Cambridge Audio Cxc Review

The Cambridge Audio CXC is a CD transport rather than a CD player, which means it does the vital work of reading the information held on a compact disc, but doesn’t waste its effort in turning that digital signal into an analogue output. You’ll need a separate DAC for that second job. 

As with many pieces of standalone hi-fi kit, the theory goes that using separate pieces of kit to do individual jobs will almost always provide a superior sound. This, it seems, is the case with the Cambridge Audio CXC.

We first reviewed this CXC transport when it originally launched in 2015, and it scooped up a five-star review and a 2015 What Hi-Fi? Award win for Best CD transport under £500. Almost ten years since then, the CXC is still in production and still recommendable. We have updated our original review to reflect the current price, and listened to the CXC with new pairings and made comparisons with newer models.

Price

When the Cambridge Audio CXC was originally launched in 2015, it came with a very sensible £300 price tag. We don’t need to tell you that the price of all hi-fi components has risen in the intervening years, but it’s a testament to the CXC’s quality and longevity that the brand is still finding it fit to keep the model in production, even nearly ten years on.

In 2024, the CXC’s price now sits at £499 – it’s not quite budget proposition anymore, but that rise is in line with the rest of the CX range’s price increases. Cambridge Audio does offer more affordable CD players now at £279 (AXC25) and £349 (AXC35), but this original CXC transport remains a mainstay of the current mid-price CX range. You can also find decent discounts on the CXC during the annual Black Friday sales.

Build & features

The CXC is a nicely made piece of equipment, with the machined metal chassis feeling every penny of its asking price. The lunar grey finish and minimal styling of the CXC are built to match the rest of Cambridge Audio’s impressive CX range, so you can stack the CXC with the CXA61 (or CXA81) stereo amplifiers or the CXN (V2) or CXN100 music streamers with it all looking uniform on your hi-fi rack.

On the unit itself, you’ll find buttons for basic playback controls, all of which work responsively when pressed. The disc drive operates with barely a noisy whirr and the action is super smooth. The simple display screen is clear and easy enough to read from a distance. This is a minimal, fuss-free player.

As well as looking good, the CXC has decent components inside, including the single-speed transport and proprietary S3 Servo disc drive that it shares with Cambridge Audio’s higher-end Azur 851C (£1200) CD player. These components are designed to retrieve digital information from the disc with accuracy and deliver error-free signal playback to the connected DAC. The CXC also features gapless playback.

The rear of the unit is even more minimalist: there are two digital outputs – one coaxial and one optical – for connecting to an external amplifier or DAC. There are control bus connections to link the CXC with other members of the CX family, so you can control the entire system with the same remote.