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Cinderella's benevolent ugly sister, the Yamaha CR 2040. A true Sumo of Japanese audio manufacturing. At 16 I worked in a specialist hi-fi shop and developed a strange affinity with this immovable piece of audio art. I saved up my earnings and after a year's service proudly took it home. It opened my ears to music in another dimension. Emotionally captivating, deep, solid and cringingly dynamic in depth, sustain and soundstage. Unnervingly natural, the stealth like power belies the claimed 140w RMS @8hms. It leaps from nowhere like a Ninja; driving B&W801's to the verge of tightness and rocking the boots off 802's. It has the ability to covert the mundane into musical marvellousness - nay mysticism. Comprehensively designed in technical terms yet obtuse in forms as if the engineer was running out of paper for ideas and simply decided to add these in to an extra 40cm of shelf space regardless of appearance. Perfromance was clearly the priority here and undobtably - a close 2nd to the M2, Yamaha's finest Receiver. Bearing a mass of monster mosfets and (in)adequate aluminium heat sinkage enough to fry a dozen burrito's on it gets proper hot. After an 8 hour house party, the metal grate cover had actually melted. Like flanged. Following morning to the sound of Fleetwood Mac's Rumour's - I shall ver forget that moment. The sound, the resurrection. The unbelievable construction anf tested indestructability. From day 1 (its/her/his) power lashed out an authorative, controlled and accurate performance. The revelation than transistors might equal tubes crashed in to me. On reflection the CR-2040 could only ever be a she. A true battleship and a worthy candidate for audio product of the century. And prettier, at least to my ears, than Cinderella.
Floydo
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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