Advantages: Great Sound, Great Looks, Great Price
Disadvantages: Remotes a bit cheap, no USB port,

...Having been in the market to downsize my old hi fi for something more compact, I've settled on the Teac reference 300 mkIII with DAB tuner. Its a 3 box system as opposed to the other smaller one box systems manufactured by Teac and others such as Denon, Arcam and Onkyo. As such, although being larger, it is more user friendly to use and has more power at 45 wpc RMS. At around £500 rrp it stands up favourably in price to the Arcam Solo Mini and comes in silver or black finish with machined aluminium fronts and a classy blue display on each unit. It actually appears slightly retro in appearance although the remotes are a bit cheap looking. The silver units can be found for as little as £349 without speakers so its quite a bargain. Sound quality for such a small unit is really clear and well defined with a warm bass typical of Teac. The Mk... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Superb sound - very versatile range of inputs and outputs
Disadvantages: Price £1000 is out of reach to many

...into the CDP2 with any other digital equipment you may have. The DAC (Digital To Analogue Converter) is the heart of a digital recording system. It’s quality determines the sound produced. In recent years there has been much improvement in this field too so thanks to these inputs if you have an old DAT player or a DAB tuner with a digital output it just got a free upgrade to it’s sound quality. In action the CD player sounds amazing. Previous to this I had an ARCAM unit which at around £400 isn’t exactly a cheapo but the Quad simply blew it away like it wasn’t there. I literally couldn’t believe my ears! Mind you the CDP2 will set you back a whopping great £1000 on it’s own so at that price it has to be special! The depth of rendition and the smoothness and accuracy of vocal sounds is beyond anything I ever expected. To those used to the rather... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good sound, features and flexibility
Disadvantages: Feel of front panel and controls

...The Arcam 9 is a solid, well-rounded amp that will do mor then enough for most people. It's British made and designed. It sounds good and matches a wide range of components. Listening, it's rich and a little warm but invutes you in to listen more. It has a good set of features that includes two switchable speaker outputs, a processor loop, full featured remote control (inc source and volume) and record selector so you can record one source while listening to another. It's powrful enough for most too with a 70 watt per channel output, backed up with a beefy power supply that gives over 20 amps current. You can also esily bi-amp with the Arcam 9P. I've not heard it but it's supposed to give you a clearer sound. A phono stage is an optional extra. On the downside it feels plasticy compared even to some fairly cheap Japanese amps.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Warm and smooth sounding
Disadvantages: Lacking in pace and drive

...I owned and used an Arcam Alpha 8 for a couple of years, and had mixed opinions. This amp is very warm sounding,and as my CD player at the time was somewhat forward and harsh, so the Arcam was a welcome partner to it, but it really lacked slam and pace to it. Alternatively there was quite a good soundstage, and although it was a little two dimensional, it was very broad, often extending beyond the boundaries of the speakers. Detail was a little hazy, but this meant the amp could be listened to all day, without any of the fatigue commonly associated with modern solid state amplification. One very useful feature was the fixed gain switch on the back. This allowed the volume to be controlled by an external source, for instance an AV decoder. This means that when using the amp as part of an AV setup, you don't have to worry about setting... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Smooth sounding all rounder with no problems in a powerful performance
Disadvantages: no remote control

...The Arcam Alpha One Amplifier for is price (around £200) seems to work very well with anything that you might want to put with it. Although it power rating is only 35W it seems to handle dynamic swings in music movement as well as any amp in its class I have heard. In its ambience it seems to be a half way house between something like a warm sounding Rotel and a sharp sounding Yamaha. It versatile enough, in that it has five line inputs, a tape loop and a headphone socket. In general it’s a bit of an all rounder and I feel it performs very well in all departments. Baring the fact that it does not come with a remote control, its really a very safe bet and I have been very pleased with the Alpha One's performance. I do not think there is much better for the price.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Yeyy
Disadvantages: Ok

