Been waiting for a while for this: My SA35 is now Roon Certified. Very happy with this.
3 Likes
Iād like to see someone write a review of these Arcam amps/streamers.
Itās nice to see that happening finally, though I have little faith in Arcam software team in truth. As much as I enjoy the sound of my SA30, Arcam completely abandoned it as soon as they got it mostly functioning. There was plenty of room for improvement to provide to end userās. There are many users who have said that would be their last Arcam device which is disappointing given the cost and the sound quality of it.
What are your thoughts on it so far and the beautiful sound of the class G amplifier?
1 Like
This seems to be generally True of the higher end Arcams, they get little love or reviews on YouTube or music press. Besides userās great reviews on sound quality it was about 9 months after I bought my SA30 that Hans reviewed it and then a few months later Terry Ellis reviewed it (both on YT), but by then it was practically abandoned by Arcam as they moved onto working on these newer products.
Even if the streaming features age out and die (Google Cast already broken for many userās after they updated Tidal connect) at least they are great sounding ampās that an external streamer can be plugged into.
I use this amp for about six weeks now. The sound is fantastic with my Kef R3 metaās. There are quite few bugs that need ironing out, especially with the Dirac implementation (Dirac is borderline unusable in its current state). An update to address these issues is supposedly in the works.
A review in Dutch can be found here: Review Arcam SA35 een frisse kijk op een topmodel
2 Likes
Hopefully they keep the updates coming and in a year to 18 months it could be perfect, It seems some manufacturers are incapable of shipping fully working devices which does not leave the user with a good experience. At least these days they are computers and can be updated, but how many people return devices after a poor initial trial.
The SA30 also sounds great and when I trialed new speakers at a local audio shop, they had suggested it wasnāt a good match with some the more expensive speakers and I offered to bring it in to there for the day. They ended up ordering one in and admitted they had never listened to one (but could give advice 
). It ended up pairing wonderfully with the Spendor D7.2 that I purchased and they kept the trial one to demo speakers as it sounded so good with all of the speakers we tried. It was just an opportunity to double their money and sell me a Ā£4k-Ā£6k amp at the same time 
1 Like
Yes, unfortunately, also in this category some manufacturers deliver devices with utterly poor QA, being actually unfinished when pushed into the market. And itās not only the Chinese, BTW.
Such manufacturers are not blind regarding this situation, they do it on purpose. Promising soon F/W updates enabling advertised features and fixing bugs. Some of it is never done. And this is at least a shame if not somehow criminal.
Thatās why I only focus on devices which actually work as advertised. I donāt trust any promises regarding unfinished products.
2 Likes
I love my SA 30. Works perfectly with Dirac and Roon, and sounds incredible with my kind of difficult to drive Sonus Faber Extremas. And yes, it will be my last Arcam piece. That company can go strait to Hell. They released the SA 30 with beta firmware that took them 2 years to sort out, then just abandoned the SA 30. No more updates. They just suck. Never ever again. Did i get my point across. 
2 Likes
I think I might be getting the gist of where you are coming from 
I also love the sound of my SA30 (and I am listening to it now), but they have repeated many of the same issues with the follow up range which is inexcusable. This has made me swear off future Arcam purchases, at least in terms of a streaming amp.
I could be tempted by a pure class G integrated Amplifier to pair up with a separate streamer and DAC
For what itās worth: I was told by an Arcam rep that an update for the sa35/45 is imminent. Itās supposed to fix a lot of issues. Letās hope they learned from their mistakes with the SA30.
1 Like
I have been watching the used market for a p240, but have been considering the Outlaw monoās which are class G , or maybe build one of the Purifi class d kits. But basically just waiting to see what happens. Nothing wrong with the sound of the SA 30, but I do occasionally over drive it and it cuts off. Itās not often, but usually when friends are over and scotch is involved. I am totally sold on using Roon and Dirac. As long as that works, the Arcam is a keeper. I use an outboard phono stage with my Urishi. Eventually I will probably need a streamer since Arcam has ditched the SA 30 and it all depends on Roon. I do love the sound of class Gā¦
2 Likes
Fully agree 
I bought an Ncore class D power amp for the man cave (was thinking about an SA20 but I didnāt want an integrated amp) and it sounds very good.
Have you watched any reviews of this power amp, it has been getting some excellent reviews.
I have been reading and watching reviews on these latest Class D amps. And a friend of mine that is in the audio business and has tons of experience with the best amps over the last 30 years and has been telling me these new Class D designs are incredible sounding and performing amps. But I have not heard them myself and my experience with Class D 10 to 15 years ago was negative. And the Class D amps used in modern cars are much better but they still sound a bit sterile to my ears. Plenty of power though. So when I heard what Class G could do I thought this was the compromise I was looking for. Class A sound with power when you needed it, without heating up the room. But I think the future is Class D. It just seems to be getting better and better. So that is why I am kind of sitting on the fence. I need to get my paws on one of these latest Class D amps and hook it up to my SA 30 and my SF Extremas and see if I yawn or get excited.
