Cambridge Audio BD751 vs BD650 personal review

[DandyCobalt]

I spent an hour this afternoon comparing the PCM(751 doing the decoding) and bitstream (rest of gear decoding) for stereo music sources. I found that the 751 produced better results as PCM, than my Cyrus PreXpdQx or my Pioneer LX 53 a/v receiver. Using Cee Lo Green's track "Bright Lights Bigger City", the 751 produced the most natural sound; the kick drum especially sounded most "real". In comparison, the others sounded like drum machines.

For music, I had bought the 751 for its improvement as a transport, but it seems it is a better DAC than my Cyrus and the Pioneer.

 

[hifianorak]

Looking forward to the online review of the CA BD 751 in early June.

So now its between the CA, Arcam, Oppo and the Marantz UD 7006 as to who gets my money.

 

[Clare Newsome]

The Cambridge Audio BD751 review should be online on Thursday - ahead of the Group Test featuring all of the above!

 

[hifianorak]

Brilliant Clare - that reminds me I must renew my subscription immediately!

 

[Clare Newsome]

Well what about that - our Cambridge Audio BD751 review is now online, a day earlier than promised!

 

[hifianorak]

Well done! A day early indeed. I nearly choked on my coronation chicken sandwich when I first noticed it online.

Can't wait for the supertest now. I think the Marantz UD 7006 got an even more impressive review overall than the BD 751 and I reckon it's in pole position for the supertest, unless the Oppo 95 can give it a good run. The Arcam lacks features and is glitchy and I don't know too much about the Denon machine.

 

[DandyCobalt]

A pleasant lunchtime surprise when logging on.

As an owner for the past few weeks, I'd completely agree with the review. It has partnered very well with B&W CM8s and Cyrus, and it has added bass in a good way to my other components.

Picture quality (especially blu-ray) is superb - very little judder on fast-panning scenes and very sharp outlines to characters.

Though concerning the remote control, perhaps CA could do something a little more practical/upmarket for us projector users - the remote is the same as the 650 - no backlight and mine even squeaks!

Looking forward to the supertest.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the review and the thread Dandy.

I originally bought an Arcam BDP but had to give up on the bugs and went with the BD 650 instead. I have been very pleased with this but now that it's big brother is available I should probably give that a try.

I currently have the 650 working as a transport plugged into my Anthem AVM 50v via HDMI for all sources.

Does anyone know if there is any superior technology in the 751 that would make it a better transport. I guess I also need to check the 751 doing the processor.

Any thoughts ?

 

[def lugs]

The spec of the transport and power supply is higher for the 751, it also has internal architecture designed to reduce interference so should be able to delvier better results. I could not detect enough improvement over my 650 running through a dacmagic to warrant the expense of the upgrade. I still wanted 3D so opted for the oppo 93. I was always dissapointed with the narrow soundstage that the 650 produced - which is why I bought the dacmagic - but out of the box using the analogues the oppo 93 had much wider soundstage than the cambridge. Feeding the 93 into the dacmagic it was down to personal taste as to which sound I preferred. For me the oppo took the lead.

Picture quality the 93 shares the same video processor as the 95 and the 751. It is certanly a step up from the 650.
I am interested to read the supertest now that we have seen the 751 already awarded with 5 stars.

 

[DandyCobalt]

I was personally surprised that (in my system) the 751 does a better job at decoding stereo signal than my Cyrus stereo pre-amp (PreXpdQx) . I understand the Cyrus has the second best DAC in the Cyrus range (the "Qx" bit) , and costs a lot of money.

However, it only took one listen to one track (the Cee Lo Green one) across the different bits of kit to realise that the CA 751 was doing a better job. In my case, I could visualise the drummer using the kick drum - it had a fuller, more realistic sound to it.

I have the 751 outputting PCM/LPCM across all formats now (including for videos), as is better than the Pioneer LX53 a/v amp for this too.

As a pure transport it is definitely better too.

 

[Anonymous]

Dont the Oppo and CA players share the same chipsets? Also made by the same company? What sepperates the CA 650 from the Oppo 93 in terms of bluray picture quality<>?

 

[Clare Newsome]

That's discussed at length in the Group Test that appears in our next issue (being posted out to subscribers 24th; available in shops/as digital edition 30th)

 

[jacobmorrison]

They aren't made by the same company although some models do share the same developer kits. The CA751 is based on the same SDK as the Oppo 93. The analogue stages on these players are different but the qdeo video processing used is the same. The CA650 may have been based on the same SDK as the Oppo 83, I don't know for sure. The Oppo 95 featured in the forthcoming magazine review shares the same SDK as both the CA751 and Oppo 93 but is heavily modded with a new chassis, Rotel torroidal power suppy and the same Sabre dacs ued in the audiolab 8200 cd player. Oppo state that the video performance in the 93 ad 95 is identical.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for clearing that up for the Jacob. I thought the CA 650 was based on the 83. Intereseting that the Oppo 83 is a WHF 4 star player and the CA 650 is a 5 star best buy.

Unfortunatly there isnt good customer service with CA gear. I think I'll go for the Oppo 93.

Look forward to reading the results of the shootout.

 

[DandyCobalt]

Unfortunatly there isnt good customer service with CA gear. I think I'll go for the Oppo 93.

I'm surprised by what you say about the CA Customer Service. I've always had rapid (and useful) response online from them, and when I had to get a machine serviced/checked, I got it back in 3 days! Pretty impressive compared to others I won't mention...

 

[bigboss]

Thanks for clearing that up for the Jacob. I thought the CA 650 was based on the 83

No, it was based on Oppo 83's younger sibling, the Oppo 80. I won't read too much into the star ratings. Even 4 stars is very good.

 

[def lugs]

I'm surprised by what you say about the CA Customer Service. I've always had rapid (and useful) response online from them, and when I had to get a machine serviced/checked, I got it back in 3 days! Pretty impressive compared to others I won't mention...

It was coming up to 5 weeks before I could pick up my unit again from richer sounds. Which I thought was slow. Especially as the assistant declared that it would be shipped the afternoon I left it at the shop. I suppose we speak as we find.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I am in Australia. Even the firmware updates here are really poor...

 

[Anonymous]

I am very interested in this upcoming group test of blu-ray players, specifically regarding image quality.

The Oppo93/95 and CA751 both use the second generation Marvell Qdeo DE2750 chipset for image processing, so they should be very similar (power supply differences not withstanding)
The Marantz UD7006 uses the ABT2015 chipset. Which is better? The Qdeo used in the Oppo and CAM is supposed to have superior manipulative effects than the ABT.

For audio, all these players have a very different approach. It may well be the CA751 audio implementation is the best.