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Cambridge Audio Edge
Cambridge Audio celebrates its 50th anniversary with the introduction of Edge, a flagship hi-fi system that introduces a new standard for sound and design from the company. The new series builds on Cambridge Audio's driving principles of creating products that bring the 'Great British Sound' - a pure, unfiltered audio experience - into the home, offering the company's most accomplished system to date, says the release.
Five decades of engineering expertise has inspired the development of Edge, which features some of Cambridge Audio's most innovative audio engineering to date. The new series is named for Professor Gordon Edge, one of Cambridge Audio's founders, an entrepreneurial force of the Cambridge technology cluster and inventor of the company's first product, the P40 integrated amplifier. The P40 broke the mold, pioneering the use of toroidal transformers in amplifiers when compared to similar products using EI transformers. The Edge series will be available from June and will consist of three units - Edge A integrated amplifier, Edge NQ preamplifier with network player and Edge W power amplifier.
The separate units that make up the Edge series are connected by a shared engineering and design philosophy. Firstly, components within Edge were chosen for their sonic merit alone. Price, specs, measurements and other factors were all disregarded in favor of what genuinely sounds best. Secondly, Cambridge Audio's engineers were fanatical in their efforts to keep the signal path short. Doing so has ensured the final sound is as pure and unfiltered as possible, staying true to the source. Finally, says Cambridge Audio, it was imperative Edge featured a beautifully simple exterior.
Cambridge Audio's proprietary streaming platform, StreamMagic, has provided the brains for their network players since 2011. The platform has been updated for Edge and allows playback from virtually any digital source - AirPlay, Chromecast built-in, UPnP, ARC (Audio Return Channel), USB, S/PDIF, Spotify Connect and more. Cambridge Audio removed conventional capacitors from the printed circuit boards in Edge, replacing them with a DC coupled topology which is designed to reduce distortion. A solid-state volume control is there to aid with balance. Across the Edge series, Cambridge Audio have endeavored to keep the signal path - the components between the music source and output – as short as possible. In the case of Edge W, there are only 14 components in the signal path, where similar products might have 30-40.
“Edge has been a project of passion for Cambridge Audio. With our 50th anniversary approaching, we saw an opportunity to push the boundaries of our abilities to create something truly unique, something truly inspirational. We removed all limitations during the development of Edge - anything goes so long as it's in pursuit of the best system we've ever made. The results speak for themselves. Edge is sublime." - said Stuart George, Managing Director at Cambridge Audio. The Edge A integrated amplifier will cost around £4,500, the Edge NQ will be around £3,500 and the Edge W has an estimated retail of £2,500. Info and photos by Cambridge Audio.