1 Like
Well I thought that IOTA was a Class D design but I watched the review you linked to and realize itās a very nice Class A/B design priced right. I will add this amp to my short list! Big thanks for the heads up!
Ken
1 Like
i donāt know whether GanFet qualifies as class G, but the HiFi Rose RA280 might be what some of yāall are looking for, and I love the steampunk looks.
I have a first gen NAD M10, and it sounds fine in normal mode. adding Dirac really transforms it however.
In my main system Iāve been a tube guy for the past ten years, but recently moved to a Moonriver 404 Reference integrated (powering a pair of Focal 1028 be). āonlyā 50 wpc, but it sounds fabulous, and iāve never felt it needed more juice.
Hello
I have Arcam sa30 ( I think). And a room server. They connect via airplay only as there is no direct connect. The sound is ok but guessing I am loosing something. The room nucleus and Arcam are over three years old and I have not done any firmware updates nor know how.
Thoughts
Eric, you are not getting the best sound from that amplifier using Airplay, I know because I tried both and there is a significant improvement using Roon Ready mode. You should try upgrading the firmware Which you can do from the web interface, and you will probably need to go to the Arcam website and download the firmware file. It will sort of depend what version of the firmware you currently have installed
If you can play Airplay then you can use Roon Ready as it works over Ethernet or WiFi
Great to hear that the new Arcams talk to Roon now. I love the idea of the SA35 and 45 as complete hubs for all of your listening needs. I was running a setup with far too many boxes and too much complication for a long time - phono stage, valve amp, streamer, Dac, headphone amp and decided to replace it all with one very neat box to do everything.
I thought the SA35 would fit the bill and ordered one earlier this year. Itās a great sounding piece of kit but there were so many problems with it at the time that I ended up returning it. The impression I got from Arcamās support was that they were not aware of at least some of the bugs I was reporting and before long it had the feel of a product that was released to market way too soon and it could be a long time before the issues I had, many of which were showstoppers, were fixed.
Some of the problems I had: The results from Dirac were all over the place but even when you got some decent results from it, you couldnāt use it with any of the analogue inputs as having it switched on turned your music into something that sounded like a Dalek orgy. The Dac seemed to go to sleep after playing a CD. I had a CD player connected to the digital input and one CD would play fine but the next would have no sound so youād have to switch to another input and back again for it to work. Similarly after power up, audio would be missing and youād have to cycle through inputs before getting any audio out. HDMI is ARC only so doesnāt work with an HDMI source such as a Blu-ray player or Apple TV Connected to it. It only works with a TV connected.
One of the major attractions of the SA35 was the dual subwoofer outputs which can be tailored with roll off filters. I thought this would be a great way of running my open baffle speakers where I could use the main power amp outputs of the SA35 to drive the full range units in the OBs then send the LF outputs, filtered at around 160Hz to a separate amp to drive the 15" bass drivers in the OBs but it turned out that although there were two separate pre outs, they are mono which seems crazy to me.
Couple all of that with the lack of Roon readiness at the time, and a release date of āsoonā rather than anything concrete, I totally lost confidence and returned the SA35.
Iāve since replaced it with a Roksan Caspian 4G and I couldnāt be happier. A Very similar product in terms of specs and functionality but the experience could not be any more different. I guess much of the reliability of the streaming platform comes from the fact that Roksan use a Bluesound streaming module but itās an absolute pleasure to use. Roon ready out of the box, stereo pre outs with all of the filtering options you could need. A fantastic internal Dac. A great phono stage. Ok itās missing Dirac functionality but in terms of how it sounds, Iāve had no reason to want to tweak it. It is without a doubt the best integrated amplifier Iāve heard.
1 Like
Well, weāre a couple of months in and the released firmware update 1.8.4 fixed almost all of the most griping issues. I still have some smaller issues, but these are said to be fixed as well. I think this amp is now in a state in which I can surely recommend it to others. Itās simple and sounds fantastic. New features were added quite fast, such as Roon ready and Qobuz connect and support is great so far. I have a pair of Kef LSX II which has some issues and the level of support from Kef is quite frankly awful compared to Arcam (or should I say Harman Luxury?). Arcam sent me firmware with specific fixes for me to test out and the communication has been fast, honest and on point. I donāt mind if there are some issues (all software has bugs), it all comes down to how you handle the issues. Sure, it would be nice if the issues were fixed faster, but I guess Arcam is not apple/google with thousands of developersā¦
2 Likes
Glad to hear that.
It took them a good 2 years (and then some) to get there with the SA30, so maybe they are getting better at it.
Now if they would fix the smaller issues that some have and return to the SA30 and co and fix the outstanding issues with that it would make me even happier.
Truth is Arcam have put me off the idea of buying another streaming amp, and made me think about future purchases of simpler analog integrated amps with external DACS and Streamers. At least the amp will run for many years with no upgradable firmware, though you would lose some great features like DIRAC and the one box solution