...into a van. Jurassic Park soundtrack: Big drums in classical music can sound a little flat on the Jurassic Park soundtrak. The C315 is true to musical performance and does not add any fake effects like virtual surround. The NAD C315 does not add anything to the sound of the recordings. There are no virtual surround or church, disco hall etc modes. No fancy lights or features on the display - mainly because there isn't one. Has a Tape loop. Inputs: CD, Video, Disc, Tuner, Tape, Aux and Media Device. Headphone jack. No Phonogram (record player) input. This means that if you want to play LP's you will need a phono stage. No digital or optical connections. Comes with remote NAD AMP 1 that can also control a NAD CD player. This amp is fantastic with very low distortion for an amp at this price level... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Quality 'Arcam' sound - full, powerful. Remote control, phono stage, twin speaker outputs, gold-plated connections.
Disadvantages: Soon to be discontinued model, remote only controls volume, perhaps lacking detail compared to 'high end' amps

...I recently bought an Arcam Alhpa 8R to replace my Alpha One. The remote control is the first most noticeable addition - it's cute (controls just volume up, down and mute) and not having to get up to change the volume is a definite plus. Inside an uprated power supply and beefier transformer ((50W) you notice - the amp is certainly heavier) make for a very likeable sound. I didn't think it could make that much difference over the Alpha One, but the bass is heavier and faster and stereo imaging and detailed seems improved also. Generally the sound is more alive. It brings back that "Oh my God!" feeling when you first move to a separates system. Other benefits include quality durable gold-plated connections, two sets of speaker outputs (not that I use them, but useful for mutli-rooms setups or bi-wiring), a 'processor' option that sets... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Slender design
Disadvantages: Kind of expensive/ Not upgradable like some Arcam products

...The silver slender looking Arcam CD82 Compact Disc Player is a mid-range CD player that has been designed and built to act as the ideal half-way point between the CD72 and CD92 in the Diva range. My brother has owned one for a fair while now and the CD82 is an extremely capable CD player. The box to the CD player informs us that state of the art audiophile design techniques are incorporated. Apparently, these are commonly found on players which would normally cost consumers thousands of pounds to purchase. The helpful instruction manual that comes with it informs us that the CD player utilizes very high quality Burr Brown op-amps in the output stage. Included is a high-stability Class 1 crystal oscillator in the DAC module. The player also utilizes two 24-bit 192 kHz Wolfson DACs, which is in a dual-mode configuration. One DAC... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Allows Good Sounding Music
Disadvantages: Very expensive brand new!

...My brother's friend owns an electronics shop, and so my household often gets a variety of goods coming through it. One such product was the Arcam CD 93 Compact Disc Player. The CD 93 Compact Disc Player replaces the CD 92 player previously released, and does a better job than it I feel. The player itself is slim, quite light weight wise and quite attractive looking, and would look perfect in any modern home. To be honest, it looks like many other players in the range, and does not really look at all that distinctive. Our version of the player is a silver colour, although it is also available in black. It comes in a box, along with a helpful instruction manual, which instructs the owner how to set this up (actually an easy task), as well as informing you on the player’s features. The player, as I mentioned, is pretty much similar... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Record any DAB station to SD-Ram card,Good sound, receives DAB & FM, Plays MP3 CDS
Disadvantages: A bit lacking in BASS output & definition.

...any radio show can now become a podcast for you! You don't get any SD card with the unit but a trip to PCWORLD yielded a DANE-ELEC 512Mb unit for just £23. The DAB tuner is amazing sensitive. There is only one aerial connector for both DAB and FM. Initially I plugged the unit into my DAB aerial but the FM reception on this was, unsurprisingly disappointing. So on a whim I tried connecting the FM aerial expecting to no DAB signal at all (as is the case with every other DAB radio that I own) To my immense astonishment the DAB reported a perfect signal even on the awkward channels like our local radio stations. The sound quality is pretty good for a system costing just £200 and overall it has a feeling of quality that no other system in this category has. True if you like heavy metal you are going to find the rather polite delivery... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful