An open letter to Cambridge Audio
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forums:

At the beginning of 2005 you opened a forums section on your website. This
was, in many respects, a bold move for a company - allowing people to share
information and experiences about their Cambridge Audio products; however,
this would also have provided information about customer preferences and
wishes.

As of the 24th of October, Cambridge Audio have removed access to the forums
- the primary mechanism people had of communicating with the company
(e-mail doesn't appear to work now, either).


Azur 640H Music Server:

Shortly after the opening of the forums, details of the Azur 640H music
server were released to the press and to the public. At the time the 640H
was going to be a fairly revolutionary product - a music server at a
reasonable price (though not bargain-basement) produced by an audio company
with a good reputation within their market sector. Ok, there's the Acoustic
Solutions SP150 (too cheap!) or the Linn Tunboks (too expensive for me!);
for those people who have many CD's and would like a music server but don't
want a PC solution, the 640H looks ideal.

However, since the original press release there have been several delays in
bringing the 640H to market. This is understandable - to a degree - as the
640H is a relatively complex product. However, delays have made the
original specification of the device look somewhat stingy. Bear in mind
that the hard disk server is competing with PC-based products, not just
hi-fi components - ten months is a long time.

Also, as time has passed, additional details of the 640H have been released,
with the latest being the availability of the user manual on the web.

Despite many postings by myself and others for more detailed information
regarding the 640H, only a handful of these were ever replied to, and of
those most were given unsatisfactory answers.

Many users of the forums, myself included, have been patient in trying to
get details about the Azur 640H and have used the forums to make
suggestions back to Cambridge Audio about product improvements. Why would
we bother to do this? Because we (your potential customers) want the 640H
to be a successful, competent product - we want to buy the 640H. I've had a
few hard disk servers previously and none have lived up to my expectations
- I want the 640H to be a good product.

However, after looking at the specification of the 640H, asking many
questions on the forums (only to have them ignored), and now having the
forums removed from us, it appears that the only way we (your paying
customers) can communicate back to you is via other means.

So - my overview of the 640H using the specifications online as a guide:

Spec:

* 160GB hard disk
- this is not big enough; for little extra cost this could be increased
significantly.

* Wolfson WM8740 DAC
- nice; this is the same component as in the 640C; but you've put the DAC
inside a PC, which is not a hospitable environment for analogue; is the DAC
shielded?

* supports wireless connectivity (when used with wireless adaptors)
- supports fibre connectivity (when used with fibre adaptors) too, I
guess?

* Internet radio
- nice

* On-screen graphical user interface
- this could be good; is the on-screen GUI skinnable? Trivial, maybe, but
one man's user interface is another man's dogs dinner...

* In-built CD-R/CD-RW
- this, I have a problem with; apparently:
1) the 640H '...incorporates the high-quality CD player from the Azur
640C...'
2) the 640C has a 'custom Cambridge Audio transport'
3) but the 640H has a built-in CD-R/CD-RW?
Yes - the drive on the 640H is a standard PC CD transport - not the
custom audio-grade transport from the 640C; to imply that the 640H is a
640C but with a hard disk is misleading beyond belief.

Playback Formats Supported:

* Uncompressed PCM
- nice; though I'd need about 1TB to put all 1400+ of my CD's on there, so
I guess I'm looking at using some sort of compression.

* Windows Media Audio
* MP3
* AAC (MP4)
* .wav .snd .mpa .mp2 .mp3 and many other common music files also supported
- '...many other common music files...'; from the manual, .au and .aif are
also supported; so no Ogg Vorbis - a '...completely open, patent-free,
professional audio encoding and streaming technology' - and yet we're meant
to believe that the 640H is a hi-fi component?

....and from the users manual...

Processor: VIA C3 1GHz
- Nice CPU, good performance (great for Ogg Vorbis), low heat output.
However, I've asked before (as it's quite important for a hi-fi component)
is this fanless? Sure, you're using fanless power supplies, but there's no
indication anywhere that you're using a fanless VIA C3.


So - how could the 640H be made into a better product? Personally, and in
order of preference:

1) isolate the DAC - don't care how, just don't want all that nasty PC
noise in my analogue
2) compile up the Ogg codec - http://www.vorbis.com/ is a good place to
start
3) use a bigger hard disk - 300GB, maybe?
4) change the CD transport
5) build wireless in

As far as I'm aware, in the time it's taken me to write this letter you
haven't released the 640H - there is still time to make these changes. For
the sake of the people who have taken the time to use the Cambridge Audio
forums and let you know what we, your customers, actually want in a hi-fi
music server, make this a great product.