mtcane274

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
2.91 of 5, 11.00 votes

Price Paid:  $250.00 from Richer Sounds, UK

Summary:
The Azur 640C V.2 is a pretty good player for the price. Build quality (at least from feel and weight) is good. The player's remote is great for the price and operationally the player is good.

The sound is laid back but with fair rhythmic integrity. It has a really nice tone and will play any genre of music well. The midrange is its best talent. I found its focus was lacking, the bass power and control isn't great, the treble isn't detailed enough for me and can be splashy and soft at times. Dynamic resolve isn't as good as the magazines reviews suggest. The soundstage isn't very wide at all.

However, how much can you expect for a budget player. I think in the right system with an owner who appreciates its laid back sound I think it will be a good player.

Unfortunately, I found it boring and ended up having a system playing background music and not holding my interest in music that normally really connects with me.

Strengths:
Natural Tone, Great remote control, Midrange.

Weaknesses:
Bass focus, treble, soundstaging.

timjeter

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
3.88 of 5, 8.00 votes

Price Paid:  $569.00 from Uptown Audio

Summary:
I need to preface this review by saying I have the 640C v.2. It is the second generation of the product described in the previous reviews. Secondly the dropscreen prompting a model year did not give 2007 as an option. So I indicated 2006 which is incorrect.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts this is a great CD player. After a burn-in of about 150 hours it produces a very smooth and laid back sound. It does not suffer from being overly bright. It will not create the magic of making bad CDs sound good however. Good CDs will sound better than ever which is a satisfactory goal.

So far I would say the classical music in my collection has shown the most improvement in presentation. Crummy low budget jazz stuff still suffers. Popular music like Lyle Lovett sounds surprisingly good.

Strengths:
Very refined and smooth sound

Weaknesses:
Long burn-in

Price Paid:  $549.00 from Audio Advisor

Summary:
Arrived defective out of the box. Both the salespeople and friends in the business have told me that the ribbon connectors are flimsy and often break in transit.

Error messages common regardless of quality of the CD inserted.

Strengths:
Looks, remote control, connections.

Weaknesses:
Build quality

Similar Products Used:
Samsung CD/DVD player, Hitachi (Denon) CD changer

Price Paid:  $250.00 from Richer Sounds

Summary:
I brought my 640c V2 less than a month ago & as soon as I got it connected, I was hooked on the clarity & depth it brought to so many CDs - I felt like I was rediscovering my music collection. However, after one week the left channel stopped working. I took it back to Richer Sounds who expressed their suprise. Two weeks later and the replacement has developed the same fault. Astounded, either by the extent of my bad luck or the poor reliability of the player I wanted to find out which of these it was - many of these reviews have mentioned the same fault! I then thought maybe this was a bad batch, but the reviews on this site are two years old - how can a company with such a reputation for excellent products turn out such unreliable rubbish? Mine will be going for good tomorrow - trouble is I don't know what to replace it with...

Strengths:
Excellent sound - but reliablility makes it useless - AVOID!

Weaknesses:
Very unreliable - left channel stopped working on two models in less than a month!
Hard-to-read display

Similar Products Used:
None

ankurjain.aj625

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
3.61 of 5, 18.00 votes

Price Paid:  $525.00 from india

Summary:
very detailed,may shame some sacd players in details and dynmics. it may sound thin and flat to some but that is what should be the freqency response of a cdp. very much a 3d sounstage with very clear noiselessness. brings the details which were previously faint. try diana krall love sceans cd , you will realize the abilty of this player to make every thing lifelike. at this price nothing can match.

Strengths:
build,detailed,lifelike and real presentation without any artificial sweetness created by rolling off highs(remember old alfa series of arcam cdp)

Weaknesses:
initially it may pu spoil the mood by being very very brash, non coherent and upfront. see the out come after at least 70 to 80 houres of burning in , not continious though. sometimes open close/ button response is slow. transport intially noisy. dont go for amp on bright side.( i am using it with marantz pm7001)

Similar Products Used:
onkyo liverpool