Cambridge Audio 851N

CB22

CB22

Senior Audioholic
Had the upgrade bug last week super hard and made an impulse buy. I got this used for a little more 1/3 off MSRP, which makes me feel a little less guilty about it. I got the 851N with the intention streaming of Spotify, Tidal, and getting the this thing to connect to an NAS drive.

Initial thoughts:
It works well as a pre-amp for digital content, simple to use, and it's cool to have balanced outputs. I really like the fact that you can plug this straight into a power amp and your good to go. It plays back all sources of content at 24/192kHz. Although my ears could not tell a difference between the upsampled content and the original content. Build quality seems surprisingly good even though it's manufactured in China. Aesthetically, I think it looks great. I've read a lot of bad reviews on this product with older versions of the firmware but so far so good. Customer support and replied promptly and is sending me another remote for free, which is nice. Seems like a solid transport however, after a couple days with the 851N I don't think its worth nearly 1500 bucks. I would say it's worth about $800/900 tops for what you get. I call BS on the MSRP.
 

Attachments

newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top