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Butuz
25-05-2011, 22:37
What a great little amp!!!

Just spent the evening listening to one. Very enjoyable evening. Despite the ultra cheap looking (original I think) DIN > RCA lead. WHo says interconnects matter huh? :D

You could quite happily leave this with me as my main amp and take the other stuff away and once I'd swallowed a little bit of sick back down and put some CDs on I would probably be quite a happy chappy!

Butuz

DSJR
26-05-2011, 06:46
HiFi Dave and I sold very many over the years and it was this which replaced the (by now) far more expensive A&R A60.

Rare Bird
26-05-2011, 10:43
When they first came out in the early 80's they were about hundred quid, my 'A60' cost me around double that..I liked both of em, but the 'A60' was always the fav for me.It's only when you revist these amps with fresh ears that you realise how blody good they actually were.The simularity was they both had speaker switching..

Macca
26-05-2011, 11:43
Yes I've had both and preferred the A60 although they are both good - the 4040 always sounded a bit thick and over-rich for me

Butuz
26-05-2011, 12:03
Yes slightly thick is a good way of putting it. Still, considering they go for £20 to £40 odd on ebay I cant see you getting a better sound for under £100?

Butuz

Macca
26-05-2011, 12:07
I sold mine for £50 I think, that would be about 1993. Replaced it with a Denon that was less bassy but a lot more open sounding. At £40 in today's money they are a bargain - just not a good match with warm sounding speakers and sources

JazzBones
26-05-2011, 16:41
Yo Butuz,
I use the 4040 intergrated amp in my second system cubby hole office, this is driving wall suspended Linn Kan 1s and I also have my PC sound card hooked up for digital and a LP12 for record duties :eek:. Its a great little amp and about two years ago I aquired, via the bay, the matching FM stereo tuner CAS 3140, this little combo sings. CDs are played via a Maratntz 65II SE as transport through a Cambridge Dacmagic with Russ Andrews PSU. So in my 'pinny' you've got yourself a little ripper mate.
:thumbsup:

Ron

DSJR
26-05-2011, 16:57
The earliest 4040's weren't hugely reliable and one of the mid 80's service recommendations was a full update to the circuit, which our resident engineer in London did to an excellent standard. This mod required a third of the circuit to be removed and different transistors to be fitted here and there. I thought the sound a lot less floppy after and in fact the 4140 amp took this further, with a very clean and tidy yet musical sound. We sold plenty of 4140's too.

The A60 changed a bit in its time as well, although not as drastically. Pricing was against it and by the end of its life, the two founding directors had split, one of them going to NAD as designer for a while before starting Myryad. The early Myryad integrateds as well as the first of the current series NAD's (C320 I think from memory) had a very "A60" kind of musical "flow" to them and we loved the MI-120 very much. Looked great too.

As for the A60, it sort of changed into the Delta 60, which wasn't as "friendly" sounding (probably needed slugging with Audioquest cables), but was a godsend for the late 90's Linn "Rhythm Kings" to pound their feet to the over-blown rhythmic noises their (by then) terrible stereos made.....

hifi_dave
26-05-2011, 18:58
You must have been unlucky with the faults, as far as I can recall, we never had a faulty one.

Lovely little amps and amazing value. I remember telling John Dawson ( A&R/Arcam ) back then, about the 4040. 'Can't be done for the money' he said, 'you can't even buy in the parts for that'...:lolsign:

DSJR
26-05-2011, 19:02
Yeah, but you and "us" were buying them by the two dozen I seem to remember and both of us had Saturday personal deliveries of fresh stock.

Ah, them were the days. What's gone wrong since? (answers on a pin-head...)

Rare Bird
26-05-2011, 19:08
:lolsign:

hifi_dave
26-05-2011, 19:20
Mike Creek used to drop off ten or a dozen 4040's every Saturday morning and often, we would phone him in the afternoon for a 'few more please'.

Those were the days indeed..:wheniwasaboy:

I've been longing to use that smilie.

Butuz
26-05-2011, 19:23
Glad to have brought back some good memories for you guys :)

Butuz

Rare Bird
26-05-2011, 19:28
What a great little amp!!!

Just spent the evening listening to one. Very enjoyable evening. Despite the ultra cheap looking (original I think) DIN > RCA lead. WHo says interconnects matter huh? :D



If you have Dins it's a S1.

Correct me anyone if i'm wrang

S1: White lettering on facia, captive mains lead, 5 pin Dins (Phono's for turntable). No dedicated CD input.. Chassis mount Speaker outputs..

S2: Green lettering on facia, captive mains lead, all phono sockets,CD input, PCB mounted 4mm speaker output sockets

S3: Green lettering on facia, IEC mian inlet, PCB mounted 4mm speaker output sockets the same

S2 & S3 should say so by the side of the facia model number

hifi_dave
26-05-2011, 19:56
You are correct. The Mk.1 was all DIN but none the worse for that.

camtwister
26-05-2011, 22:14
From the Creek Audio website:

"By 1985 Creek Audio was selling up to 1200 CAS4040 amplifiers and 350 CAS3040 tuners per month."

For the price of a round of ale, I bought a 3040 a year or so ago. One of the best purchases I've ever made for anything, not just audio equipment, on a performance per pound basis.

JazzBones
27-05-2011, 14:19
When I took my Creek CAS 3140 stereo tuner to Mike Creek a couple of years ago I told him that I had one of his 4040s still going strong. He smiled at me wryly and said, 'I shouldn't have built them so well' ;). Mike's latest top of the pile Intergrated is a real good'un and I'm sorely tempted to go the intergrated route with this one but have just spent a bundle with Avondale mods to my Naims but I'll keep my eye on one coming up second hand but I can't see this happening too soon,

Ron