Cambridge Audio AX-R85 - FM/AM Stereo Receiver

The AXR85 boasts 85 watts of power, a built-in phono stage for connecting record players with Moving Magnet cartridges, a front panel 3.5mm input for iPod/MP3 players, built-in FM/AM radio with RDS and 30 presets, and four analog inputs for connecting all your music, AV and audio sources. In addition, the built-in Bluetooth receiver allows you to stream your favorite music from your smartphone, tablet, or PC.

Warranty:

1-year manufacturer's warranty

Features:

• Built-in FM/AM radio with RDS and 30 presets and four analog inputs for connecting all your music, AV, and audio sources.
• Built-in Bluetooth receiver allows you to stream your favorite music from your smartphone.
• The AXR85 boasts 85 watts of power.
• A front panel 3.5mm input for iPod/MP3 players.

Video Review:

Every single piece of Cambridge Audio equipment is designed and engineered at their facility in the UK. Cambridge has a very long-lasting relationship with an Asian manufacturer where all of their gear has been assembled for the past 20+ years, ensuring very consistent results.

Flipping around to the back of the AXR85 or AXR100, you’ll see something we don’t normally find in receivers in this price range, very nice speaker binding posts! Normally you get those cheap push pin connections for this price level, but Cambridge Audio gives you a connector that will make for a tight fit for your speaker cable and there are even two for A or B speakers.

Both models give you three analog inputs and a moving magnet phono stage input. One of our favorite phono preamps for the money is the Cambridge Audio Solo and you can tell a lot of its great sound made it inside the AXR85 and AXR100. If you are going really old school with a reel-to-reel or cassette tape recorder, you’ll even find a set of tape outputs to feed the signal over to your tape recorder!

The AXR85 and AXR100 both have a subwoofer output. While it's great to see this on a stereo receiver, we do have a little bit of a gripe about how they implemented it. The crossover point is set to 200 Hz. It does not appear to cut the bass going to your main speakers, and if it did cut at 200 Hz, that is way too high in our opinion. We would have preferred more adjustments like you would find on a home theater receiver.

Technical Specifications: