bpward
01-06-2006, 10:33 AM
So I purchased the Cambridge Azur 640a integrated amp and the Athena F2.2 floorstanders and within 2.5 days I hae received both since I live in a close state to the audioadvisor.com headquarters (they're in MI, I am IN). But on to the important stuff....
Yesterday when I got the amp (speakers today) I immediately hooked it up to my dad's Yamaha floor speakers which are a few years old, model NS-8390. They're 225 W and only have once 8 inch sub with some midrange thing and a tweeter; so probably not as powerful as the athenas. The amp is a Denon PM-1080R, not too old maybe 6 or 7 years. But basically they sounded ok. Hooked up the cambridge and turned it up loud... real loud... louder than they've ever been. In fact an hour later (after I had stopped blaring the music) a police car stopped in the road in front of my house and sat there for a minute or two as if someone called in a noise complaint (which probably happened because it was kind of odd). So I guess I'll give the cambridge and intital thumbs up. The only problem with it is that it is not surround sound capable (which I knew buying it), but I have a feeling that I will want it sooner in the future than later and might have to invest in some other pieces of equipment. I was actually wondering, can you biamp a surround sound amp and a 2 channel amp together? Or is there a way to use the two together?
The only main problem I have with the amp is that the bass/treble controls don't do that much. I like to play with the settings a lot from song to song so it takes away some of the fun. However in the manual they did say that they did this on purpose so that your input device can do the controlling. Maybe this is better? I will be looking in to getting a sweet new mp3 player (probably cowon) though and this should have enough features/effects for my liking. On cool thing about the amp is that when I had it turned up realllll loud, it would sense the speakers being too loud (from clipping) for their own good and automatically turn the volume down!!! I was like, what the heck is moving the volume control back down? Then I realized what it was doing and like Peter Griffin said "sweettttt."
On to the speakers. I just have to say that I love Fedex by the way. If only they had all women drivers... one lady would have been offered sexual favors lol. The speakers are a bit bigger than I would have liked and weight a decent amount (~45 lbs). But they seem to be built nicely and better than anything I could have gotten at best buy, circuit city, etc. for the price. After plugging them in I put on my samsung mp3 player which produces good sound and some newer rap music. Well unfortunately I see why they suggest a long break-in period. The subs sounded terrible intially! Call them rice krispies because all they did was snap, crackle and pop. For about 10 minutes anyway... They have since calmed down a lot. Now it's been about 1 hour of continuous play and they sound excellent already. Bump bump bump. Rock sounds good as well. So does the metallica & symphony concert. I like my elton john concert stuff too.
I probably will be keeping the grills off. They just look so much cooler without them. Also there's some little cone-shaped tips (about 2 inches tall) that go on the bottom corners of the speakers to prop it off the ground. I have not put these on yet since I won't be getting them on a harder-floor (carpet right now) until tomorrow.
Thanks to the guy who suggest this for me. This is some good stuff. I got it for total 820-some dollars. Plus wire (already had it, monster cable) and a double-Y cord for 15$ (I got the nice one of course). The bust buy guy was trying to sell me on some new Yamaha surround sound speakers selling for <200$. It was a full set and sounded great in store, but I was afraid of how it would sound when turned up loud (like I will be doing a lot) and have the 2-channel amp ordered already anyway.
I will also be getting a new mp3 HDD player so I have my whole collection on hand ready to play. Cds are becoming obsolete... Plus mp3 players have all kind of EQ options which is something the amp does not have. They're also space saving.
Any other thoughts on this equipment is welcome, I would like to hear it.
Yesterday when I got the amp (speakers today) I immediately hooked it up to my dad's Yamaha floor speakers which are a few years old, model NS-8390. They're 225 W and only have once 8 inch sub with some midrange thing and a tweeter; so probably not as powerful as the athenas. The amp is a Denon PM-1080R, not too old maybe 6 or 7 years. But basically they sounded ok. Hooked up the cambridge and turned it up loud... real loud... louder than they've ever been. In fact an hour later (after I had stopped blaring the music) a police car stopped in the road in front of my house and sat there for a minute or two as if someone called in a noise complaint (which probably happened because it was kind of odd). So I guess I'll give the cambridge and intital thumbs up. The only problem with it is that it is not surround sound capable (which I knew buying it), but I have a feeling that I will want it sooner in the future than later and might have to invest in some other pieces of equipment. I was actually wondering, can you biamp a surround sound amp and a 2 channel amp together? Or is there a way to use the two together?
The only main problem I have with the amp is that the bass/treble controls don't do that much. I like to play with the settings a lot from song to song so it takes away some of the fun. However in the manual they did say that they did this on purpose so that your input device can do the controlling. Maybe this is better? I will be looking in to getting a sweet new mp3 player (probably cowon) though and this should have enough features/effects for my liking. On cool thing about the amp is that when I had it turned up realllll loud, it would sense the speakers being too loud (from clipping) for their own good and automatically turn the volume down!!! I was like, what the heck is moving the volume control back down? Then I realized what it was doing and like Peter Griffin said "sweettttt."
On to the speakers. I just have to say that I love Fedex by the way. If only they had all women drivers... one lady would have been offered sexual favors lol. The speakers are a bit bigger than I would have liked and weight a decent amount (~45 lbs). But they seem to be built nicely and better than anything I could have gotten at best buy, circuit city, etc. for the price. After plugging them in I put on my samsung mp3 player which produces good sound and some newer rap music. Well unfortunately I see why they suggest a long break-in period. The subs sounded terrible intially! Call them rice krispies because all they did was snap, crackle and pop. For about 10 minutes anyway... They have since calmed down a lot. Now it's been about 1 hour of continuous play and they sound excellent already. Bump bump bump. Rock sounds good as well. So does the metallica & symphony concert. I like my elton john concert stuff too.
I probably will be keeping the grills off. They just look so much cooler without them. Also there's some little cone-shaped tips (about 2 inches tall) that go on the bottom corners of the speakers to prop it off the ground. I have not put these on yet since I won't be getting them on a harder-floor (carpet right now) until tomorrow.
Thanks to the guy who suggest this for me. This is some good stuff. I got it for total 820-some dollars. Plus wire (already had it, monster cable) and a double-Y cord for 15$ (I got the nice one of course). The bust buy guy was trying to sell me on some new Yamaha surround sound speakers selling for <200$. It was a full set and sounded great in store, but I was afraid of how it would sound when turned up loud (like I will be doing a lot) and have the 2-channel amp ordered already anyway.
I will also be getting a new mp3 HDD player so I have my whole collection on hand ready to play. Cds are becoming obsolete... Plus mp3 players have all kind of EQ options which is something the amp does not have. They're also space saving.
Any other thoughts on this equipment is welcome, I would like to hear it.