page_title: Cambridge Audio
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Cambridge Audio / Company history / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Cambridge Audio P40
context_page_description: Cambridge Audio is a British manufacturer of high-end audio equipment.
  As the name suggests, it has its origins in Cambridge, England where in the early 1960s a group of young technology graduates established a high-technology R&D and prototyping business: Cambridge Consultants.
context_section_description: Cambridge Audio began life as a division of Cambridge Consultants in 1968. The company's first product was the 2 × 20W P40 integrated amplifier, which was created by a team that included Gordon Edge and Peter Lee. In addition to an advanced technical specification the P40 had a slim case design by Roy Gray, from Woodhuysen Design. 
   The P40 would also make history as the first amplifier to use a toroidal transformer, which would go on to be a standard component inside virtually every high-end amplifier produced since.
  Cambridge Audio became a standalone business from the group when a new company, Cambridge Audio Laboratories Ltd, was formed, operating from extensive premises alongside the old Enderby's Mill in St. Ives, Cambridge. The P40 was an immediate success, but would prove difficult to manufacture in any volume, a problem that would be resolved in 1970 with the introduction of the new 2 × 25W P50 model, which was a very similar product with regards to both circuit design and appearance, but had been engineered for mass production. Despite strong sales and rapid growth, the company required increased investment and so was sold in 1971 to Colin Hammond of CE Hammond & Co Ltd – then a very successful distributor of Revox tape recorders and other audio products in the UK, Canada and the USA.
  A new company, Cambridge Audio Ltd, was formed, with leading UK electrical engineer Stan Curtis joining as the organisation's technical director. The St. Ives factory was extensive and at its peak employed more than 300 people. Most of the required components were made under one roof including the circuit boards and the aluminium cases. All transistors were made to CA's specification and even carried the company's own part numbers. Every product was extensively tested after manufacture and a printed certificate was produced for every individual unit detailing the actual measured performance results.
caption: Cambridge Audio P40
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