OK Here are the Results,
This comparison is meant to be about sound quality, I’m not going into any of the technical specs of these amps, I am looking to see what the difference in sound quality is between the 740 and the 840.
I’m not going to go into too much detail but I’ll give you a pointer to what I did and my thoughts at the end.
I started by connecting up the peripherals like this:
The CD63se input 1
The Project Audio debut 2/Ortofon 510 mk2/CA 640p, input 2
Interconnect, Ixos Gamma 1002.
Headphones
Grade SR80
The input sensitivity was set to maximum on each input.
The volume display was set to the minus db setting.
This was done for both amps.
The same tracks, in the same order, were played on both amps.
CD
Dire Straights, Telegraph Road and Private Investigations. From “Love over Gold”
Donna Summer, Hot Stuff and Bad Girls. From “Bad Girls”
Glen Miller Orchestra, American Patrol and Perfidia. From “Platinum Glenn Miller” directed by Ray McVay
Tracks 1-5, Fortune, Empress of the World/In the spring. From Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, by Bournemouth symphony orchestra/Marin Alsop
Hazel O’Connor, Will You? From Breaking Glass
Metallica, The day that never comes form “Death Magnetic”
Prokofiev, Montagues and Capulets, The Philadelphia Orchestra/Riccardo Muti. BBC 100 classics CD
Vinyl
Sympathy for the Devil, Rolling Stones (Numbered 7” new repress 33rpm)
Supertramp, The Logical song, “Supertramp live in Paris”
Electric Light Orchestra, Telephone Line and Rock Aria, from A new World Record album.
Morrissey Mullen, Life on the wire, from Life on the wire album
Booker T and the MG’s, Green Onions, 180 Gram re-press from Sundazed records.
I wanted to find out if these two amps are in a similar class? Is the 740a an, up scaled 640a or a down scaled 840a?
The first thing to say is that the speaker terminals are way better on the 840a than the fiddly ones on the 740a. I used Banana plugs with two runs of QED silver anniversary to each speaker.
Starting with the 840a,( ignore the clicking relays on the volume control), I was particularly impressed with the sound stage and imaging, when I looked at the speakers, the sound appeared to be coming from well deep beyond them rather then just from them. Detail is the thing that struck me most, there is a particular correctness about transients such a cymbal crashes and drums, and the vocals are superb, silky and rich. There is an openness to this that sounds fast and well oiled. This amp can bring out sounds on a recording that you have had for years but never noticed before.
This was consistent throughout all the tracks we tried on CD’s but I did find Metallica’s The day that never comes was a bit harsh and sounded rough in the treble. (Is it supposed to be like this?)
Hazel O’Connor was a bit dry.
Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” from the Bad girls really moved the place, the 840 can kick this out with some power, punchy drums, clear transients. There is a clarity that is beyond question, it separates instruments nicely.
Carmina Burana and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets didn’t impress me at all with the 840, there doesn’t seem to be enough dynamics here, the detail again is superb but there is not enough slam in some parts, I didn’t find enough distance between loud and quieter sounds, there is a clinical air to this, lacking a little sole. My Pioneer A400 can attack Carmina Burana way better than this.
Overall this amp has a detailed smooth refined presentation . It’s fantastic at some types of music and less exciting with others, but still, I like it nonetheless.
Moving on to the 740,
I found you have to turn this up a bit more to get the same volume out of it. The display on the 840 read -35 at a reasonable volume, I had the volume on the 740 at around -25 to get around the same level.
I have no idea if the display actually means anything other being an indication.
I was quite surprised, with the comparison . Both these amps have the signature “Cambridge Audio Sound”. They are very detailed and extremely open, there is a better warmth to the 840 but it’s still lean, there is not enough slam for me when listening to classical music.
The 740 has a slightly dryer sound, while playing Carmina Burana and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets, it seemed to be having to work harder to get there and does sound just a little flatter, there is a slight hint of restraint in the top end compared to the 840.
The wife said she couldn’t tell any difference between them.
I thought the 840 was going to blow the 740 out of the water but they aren’t to far apart really, the 840 has more refinement though.
Plugging headphones in reveals a couple of sins, this yields a detailed but flat sound . You don’t really notice until you plug the headphones directly into the CD player. You could instantly tell that both amps were taking something away, they both definitely suppress dynamics, the 740 shows this up more than the 840.
Oh, Just an observation here but the 740 runs hotter then the 840.
So there you go, in a nutshell if you want a bit more warmth to the sound and a bit more power the 840 does this a little better. However, the 740 is not a long way off. Both these amps have a lean sound but it’s not unpleasant, they really dig up bags of detail but, they are both not that dynamic compared with my A400, but that’s just my opinion.
For me, the 740a is one of those products that sometimes I sometimes love and sometimes hate, but mostly I like the sound of it except for one thing! This little test left me wondering why I still use my old A400 as my main amp and not the 740a?
Well I’ll tell you,
Where both Cambridge amps failed to impress was when playing Vinyl. Each track we tried was watery thin, cold and hard, flatter than a really flat thing, this might be down to the 640p but vinyl playback didn’t sound any better on the 840 than it did on the 740, not even slightly in my opinion.
Before the 740 I had a 640, I had it for a week and didn’t like it at all, I took it back and upgraded to the 740,and can say that it is in a different class to the 640.
IMHO, the 740 and 840 are a significant step up from the 640. However neither of these two are perfect all-rounders but not bad if you don’t use vinyl.
Thanks for reading.
This comparison is meant to be about sound quality, I’m not going into any of the technical specs of these amps, I am looking to see what the difference in sound quality is between the 740 and the 840.
I’m not going to go into too much detail but I’ll give you a pointer to what I did and my thoughts at the end.
I started by connecting up the peripherals like this:
The CD63se input 1
The Project Audio debut 2/Ortofon 510 mk2/CA 640p, input 2
Interconnect, Ixos Gamma 1002.
Headphones
Grade SR80
The input sensitivity was set to maximum on each input.
The volume display was set to the minus db setting.
This was done for both amps.
The same tracks, in the same order, were played on both amps.
CD
Dire Straights, Telegraph Road and Private Investigations. From “Love over Gold”
Donna Summer, Hot Stuff and Bad Girls. From “Bad Girls”
Glen Miller Orchestra, American Patrol and Perfidia. From “Platinum Glenn Miller” directed by Ray McVay
Tracks 1-5, Fortune, Empress of the World/In the spring. From Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, by Bournemouth symphony orchestra/Marin Alsop
Hazel O’Connor, Will You? From Breaking Glass
Metallica, The day that never comes form “Death Magnetic”
Prokofiev, Montagues and Capulets, The Philadelphia Orchestra/Riccardo Muti. BBC 100 classics CD
Vinyl
Sympathy for the Devil, Rolling Stones (Numbered 7” new repress 33rpm)
Supertramp, The Logical song, “Supertramp live in Paris”
Electric Light Orchestra, Telephone Line and Rock Aria, from A new World Record album.
Morrissey Mullen, Life on the wire, from Life on the wire album
Booker T and the MG’s, Green Onions, 180 Gram re-press from Sundazed records.
I wanted to find out if these two amps are in a similar class? Is the 740a an, up scaled 640a or a down scaled 840a?
The first thing to say is that the speaker terminals are way better on the 840a than the fiddly ones on the 740a. I used Banana plugs with two runs of QED silver anniversary to each speaker.
Starting with the 840a,( ignore the clicking relays on the volume control), I was particularly impressed with the sound stage and imaging, when I looked at the speakers, the sound appeared to be coming from well deep beyond them rather then just from them. Detail is the thing that struck me most, there is a particular correctness about transients such a cymbal crashes and drums, and the vocals are superb, silky and rich. There is an openness to this that sounds fast and well oiled. This amp can bring out sounds on a recording that you have had for years but never noticed before.
This was consistent throughout all the tracks we tried on CD’s but I did find Metallica’s The day that never comes was a bit harsh and sounded rough in the treble. (Is it supposed to be like this?)
Hazel O’Connor was a bit dry.
Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” from the Bad girls really moved the place, the 840 can kick this out with some power, punchy drums, clear transients. There is a clarity that is beyond question, it separates instruments nicely.
Carmina Burana and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets didn’t impress me at all with the 840, there doesn’t seem to be enough dynamics here, the detail again is superb but there is not enough slam in some parts, I didn’t find enough distance between loud and quieter sounds, there is a clinical air to this, lacking a little sole. My Pioneer A400 can attack Carmina Burana way better than this.
Overall this amp has a detailed smooth refined presentation . It’s fantastic at some types of music and less exciting with others, but still, I like it nonetheless.
Moving on to the 740,
I found you have to turn this up a bit more to get the same volume out of it. The display on the 840 read -35 at a reasonable volume, I had the volume on the 740 at around -25 to get around the same level.
I have no idea if the display actually means anything other being an indication.
I was quite surprised, with the comparison . Both these amps have the signature “Cambridge Audio Sound”. They are very detailed and extremely open, there is a better warmth to the 840 but it’s still lean, there is not enough slam for me when listening to classical music.
The 740 has a slightly dryer sound, while playing Carmina Burana and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets, it seemed to be having to work harder to get there and does sound just a little flatter, there is a slight hint of restraint in the top end compared to the 840.
The wife said she couldn’t tell any difference between them.
I thought the 840 was going to blow the 740 out of the water but they aren’t to far apart really, the 840 has more refinement though.
Plugging headphones in reveals a couple of sins, this yields a detailed but flat sound . You don’t really notice until you plug the headphones directly into the CD player. You could instantly tell that both amps were taking something away, they both definitely suppress dynamics, the 740 shows this up more than the 840.
Oh, Just an observation here but the 740 runs hotter then the 840.
So there you go, in a nutshell if you want a bit more warmth to the sound and a bit more power the 840 does this a little better. However, the 740 is not a long way off. Both these amps have a lean sound but it’s not unpleasant, they really dig up bags of detail but, they are both not that dynamic compared with my A400, but that’s just my opinion.
For me, the 740a is one of those products that sometimes I sometimes love and sometimes hate, but mostly I like the sound of it except for one thing! This little test left me wondering why I still use my old A400 as my main amp and not the 740a?
Well I’ll tell you,
Where both Cambridge amps failed to impress was when playing Vinyl. Each track we tried was watery thin, cold and hard, flatter than a really flat thing, this might be down to the 640p but vinyl playback didn’t sound any better on the 840 than it did on the 740, not even slightly in my opinion.
Before the 740 I had a 640, I had it for a week and didn’t like it at all, I took it back and upgraded to the 740,and can say that it is in a different class to the 640.
IMHO, the 740 and 840 are a significant step up from the 640. However neither of these two are perfect all-rounders but not bad if you don’t use vinyl.
Thanks for reading.
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