Those of you who read our previous blog post about the Arcam SA20, mostly with regard to its performance with a Rega Planar 3 turntable, I’d hinted at the SA20's DAC but postponed elucidation to a later blog; this one!

To recap, the Arcam SA20 has two co-axial and one optical digital input, with a sophisticated 7-step filter selection which is fun to experiment with. I left it in position 3, Arcam’s default.

A long-standing customer of ours (he knows who he is), brought his Bryston BDP-3 network audio player in for me to update and set-up. It has no DAC of it's own, so to check its function (and get a sneaky audition), I connected it to the SA20 that was warmed up in the dem suite with a Black Rhodium Rondo coaxial digital interconnect. (One of our favourites.) The speakers were the Monitor Audio Silver 200s I had connected for the Rega Planar 3 turntable demo earlier.

Our Mr K remembered how fond I am of Norah Jones, so he brought in a 24-bit download from HDTracks of 'Come Away with Me', plus Diana Krall's 'Turn Up The Quiet' for good measure. (What a nice man.) All in all, about £6k for the system, with an unusually high 2/3rds of the budget given up to the front end.

Wow!

What initially grabbed our attention was the soundstage. Just before Lee Alexander starts playing bass on "Cold, Cold Heart", it pops out, almost holographic. Norah's delicate piano playing and delicious, breathy vocals (steady now - ed) firmly held in their own space, the swing of the bass washed over, melted us into the sofa and had me longing for a glass of something restorative.

This Arcam SA20 amplifier continues to impress...

Thanks for reading. - Audio T Swansea.

Arcam Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T: Brentwood, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Oxford, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Arcam aficionados and Hi-Fi buffs with good memories will recall Arcam's previous series of amplifiers (the A29, A39 and A49) had a clever output stage design (Class G), whereby it ran Class A for the 1st 20 watts or so, then kicked in Class A/B when more power was required; the cannon and kettle drums at the crescendo of the 1812 Overture, to use a worn-to-the-point-of-transparency example. This gives it a generous soundstage, and a very solid, clean, open, grown-up sound.

The Arcam A-series of amplifiers was so well received and successful, that they've kept the design idea for the new HDA range, (currently 2 amplifiers and a disc/network audio player) plus given it a thorough re-working. So much so, the current baby model - the SA10 now has better performance than the old A29 and our eponymous hero the SA20, better performance than the old A39. In addition to the considerable performance upgrade, Arcam have added a very useful DAC (I shall expand on this in a later blog) derived from their work with the famous irDACMk2. Taken with the moving-magnet phono stage, this is very much the modern amplifier.

Customers demand lots under the hood these days.

That's all well and good, shiny toys for all the good boys etc, so what?

Well; I recently had a gentleman walk in with a couple of LPs tucked under his arm and ask me
about suitable turntables for him. After a bit of chat (*highly* skilled sales technique surely?-ed), we settled on the Rega Planar 3 Elys2. It's a cliche for a reason - there's not much to touch it at the price.

"May I have a listen?" says he, raising his vinyl (very nearly an armful*)

"Of course" says I, "Can you give me a minute to take it up to the demo suite?"

"Please take your time" (What a nice man.)

Casting about for an amplifier with a phono stage, my eye settled on the SA20: nice amp,
got a magnet phono stage, not terribly expensive, will drive these Monitor Audio Silver 200s I've got upstairs already, it’ll put the Planar 3 under a microscope, chap's got M.A. speakers at home, happy days.

*couldn’t resist

We settle in with a cup of tea (thanks Chris!) and after a couple of piano concerto snippets (all very nice, the recordings aren't exactly brilliant but it doesn’t diminish our enjoyment) things are going pretty well. After twenty minutes and everything's warmed up, my gentleman pulls out an album featuring Yo-Yo Ma (hey! I've heard of him) and the pianist Katherine Stott....

...and he asks me to play Le Cygne (The Swan) by Camille Saint Saens.

Wow!

Four bars in and I turn to look if he's getting what I'm getting. He's all glassy-eyed and pulling a tissue out of his jacket pocket, whilst I notice my throat has gone a bit thick.

"Ieusu Mawr" he says, "That's got me where I live"

I nod in agreement and mouth the word "Fantastic".