Cambridge Audio Edge A
▪ Integrated amplifier
▪ £4499
“Cambridge could have gone for a stripped-out purist design for the Edge A, but that just isn’t its style”
What does Cambridge Audio do to celebrate its 50th birthday? It makes a high-end integrated amplifier such as the Edge A, alongside a similarly ambitious streaming preamplifier and matching power amp.
We’ve already covered the excellent Edge NQ streamer (£3499) and Edge W power amp (£2499), but this integrated had eluded us until now. We’re glad we managed to get hold of it – the Edge A turns out to be a superb performer.
If the idea of Cambridge Audio making a £4500 integrated amplifier surprises you, it really shouldn’t. The company was founded on premium products and, in the mid-1980s, built one of the most expensive CD players on the market, the two-box CD1 – it cost £1500 at a time when most premium machines sold for a third of that.
Within a decade, budget hi-fi formed the bulk of the company’s output
