I purchased the CA CXA80 in September 2019 from an independent electronics business in North Carolina. The sound is impeccable!! I’ve tried to find reasons why I might have not purchased the right amp for myself, but I can’t. This is actually my first “high end” piece of stereo equipment and I’m 58. I purchased this model because of online reviews and I did have a budget. One year later I must say I definitely made the right choice. I’m sure there are other brands out there that can compete with it, but I’m satisfied. The soundstage is absolutely beautiful! The build and beauty of this amp is also impeccable! All the inputs plus being able to run 2 pair of speakers at 120W at 4 ohms is fantastic! Due to contrary belief, the remote doesn’t have upside down or backwards arrows. It has an incline and decline for volume control.

I bought the unit In August 2020, so excited to finally get this as my brother had rave reviews. It is an expensive unit so it was doubly special to me as a huge music lover. Picked this up from a dealer about 1.5 hours away from me.
Unfortunately, as soon as i completed all the connections, i realized one of the speaker terminals did not work. Switching speaker wires worked for a couple until the same set of terminals started to malfunction. This time switched speakers and again worked for a few weeks. Then a gradual hum on the same speaker terminal and now no longer works. I have checked the speaker against another cambrige unit - works great, check the wires against the same other unit, also works great.

So how am i to get this fixed? drive 3 hrs round trip to the dealer? I am really hoping i did not spend thousands of dollars on a lemon.

When my 20+ year old Audiolab 8000A finally bit the dust I decided on Cambridge CXA80 (along with their CXC CD transport) for another couple decades of listening. As many other positive reviews written after weeks or months of their purchase the sound quality didn't disappoint.

But trouble began about 9 months ago when the amp would mute itself in a random fashion. Since I couldn't reliably replicate the issue I didn't contact their customer service right away. Now it has graduated to having only the left channel active when powered on and the right channel may or may not come on a few minutes later. When both channels are working, changing input source or muting the unit can deactivate the right channel again.

I was hoping this amplifier would be the bedrock for me to continue to build my stereophile system upon for years to come. I can't even being to describe my disappointment and frustration on the lack of reliability and poor electronics of this device after only 3 years of ownership. Shame, as the architecture and sound are very good when it's working.

An overhyped underperformer. Poor definition in the mid-to-high range lacking openness and vitality. Buy if you like but you’ll likely wish you hadn’t, just as I have.

Overhyped, overpriced products that never fail to underperform, I bought a CXN V2 to pair with the CXA 80 and got rid of it shortly afterwards. A £20 google chromecast dongle did exactly the same job in terms of music quality. That sums this up perfectly.