Hi!
As people know I'm very interested in Digital Radio or DAB+, that's the
name of the Digital Radio protocol we use here.
Unfortunately in Australia there are very few good quality Digital Radio
sets available on the market these days and that's a real shame as
there's some great sound to be heard through Digital Radio if you have
the right equipment and the sound is even better when you have a Hi-Fi
setup customised to your specifications which brings us to the subject
of Hi-Fi Digital Radio Tuners capable of receiving DAB or DAB+.
I have been using a Yamaha TD500 DAB+ tuner for well over 3 years now
and I've been happy with the performance this tuner however I've
continued hearing whispers about the Cambridge 650T DAB/DAB+ tuner so
when the opportunity arose to get hold of one I did and I certainly
wasn't disappointed.
Right out of the box I knew I had a piece of gear or was it a
battleship? The Tuner is certainly built like a battleship.
Next there are the buttons on the front panel, easily identifiable but
not intrusively so as they're indented slightly into the panel, well the
main function buttons are, the memory buttons stick out a little and
they're identified separately from the function buttons by their smaller
size.
The rear panel of the tuner had me confused for a little while, why all
these sockets? There's something here for everyone whether you're using
the tuner with just an analogue set of speakers, whether you're using a
full digital system or whether you're using something entirely different.
Users of DAC's are well catered for with two separate digital outputs -
optical toslink and coax digital -. Users of analogue devices will
appreciate the gold plated RCA analogue line out which in tern connects
to a high quality Wolfson DAB.
The 650T also includes FM and Medium Wave bands and has 3 separate
antenna connections to prove it, one for each band. The Cambridge Audio
web site claims that this tuner indeed has 3 separate tuner circuts.
Even people reading this in the U.S. will find this tuner of interest,
there's a set of line-in RCA jacks next to a 3.5MM jack for a Serious
Radio modual and I can only wish we had that system here in Australia.
Then there's a RS232 9 Pin serial socket for programming and customising
the tuner, again full details of how to program the tuner are given on
the Cambridge Audio web site and its something I'm going to look into
myself. I suspect this socket also facilitates inter connection between
other Cambridge Audio components.
So to the performance of the tuner which amazed me from the moment I
turned on the power and selected the DAB+ band, scanning was done quite
quickly - in less than 60 seconds - and at that stage I hadn't even
mounted the supplied DAB+ wire antenna in its proper verticle angle.
This alone is incredible as - in theory - I live out of the DAB+
coverage area for Melbourne and it often takes a little fiddling around
with these wire antennas to pull the signal in - this was my past
experience with the Yamaha - but not so with this bbeast from Cambridge
Audio.
The next point I wanted to settle was just how good the analogue RCA
jacks sounded though I need not have worried, they sound even better
than the RCA analogue output jacks from my existing Yamaha tuners and
the difference is very obvious. I've hardly ever used the analogue
outputs of the Yamaha, having a good Rotel DAC I've always preferred
digital connection but if people don't have a DAC then the analogue
outputs of the Cambridge certainly won't disappoint.
I compared the Analogue and Digital outputs of the Cambridge and came
away shaking my head and feeling both elated and pleasantly surprised as
there's very little difference I can hear between them whereas the
difference between the Yamaha's Digital and Analogue outputs is a litte
more obvious.
So back to the functions of the Cambridge Tuner and there are literally
dozens of them so I've decided to only concentrate on a few.
Moveing from DAB+ station to station is done with the up/down buttons so
you press say the up button to move up the list, the tuner hesitates for
a second before automatically jumping in the up direction to the next
available station. This behaviour can be changed if so desired, you can
set the tuner so - when the up or down buttons are pressed - nothing
happens until the select button is pressed but I much prefer the default
method as its more like a traditional FM/AM digitally controlled radio.
On FM and AM the up and down buttons move between frequency's with no
muting hwich is a most welcome change.
The tuner has 60 memory presets in all, 20 per band and they are easily set.
A remote control unit is provided with the 650T though I've not tackled
this yet but will write further notes on it as time goes on.
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Those who don't need help are prepared to help themselves
