I've had cause to be critical of Cambridge Audio's products reliability in the past and have used this forum to vent my spleen.

Well in fairness to their exclusive distributors I took back my Azur 640 CD (Version 1). I asked whether I could bring it back and replace with a Version 2 (and get my trapped CD back)?

The chap I dealt with made no effort to make life difficult for me and said he'd change it no problem and save a player for me.

I brought my broken player back and got it changed without a problem.

Although it was under warranty, they weren't obliged to give me the new version. They also gave me a renewed three year warranty from the date of the replacement.

They're often slagged off, but in this instance despite dissapointment over the reliability, they did very well.

I'll post a members review of the Azur 640C version 2 soon.

Hi Patrick, I'll back you up on that. I know Cambridge Audio aren't perhaps seen as the creme de la creme of hifi but my trusty old CD5 has actually served me very well. It must be three years old now and so far I haven't had any problems, well, apart from a couple of CDs refusing to play on it (even though they work on every other system in the house).

Certainly be interested to read about the 640 v.2 - heard a load of good things about the Azur models in the past year or so.