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"Gets Off On The Right Foot and Never Falters" - Home Theater Magazine
Big Sounding, Feature Packed, Compact AV Receiver
As TVs become almost impossibly thin, there’s never been a better time for a home theater receiver that sounds big and dimensional – but is also simple to use. Music is at the heart of every product that Cambridge Audio creates, and the all new Azur 551R AV receiver delivers sound that’s as epic as the picture quality from your movies, music, and TV shows.
Delivering truly great sound as well as all the latest processing features is the ultimate test of any home theater receiver. The ability to reproduce music with striking richness and authority is what really separates the 551R from the competition. With 100-watts-per-channel x 7 channels at 6 ohms, the 551R delivers movie soundtracks, TV, and music with power, punch, and superb dynamics.
"The Azur 551R is the kind of receiver that gets off on the right foot and never falters," reports Mark Fleischmann in Home Theater magazine for August 2012. "If you want a closer relationship with music and movies… this AVR will take you to the heights."
Pure Analog Stereo Direct mode allows audiophile playback of analog stereo sources. Individual crossovers and Advanced Bass Management optimize audio performance. Carefully designed tone controls let you sculpt the bass and treble without affecting the critical midrange. The onboard AM/FM tuner offers both sensitivity and selectivity to bring the best performance to your favorite stations.
Seven Discrete Amplifiers
Seven discrete amplifiers driven by a low-flux toroidal transformer are separated from the processing and input stages to guarantee performance without compromise. And because typical set-ups now include a multitude of sources with digital audio connections, Cambridge Audio has paid special attention to the 551R’s digital-to-analog conversion process. This receiver will maximize the audio potential of every connected digital device such as Blu-ray players, satellite boxes, iPod docks, games consoles, and more.
Processing Tour de Force
While musical performance is at the heart of the 551R, it also offers all the latest audio processing technologies, including Cirrus Logic DSPs, which support the latest CODECs like Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. A Faroudja 1080p video scaler vastly improves performance from lower resolution TV broadcasts and DVDs as well as transcoding analog video inputs to the digital domain for simpler and neater connection to the TV using just one HDMI cable. Scaler bypass mode lets you engage or disengage video scaling for each input as desired.
Connectivity Galore
In terms of connectivity, the 551R boasts four HMDI inputs and a single HDMI output which fully supports 3DTV/Deep Color pass-through and Audio Return from newer digital TVs. It also features a wide selection of analog video connections (ready for transcoding), four digital audio connections, and a total of six analogue audio inputs.
The 551R also includes a host of processing and adjustment features to get the most from every multi-channel movie soundtrack. These include full individual crossover adjustment and bass management, lip sync adjustment, and Dolby Dynamic range control. DTS Speaker re-mapping allows the playback of DTS-HD High Resolution or Master Audio formats with encoded height information on standard 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 speaker setups.
Easy Set-up and Operation
Home theater receivers can be complex to operate, but the 551R has been designed to ensure simple set-up and ease of use for the whole family. Cambridge Audio’s Microphone Controlled Auto Set-up (CAMCAS) tailors the 551R’s performance to any room and comes complete with a microphone to complete this simple procedure. Day-to-day operation is equally straightforward from either the clear front panel controls or the supplied remote.
Clever Cooling and Compact Design
One of the most surprising feature of the 551R is its diminutive size, which is made possible via a unique cooling design system called X-Tract™. A perfectly balanced combination of forced cooling and natural convection effectively draws heat away from the substantial transformer and output stages. This allows the 551R to operate extremely quietly and at a low temperature. It also enables a more compact enclosure than would normally be possible for such a powerful receiver.
Like all of Cambridge Audio's products, the 551R was created at Cambridge Audio’s Research and Development Centre on London’s Southbank by a team with an uncontested passion for making music sound sensational. | 
