Arcam SA35

The ARCAM SA35, a Complete System in One Chassis

The ARCAM SA35 streaming integrated amplifier takes the three components most systems still keep in separate boxes — the streamer, the digital-to-analogue converter and the amplifier — and resolves them into a single Radia-series chassis designed in Cambridge. Add a pair of loudspeakers and the system is complete: streaming services, records, television and stored music all arrive through one set of controls and one high-resolution display. What separates the ARCAM Radia SA35 from the wider field of all-in-one designs is a refusal to treat any of those roles as secondary. The amplification is ARCAM’s own fifth-generation Class G, the phono stage serves both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges on their own dedicated inputs, and the digital platform was engineered from a clean sheet rather than inherited from an earlier product.

Class G Amplification, Refined for a Fifth Generation

Class G has been an ARCAM discipline across five generations of design, and the ARCAM SA35 carries the newest. The principle is an elegant one. For the quiet majority of any recording the amplifier draws on a modest supply rail and operates in the linear, low-level region where amplification is at the peak of refinement; when a crescendo or a bass transient demands more, a second and higher rail is summoned in an instant and withdrawn just as quickly. The result is 120 watts per channel delivered with the ease of a considerably larger amplifier, without the heat or the wasted energy of a design that holds the full rail in reserve at all times. A new linear toroidal transformer power supply feeds the entire circuit, chosen for quietness rather than convenience, and the difference is heard in the space around instruments and the silence between notes.

A Streaming Platform Built From the Ground Plane Up

Rather than adapt an existing board, ARCAM engineered a new six-layer digital audio and streaming platform for the SA35, with a ground plane running beneath the entire circuit so that noise and interference are kept clear of the delicate analogue circuitry. The conversion stage uses the newest Hyperstream IV topology from ESS in a fully balanced arrangement, with jitter removed before the signal reaches the analogue stages, and the benefit is audible as a lower noise floor and a more natural sense of timing. As an integrated streaming amplifier, the SA35 connects over Wi-Fi or Ethernet and plays from Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect and Google Cast; as an AirPlay amplifier the SA35 accepts anything an iPhone, iPad or Mac can play; and the amplifier is Roon Ready for anyone running a Roon library. The ARCAM Radia app adds internet radio, podcasts, presets, music on a USB drive and stored music from a server on the home network, with gapless playback and support for high-resolution files well beyond anything the streaming services currently deliver. Everything a wireless streaming amplifier should do, in other words, without a single compromise in the amplification behind the stream.

Dirac Live, and the Room as the Final Component

Every loudspeaker is finished by the room in which the speaker stands. Walls, floors and furniture add reflections and resonances that no amount of careful amplification can undo, which is why the ARCAM SA35 ships with Dirac Live room correction and, in the box, the measurement microphone and the long USB cable needed to run the software. The process takes a spare hour: the microphone is placed at the listening seat and a handful of surrounding positions, the software sweeps each loudspeaker in turn, and a correction filter is designed against a target curve — ARCAM supplies the Harman curve as a recommended starting point — before being loaded into the amplifier. Dual subwoofer outputs allow one or two subwoofers to be brought into the same correction, so that the deepest bass is integrated rather than merely added. The saved filter is selected from the Home Screen and can be switched off for comparison at any moment, which tends to settle the question of whether room correction is worth the trouble.

Records, Television and Everything Between

The ARCAM SA35 is a streaming amplifier with phono inputs for both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges, each on a dedicated rear-panel socket with an earth terminal alongside, so a turntable of almost any pedigree connects without an external phono stage. As an HDMI ARC amplifier for the television, the SA35 receives the soundtrack over a single cable through the HDMI eARC input, lets the television remote govern the volume, and switches to the HDMI input automatically when the screen wakes. Two coaxial and two optical digital inputs accommodate a CD transport or a second digital source, three analogue inputs welcome older components, and a USB socket on the rear panel plays music from a flash drive. Bluetooth works in both directions: as an input with Snapdragon Sound for high-quality playback from a compatible phone, and as an output to a pair of wireless headphones for late-night listening, with Auracast broadcasting available for sharing what is playing with several sets at once. A pair of pre-amplifier outputs completes the picture, and a Pre Amp Mode disables the internal power amplifier entirely should a larger power amplifier ever join the system.

The Display, the Dials and Daily Use

Much of the pleasure of the ARCAM SA35 lies in the daily handling. A bonded high-resolution display fills the centre of the fascia with album artwork and track information large enough to read from across the room, flanked by two generous dials — input on the left, volume on the right — each ringed with a soft halo of light whose brightness can be set to taste or extinguished altogether. Presets place favourite internet radio stations and playlists one turn of the dial away; four selectable digital filters let the character of the converter be nudged toward precision or ease; and the supplied remote handles everything the dials do, along with transport control for streamed music. Software updates arrive overnight while the amplifier rests in network standby, so the SA35 gains features over time rather than losing them, and an economy timer returns the unit to standby when the room falls quiet. At 12 kilograms the chassis has the reassuring density expected of a serious amplifier, and the packaging is entirely free of plastic.

Partnering the ARCAM SA35 at Audio Lounge

An ARCAM streaming amplifier of this capability asks only for loudspeakers worthy of the power on offer. In the Audio Lounge listening rooms on Wigmore Street the SA35 can be heard with standmount and floorstanding designs from across the collection, with a turntable through either phono input, and with the matching ARCAM CD5 for anyone whose disc library still deserves a place in the system. Dirac Live can be demonstrated on request, which remains the surest way to understand what the technology does for a room. The SA35 rewards a careful audition — the composure of the Class G stage at volume, the quietness of the streaming platform at rest — and an enquiry with Audio Lounge is the natural first step.

About ARCAM

ARCAM has designed specialist hi-fi in Cambridge, England, for more than 45 years, and amplification has remained the defining craft of the company since the first product to carry the A&R Cambridge name, the A60 integrated amplifier of 1976, which brought a distinctly British balance of honesty and warmth to a generation of enthusiasts. A long commitment to Class G topology — an approach few manufacturers have had the patience to pursue — gave ARCAM a signature sound in which power and delicacy coexist, and the Radia range now brings that engineering philosophy to streaming, disc replay and amplification alike. A member of the Harman group today, ARCAM still designs in Cambridge with the same emphasis on musical truth over passing fashion. Audio Lounge presents the full ARCAM collection in the Wigmore Street listening rooms, where the Radia range can be auditioned and compared at leisure.