Nearly Fifty Years of British Amplification
The letter “A” in ARCAM has always stood for amplification. The story opens in 1976 with the A&R Cambridge A60, and the ARCAM A5+ arrives as the most recent chapter in that line — a Radia-series integrated stereo amplifier built on everything the engineering team learned from the award-winning ARCAM Radia A5, then carried further. An enhanced power supply design and a considerably broader wireless specification separate the newer amplifier from the original, without disturbing the character that earned the range recognition in the first place.
Fifty Watts, Judged by Ear
ARCAM Class AB amplification supplies 50 watts per channel, and the number undersells what the arrangement achieves in a room. Standmount loudspeakers gain composure. Compact floorstanders open up rather than merely play. What registers is space — the impression that a familiar recording has more air around each instrument than memory suggested, and that the quiet passages stay genuinely quiet.
Where the ARCAM Radia A5 earned praise for poise, the ARCAM A5+ adds grip: the confidence to hold a rhythm section together as the volume rises. A pre-amplifier output keeps future ambitions open, whether that means an active subwoofer or separate power amplification in years to come.
One Converter for Every Digital Source
Coaxial and optical inputs bring a television, streamer or disc player into the ARCAM A5+ integrated amplifier, and every digital signal passes through the same ESS ES9018K2M converter chosen for the whole Radia Plus range. One converter, selected with care, rather than a scattering of adequate ones — the approach shows in how evenly the amplifier treats each source, from broadcast sound to a carefully mastered album.
Vinyl Without a Second Box
A moving magnet phono stage is built in and taken as seriously as the line inputs — voiced by ear against real records rather than signed off from the measurement rig alone. A turntable connects directly, the ground lead finds a dedicated earth post, and an integrated amplifier with phono stage removes an entire component, an interconnect and a mains socket from the plan. What remains is the record, delivered with the pace and body that keep the format irresistible.
Wireless That Earns a Place Here
Most people meet a hi-fi amplifier with Bluetooth expecting a trade: convenience purchased at the cost of resolution. The ARCAM A5+ was engineered to refuse those terms. Snapdragon Sound carries digital audio over the air without compression, aptX Lossless keeps a phone honest as a source, and the result is a Bluetooth hi-fi amplifier in which the wireless input actually deserves the name.
Auracast, and Listening Together
Auracast changes the social shape of an evening. Several compatible sets of headphones or wireless speakers can join the same music at once, with no pairing sequence to negotiate — a late film kept low, an album shared privately by two, a kitchen brought into the same performance as the room next door. The ARCAM Radia A5+ broadcasts; whoever wishes to join, joins.
Headphones, and the Hours After Midnight
The headphone socket was treated as a proper output rather than a courtesy, with the reserve to drive demanding designs and the refinement to make late-night sessions feel like a choice instead of a concession. Wired or entirely without wires — Auracast extends the same performance to wireless headphones — the amplifier keeps the household asleep and the music intact.
Aluminium, and the Case for Permanence
Aluminium panels on every face of the chassis; solid aluminium dials that turn with satisfying weight; eight kilograms of quiet substance on the shelf. The input carousel renames sources at a press and hold, so the display greets a TURNTABLE rather than an abbreviation, and the packaging arrives entirely free of plastic. The ARCAM A5+ was conceived for a long residency, not an upgrade cycle.
A Radia System, Started Here
Matching chassis lines make the pairing obvious — the ST5 streamer or CD5 CD player alongside, with a control link letting ARCAM Radia components answer as one. As a first serious integrated stereo amplifier, or as the elegant consolidation of a more complicated rig, the ARCAM A5 amplifier philosophy holds: fewer boxes, better ones. Our team on Wigmore Street will gladly talk loudspeaker pairing, room proportions and the rest of the conversation no brochure can finish.
About ARCAM
ARCAM has been building amplifiers in Cambridgeshire since 1976, when the A&R Cambridge A60 established a principle the brand has never abandoned: engineering serves music, not the specification sheet. Nearly fifty years and several generations of Class AB refinement later, ARCAM remains one of the few British names whose entry-level products are designed by the same team responsible for the flagship electronics. The Radia range represents the most confident visual statement ARCAM has made in decades — colour, form and playfulness applied to circuitry that stays resolutely serious. Audio Lounge has long championed British audio engineering of this calibre, and the Radia amplifiers earn their place in our Wigmore Street rooms.
