Another well respected manufacturer in the Roon arsenal. All ways loved Arcam my AV amp has done me very proud, I only went with Naim as had no Roon Ready Arcam options. Hope they roll it out for other models to. It’s MQA ready to if your into that.
3 Likes
Will be very interested to see the price on this.
1 Like
Nice…I was looking at the Arcam S20 and perhaps an external DAC but this neatly rolls everything up into one device with Dirac to boot. I’m guessing it’s gonna be 2499 but we’ll see.
Hopefully less than that. I have my eye on it and if it’s a good price and sounds great then I might trade in my Naim Atom and get one.
1 Like
Looks like it’s £2000 GBP. That’s an interesting price point compared to something like a Naim Uniti Nova or Gokdnote IS1000
More competing with the Atom I would say if its that price. But it might also give the Nova a run to. I will definitely give it a trial when its out as my local dealer sells Arcam and Naim so I can directly compare them.
That’s kind of my point and what needs to be tested. What is the Nova or IS1000 giving us for double the price?
It’s a good question but most seem to think the Nova is a very big step up from the Atom and even the Star from an sq perspective. Never tested it myself as it was out of my range and still is. But will I think when this out to see what the fuss if any is about.
Never been a big Arcam fan for it’s in house sound, couldn’t put my finger on why, perhaps just a little safe. Don’t know what that means by the way, I guess it didn’t make me sit up and take notice.
Might be that demos were never on speakers near mine as Arcam amps don’t seem to make the high end demos.
I have a friend who has a big old Arcam AV amp and that certainly does good stuff and looks a lot better than the norm whilst doing it.
I also used the same word ‘safe’ to describe the arcam sound. I owned the A19 and then A39 for a while. I then moved to some Rega and then Naim gear leading up to the Naim Nova. The Nova developed a lot of issues unfortunately and I ended up returning it but I did love the sound and it was much more vibrant and lively than the Arcam. Having said that, I had some bass boom due to bad speaker placement and there was no way to fix this. The Naim’s extra grunt meant the bass boom was worse in my living room. Dirac + Arcam SA30 would probably (to be tested) be a lot better for me than the Naim Nova with bad speaker placement.
I think the Dirac integration is a game changer for badly set up living rooms 
1 Like
I guess the Dirac bit can be done with DSP in roon now? That is my next job, bought the microphone to do the measuring. Just need time when my wife is out so I am not mocked unceasingly for the rest of my life if she saw me doing it
1 Like
Been there already when I tried it with a nad receiver… microphone on a small tripod and then pillows to adjust height. I managed 3 sample points / positions before I was chased out
Its different than Naim that’s for sure. I did like the relaxed presentation when I used my AV amp and never once got listening fatigue. I find Naims presentation can struggle with certain music and mastering and its upper range is a little less refined at times but it’s more fun overall but has moments when I just want to turn it off. This never happened with Arcam.
Dirac interests me as it seems easy to setup and change when your room does. I just bought an umik-1 to try out room eq in Roon but I am not doing the filters myself I will get HAF to create them.
1 Like
Yep that is the one I used as well. When I managed to finally run the full setup, I was super impressed with the result. That was with a NAD 758v3. I expect the Arcam SA30 with Dirac will be equally impressive. One thing I noticed though: Once the Dirac is set up, even a small speaker movement will mess the result. I guess this is to be expected but I was surprised how sensitive the positioning was.
Yes this is my worry with using Room EQ in general. Come Christmas I always have to move my speakers. So its doing the whole thing again.
My wife is Greek Cypriot…
1 Like
Finally this seems to be released, one review in from What Hifi which is very favourable but says the Naim Atom beats it on musicality. Not really a fan of WH reviews but its a good start. Going to look at auditioning it to see how it compares to my Atom, as it has more analogue inputs which I want and I’m interested in Dirac and finding my Atom a bit fatiguing these days and I do like Arcams more laid back sound.
@john has this amp been certified yet as they are advertising Roon Ready.
Hello @CrystalGipsy,
Thanks for the heads up. The SA-30 is currently in-house for certification testing, but this process is not yet complete.
-John
Ok fingers crossed it passes soon.