– CXN100 - Separate High Resolution WiFi Network Audio Player, Streamer and Pre Amp with Display Featuring Chromecast Built-In, Internet Radio and SABRE Reference DAC - Lunar Grey

This is a really good streamer. The sound is full, precise and detailed. Left me feeling that if this is so good what must the Edge be like. Cambridge stuff has always been good value for money but to my mind has felt a bit uninspiring. It did a job and it did that job well and was the first rung in real “Hi Fi”. This unit can more than keep up with some serious Hi Fi and for the price is a real bargain. I plugged the unit into my network and it picked up my NAS, qobuz and loads of internet radio stations without any messing about. It worked with my Macbook, iphone and anything else I tried it with. Fantastic sound quality from the DAC and plenty of inputs and outputs. If I had one niggle it would be that I think that the software “stream Magic” could be a bit better. I would like to see the quality of the streaming source (a bit like their old software app) on screen, but I suppose I can’t have everything. If I were told that this was a loss leader and Cambridge made no money from this unit, I would believe it.

There is always a place for digital music even in the world of an analog freak like myself. So I wanted to stream TIDAL through my hi-fi because number one it’s handy for listening to albums that I’ve never heard before and am considering buying on vinyl and secondly those rare times when one is happy to cherry pick songs such as when friends or family are around. Because digital is purely secondary to me I wasn’t prepared to go to hi-fi shops for demos so when I saw that Amazon did a Streamer by Cambridge audio then it was a no brainer, the name speaks for itself. My video shows you how easy it is to use, in this case I am using TIDAL running on AppleTV as my user interface but it is just as easy to play from an iPhone for example. I am very pleased with this and wholly recommend this item.

A Great bit of kit with fast delivery

I took a lot of time to settle on which streamer to get, I finally settled on the CXN V2. It’s connected to my hifi and performs superbly. Setup was easy, but a bit surprised there was no registration card, not the usual plethora of safety leaflets. The instructions are primarily non language diagrams, it’s not complicated for my current set up, power in, RCA out. The screen is very clean, very crisp, and looks great. Setup using StreamMagic was very easy, but the app is a bit plain, it could use a design refresh. Connecting to Tidal was very simple, it just connects up. I’ve connected mine to the Power Amp part of my integrated Amp,ifier (Technics SU-V560), this bypasses the Bass and Treble circuits, the sound is bright, lively, clear, and engaging, I barely had to move the volume knob on the amp to fill the room with sound. I’m delighted with it. I did break from my black theme of components, the unit colour is called Lunar Grey, it does not look out of place or clash. One consideration is that this unit does not handle MQA, in Tidal that is their Tidal Master quality. But to be honest I can’t tell the difference, but I’m old, my room is not an anechoic chamber, there is furniture, etc. Would I recommend one? Yes. Would I say save up and get the Edge 75/150? No, unless you’ve a special room, have incredible hearing, then the CXN V2 will meet and exceed your needs, and it’s a lot less than the Edge. Compared to the Azur, personal preference and budget.

The product appeared to fulfil my requirements exactly. It appeared to be well made and fitted my hi-go set-up. I removed it from its packaging and installed it. I then tried to get my I-phone to recognise the new unit. After four hours during which I followed the set-up procedure, often repeating actions such a re-booting my hub, removing and reinstalling the app. It eventually worked. I was pleased with the result. The sound quality was excellent and my preferred radio stations were easy to find. The next day all went well. However, later in the day it stopped working. The app could not ‘see’ the unit. I continued to try. The AI help system from Cambridge Audio was useless, merely telling me to carry out actions I had tried several times before. I could not find a telephone number for help. I gave up and put the unit into its packaging and sent it back otherwise I would just have had an £899 pile of electronic scrap. I am sure I could have made it work someone had been able to talk me through it but such help was not available.

I decided to buy this as I wanted to replace my CD player with a streamer. Having read numerous reviews, I decided to go ahead. I have been so very impressed with the sound quality whilst streaming Tidal and Qobuz. The set-up is straightforward and the Cambridge StreamMagic app makes communication so easy for both my streaming services and literally thousands of radio stations. I cannot offer enough praise for this brilliant piece of equipment.

After using the CXN for a week, it seems a pretty well made and useful addition to my audio set-up. My main usage is to keep a large part of my music collection on a 256Gb USB stick, in high quality formats and play the files from the USB. The small screen in will display an image of the album art and info, but it doesn’t pull the image from the music file, but looks for a Folder.Jpg file, like an old style iPod or other music player. A nice feature that is mainly useful for ease it gives in selecting an album in the app. As long as you are using the StreamMagic app, selecting USB music and other inputs works great. I have the app on both my Android phone and iPad and it works well on them. The remote that Cambridge give you has the buttons too tightly packed for my tastes, I suggest the use of a universal remote instead. OTOH, a lot of the functions will require the use of the app for ease of use. I live in an area of poor radio reception, so the internet radio feature is a nice to have feature. The app enables lots of stations to be preset, but the remote control only gives you 8 preset buttons, which I found a bit odd. I’ve only streamed music from Spotify and that seems to basically stream from my iPad and just use the device’s DAC to “up-scale”. It sounds OK, but then I never had any issue doing the same thing with just a Bluetooth receiver plugged into the amplifier. However, I’m not a big Spotify user, so your mileage may vary. Chrome cast and Apple air play are also included, which are handy for listening to podcasts. I’ve found that air play seems to be easier to use, Chromecast gives me a few more issues getting the connection going at times, OTOH it’s supposedly a slightly higher quality stream. A Bluetooth adapter is available from Cambridge, but at an extra £85 I’m not interested. There’s the expected connections available at the back. All in all it’s a nice unit, but I feel it is a bit over priced, hence I knocked a star off. Edit after 6 weeks usage: I'm still pretty happy with the CXN, my only additional observation would be the remote control / system's IR receiver needs to be improved, even from under 2 meters away I have to do multiple button presses at times to get the menu to change, you're going to be using the App for most things. The App isn't bad, but don't expect the remote to be of much use for real control. OTOH, when I plug in an AptX Bluetooth sender into my system I can sit in the garden and listen to my main Hi-Fi on Bluetooth headphones while selecting music from the comfort of my garden chair, so that's the App for the win!

Cambridge CXN v2. First of all I can't think of anything to dislike about the CXN v2. The sound quality is superb, I was indecisive for a long time deciding whether to buy this or not, I'm glad I did, I already had the Cambridge axr100 stereo receiver and axc35 compact disc player which also sound superb, the cd player also sounds better connected via the digital input of the CXN v2, every instrument you hear is reproduced very convincingly and separately from each other, it's also easy to distinguish between each instrument, I've even started to listen to some cd's again that have been shoved to the back of the shelf, this system really stirs the emotions and gets you're feet tapping. The CXN v2 really is a excellent bit of kit, if you are indecisive like I was I hope this helps you make your mind up, you won't regret it,