all the doubts that you have...