Cambridge Audio A500 Remote Intergrated

Very easy to setup and use. Delivers a very clean sound. Simple looks and design, not busy.

I have owned this Cambridge Audio A500 Remote Intergrated amp for 8 years and have enjoyed it very much. I use my turntable more than any other componet and love the sound. I have however developed a very irritating buzz that I cannot isolate. I fear I will have to send it away to be repaired.

The Cambridge Audio A500 was a fab purchase. Mellow sound Longtivity - bought mine in 1999 restrained design, very easy to listen to. Reliable with no apparent degradation of sound Lots of quality rear connections.

Great. powerful and clean sound. Slick desing. Long-lasting quality too.

I have owned all sorts of amplifiers over the years, mainly from the same sort of quality as this product. Pioneer's, Denon's and JVC's etc, and as a part time audio engineer the list must run into many hundreds from all sorts of manufacturers. The Cambridge Audio A500 pre and power combination offers me some advantages, in that I have a valid upgrade path should I wish to pension off either of the two parts. Second is the nice level of connections, which for my fully configured system of cassette, CD, reel to reel, CD writer, record deck and input / output to my computer, plus spare preamp outputs to a custom made headphone amp and a rather large subwoofer.

Sound quality is about right for a £320 system. I actually paid rather less than this as an end of line item. The most obvious thing about this amp from my standpoint is its smooth upper mid, which on some of the others (Denon and Pioneer) seems far more brash and hard. Having a preference for female vocal, this is rather important. Bass is firm, the preamp output being reasonably fast, although not quite up to some of the more expensive amps I have tried. Bass weight is not an issue with my system, as I use a Rel Stadium sub fed from the pre. Phono input (there is a retro fit PCB for this) is reasonable, and certainly up to most other integrated amps I have tried. My version has good bass extension and works significantly better than the JVC integrated I had been using before. It is adequately sensitive for MM cartridges, and is of a similar audio quality as the rest of the inputs. With my re engineered Thorens turntable, the analog sound betters the digital inputs by about 10%, which obviously balances the inconvenience factor of albums, which is about -10%, so it's all evens!

The split of pre and power is a definite advantage, as the separate power supplies minimise the cross modulation effects that can be detrimental to the sound on some amps at this price band.

The A500 remote integrated amplifier from Cambridge Audio is: Loud

low distortion

quality finish

quality sound

nice remote even if it doesn't do much

make sure you get the new 65 watt model not the old

50 watt rubbish. Vast improvement on the Cambridge A5