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Replacement for Cambridge Audio 640p?

A

armenbadalov

New Member
Dear fellow members,

My current vinyl setup is Rega p3 turntable with Goldring 2200 cartridge, Cambridge 640p phono preamp, and Naim Nait 5i amplifier. Cambridge has been with me for some time and I feel it needs replacement - it does nothing wrong, but my experience with Cambridge Audio products shows that their gear offers bear minimum in music reproduction at very nice price, so you neither will be dissapointed nor exited.

I need advise as to what replacement I can get to improve my vinyl sound, and I am not looking at major investment into phone stages (do not listen to vinyl too often), but rather a possible next step up. My current inclination is Rega Fono MM as I very much respect this brand and it seems to be a good fit to my Rega TT, but I would hope that someone can give me other ideas as well.

Thru vinyl I mostly listen to jazz and classic music, and no rock at all. I do not envision me using MC cartridges anytime in the future, so I would rather spend money on dedicated MM phono stage.

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Regards
 
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G'day mate, do you have any DIY electronics construction experience? If so then I recommend the DIY path as there are some truly excellent DIY phono stages around.

I am a fan of the Elliott Sound Products P06 DIY phono stage for moving magnet cartridges, but the designs by Hagerman and others are also excellent.

A friend of mine also has that Cambridge 640p which has now been relegated to his back up system, after he built an ESP P06 and an ESP P05B power supply successfully.

He only has very limited electronics construction experience by the way, and his P06 is sonically so far ahead of his Cambridge 640p, it isn't funny. He uses a Luxman turntable with a Shure M95HE moving magnet cartridge. Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
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might be worth trying to listen to another turntable playing through the cambridge 640p before upgrading...maybe your local dealer has a better turntable he would be willing to demonstrate ?
if the cambridge sounds 'better' then perhaps you need to consider improving the source before the phono stage
if it sounds no different..you've found the culprit for your uninvolving sound:scratch2:
 
Depending where you live, you might consider sending it to HypnoToad for component refit. He did mine and it was as if it woke up!

Regards,
Jim
 
Thanks melofelo for your suggestion as I was thinking about this approach. I however decided not to replace the source as (1) it is just too cumbersome for something that is not my main source of music, and (2) I do believe that Rega produces quite an outstanding turntables in their budget categories, so getting an improved sound will most likely involve jumping to smth significantly more expensive. I am going to do home auditioning of several phono stages vs. cambridge, which would show whether preamplification can be the source of improved (poor) sound. For this reason I am looking for some advise as to what should I consider - I can surely do home demos indefinitely, but it is always a limit of time one can spend of this back and forth, so I am trying to come up with a more cocrete short list of 2-3 phone stages
 
It might be helpfull to know what your budget is.

Since you plan to do some auditioning locally,can you let us know which preamps are available to you?
 
Apart from the Rega Fono you mentioned, others worth considering are:

Clearaudio Nano
Trichord Dino
Lehman Black cube

Any one of those should give you substantial advantages.
 
In head-to-head tests, with my Rega Planar 3 and also some other turntables (Thorens, Marantz, and Pioneer), Musical Fidelity V-LPS is always chosen as overall winner--music is more engaging. And that is stock. With just the simple addition of a $20 linear power supply, it blows everything under $500 out of the water. I'm actually purchasing the V-LPS II and the new V-PSU II which is supposed to be incrementally that much better still.

The V-LPS I can be had for about $99 now (on amazon et al), but if you wait for V-LPS II (mid-November?), it'll be at about $160. I'm using a Tripp-Lite PR-3 regulated power supply which has been working fantastic for me (for the last 2 years).
 
Dtainer, thanks for your input. I indeed was recently thinking about MF V-LPS with the external PSU as a possible option. I've heard many good reviews about it from different people - it is funny, but I almost never heard such positive feedback from dealers, and this may be bacause they are focused on selling you more value added products. I am very curious about the new V-LPS and whether it provides any improvement over the previous version.

By the way, you mentioned head-to-head tests of phono stages. Can you please describe what other products you tested vs MF? Thanks
 
dtainer said:
In head-to-head tests, with my Rega Planar 3 and also some other turntables (Thorens, Marantz, and Pioneer), Musical Fidelity V-LPS is always chosen as overall winner--music is more engaging. And that is stock. With just the simple addition of a $20 linear power supply, it blows everything under $500 out of the water. I'm actually purchasing the V-LPS II and the new V-PSU II which is supposed to be incrementally that much better still.

The V-LPS I can be had for about $99 now (on amazon et al), but if you wait for V-LPS II (mid-November?), it'll be at about $160. I'm using a Tripp-Lite PR-3 regulated power supply which has been working fantastic for me (for the last 2 years).
Click to expand...
Not so. I use a v-LPS with upgraded power supply and agree it is certainly better than the 640P but - blow everything under $500 out of the water? No, good though it is it is not as good as the Clearaudio Nano, nor the Lehman (assuming it's about the same price in the US).

You need to be careful when making this type of blanket statement - saying which other phono stages you compared it with would be far more useful.
 
Avole--very good point and thought about it only after I clicked submit. There's a whole thread on this, though I don't remember whether it was here or on vinylengine. If anyone would like to review the thread, google "v-lps cambridge rolls bellari" for the details. Probably more accurate to say under $350 or $300--my enthusiasm got the best of me.

Very briefly, these were tested: Rolls VP29, Rolls VP129, Project Tube Box II, Cambridge 640P, Art DJ II, Ming Da 767RC.

This was not double blind testing by any means, but everyone in the listening room all pointed to V-LPS as the most pleasing and better-sounding preamp. Even the people who owned the other preamps. I believe the preference order was V-LPS, Project, Rolls VP29, Cambridge, Art, Ming Da, VP129.

The two guys with the Cambridge 640p and with the Art went and bought the V-LPS, the one with the Bellari VP129 bought the Project Tube Box. I sold the Ming Da on ebay, and saved the VP29 for backup...
 
dtainer said:
In head-to-head tests, with my Rega Planar 3 and also some other turntables (Thorens, Marantz, and Pioneer), Musical Fidelity V-LPS is always chosen as overall winner--music is more engaging. And that is stock. With just the simple addition of a $20 linear power supply, it blows everything under $500 out of the water. I'm actually purchasing the V-LPS II and the new V-PSU II which is supposed to be incrementally that much better still.

The V-LPS I can be had for about $99 now (on amazon et al), but if you wait for V-LPS II (mid-November?), it'll be at about $160. I'm using a Tripp-Lite PR-3 regulated power supply which has been working fantastic for me (for the last 2 years).
Click to expand...

Money says it would get owned by a HypnoToad modded 640p. Just sayin.
 
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