Enjoy a Real Taste of Audiophile Purism
With the massive popularity of computer-based music, it’s too easy to overlook the pleasures of an exceptionally built CD player. The Cambridge 351C is just such a beast, and its performance will remind you why compact discs are still the perfect medium for high fidelity music.
Although an off-the-shelf CD/DVD-ROM drive might be fine for your computer, if you're really serious about extracting every last detail from your discs, you need a CD player that's been designed to do one thing only and do it perfectly: to play audio CDs. The Cambridge Audio Azur 351C is just that player. It offers a real taste of audiophile purism, but without the high-end price tag to go with it.
"Digs Up Plenty of Detail"
"The 351C's sound character mirrors that of its partnering amplifier. There's the same overt clarity, and the ability to dig up plenty of detail. The leading and trail edges of notes are rendered with precision and there's no shortage of speed or articulation," notes the November 2012 issue of England's What Hi-fi? magazine.
"This is a rather special combination from Cambridge Audio and all credit is due to its designers for delivering so much music at so reasonable a price," reports the December 2012 issue of England's Gramophone magazine.
The 351C features a host of top grade components, including the company's house-designed, audio-only CD transport which is coupled to Cambridge Audio's third generation proprietary S3 servo solution. Explaining how it works is akin to rocket science. But anyone who loves music, cannot fail to be moved by the way it sucks data from discs, processes it with incredibly low distortion and most importantly, delivers amazingly dynamic sound to your ears.
Warm, Yet Incredibly Detailed
The 351C carries over the latest Wolfson WM8728 DAC from its award-winning predecessor. But the whole design has been subtly retuned for an even richer performance and sensational levels of detail from music of all types.
The Wolfson WM8728 DAC is coupled to a two-pole Sallen-Key Butterworth filter topology. This complex sounding component selection is key to the 351C's warm, fluid performance and its measurable purity and detail. Furthermore, a highly accurate master clock oscillator and impedance-matched clock buffering schemes further contribute to the amount of data it is possible to extract from a CD.
All PCBs and DAC stages feature double-sided surface mount technology, eliminating wire links and giving ultra short signal paths. And like its integrated amplifier partner, the Azur 351A, this amazing CD player also benefits from a superior toroidal transformer, which offers much less noise and distortion than the lower cost laminate transformers that are commonplace among the competition. Standby power consumption is an eco-friendly <1W.
Wrap-around Excellence
The wrap-around casework design incorporates a substantially thick brushed aluminum front panel and dual layer damped feet, giving enhanced resonance control. The 351C is supplied with an Azur remote handset, which also controls Azur amplifiers and iPod/iPhone docks, including Cambridge Audio iD100, iD50 and iD10. | 
