Arylic A100 Power amplifier with FM and Streaming Review

It is the Arylic A100 Power Amplifier that packs a lot of features into a relatively inexpensive but well-built unit.

For just under $200 Arylic provides a 100W x 2 stereo amp designed for passive speakers.

It supports Airplay, Spotify Connect and Bluetooth Wireless streaming. It has a built in FM tuner, analog and digital inputs, and Wi-Fi and ethernet connectivity so you can play music from remote devices like a NAS or local devices like a thumb drive. It’s clear this is quite a good deal for the money, and while not what I’d term ‘high-end’, it’s a well-built and well-designed system that could easily be the heart of an average apartment, bedroom or home office system.

Arylic is a new company on the scene, and I knew little about them. They manufacture a variety of streaming products, and they have a line of speakers. This new integrated amp is the top of their electronic line. Like so many products today, the Arylic line is manufactured in China.

Although the company bills the product as an integrated amp, it’s much more than that, more akin to a stereo receiver. I think it fills a niche which is a need for high-quality 2-channel amplification that includes digital and analog inputs and plenty of streaming options too. Support of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are almost a must have in today’s audio world, and the Arylic has both, as well as an ethernet port.

The Arylic is a compact design, but at just under 10 lbs. it’s no lightweight. With a pretty powerful solid-state amp and power supply, it was heavier to lift out of its box than I expected.

The back of the unit is quite clean, with well-marked inputs and outputs. I was pleased to see banana plugs for speakers, always the reviewer’s friend when I’m changing gear in and out, and buyers will also appreciate the solid wire connection. There’s also a ground connection if your electrical setup is prone to hum. The unit comes complete with an FM ribbon antenna with a coax connection, and a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi antenna.

There’s also an ethernet port and USB (type A) input for connecting a hard drive or thumb drive with music. There’s line in, phono in, and coax in for digitally connecting a CD or Blu-ray player. It’s quite complete.

On the output side there are line out RCA jacks, so you can use the Arylic as a preamp.

Although the company literature lists Tidal, Spotify and other streaming services, there are no services offered from within the player. They all depend on your device to feed them via Bluetooth or Airplay.

The Arylic A100 comes well boxed, with the requisite power cord, antennas as mentioned above, and an RCA dual stereo patch cord.

To protect the faceplate there was a piece of plastic that did not want to come off easily. I had to remove the central volume knob to get it off. No harm done, just didn’t expect that. Usually, these pieces just peel off.

I wanted to put the Arylic A100 on my network, so I plugged it in, and the built-in screen showed the unit had obtained an IP address on its own. You can also do this with the app (called Go Control), but it wanted my login for my router which I wasn’t happy about, but after a bit it offered me the option to skip that step, and I was solidly connected to my wired network.

The control operation is a bit weird. Rather than buttons for each input, several of the buttons have multiple uses, and require multiple presses. Until you get used to it, it is a bit confusing. From the remote app, the inputs are separate and easier to use.

For listening I wanted to give the Arylic A100 some tougher speakers to drive, so I chose my KEF LS50 speakers which can take all the power you can throw at them.

For source material I streamed Tidal through my iPhone, played media from a USB thumb drive, and also attached a high-quality SACD player, connecting through the RCA analog inputs. It would have been nice if this device supported Roon, but at this price point I was not expecting it.

Overall, I found the setup easy to do (except for selecting sources from the front panel) and the included booklet was detailed and well written.

The Arylic A100 Integrated Amp is unexpectedly good sounding and fully featured given its low price. I can’t think of another product that offers so much for so little cash outlay.

The Arylic A100 Integrated amp sounds nice. I’ve heard better, crisper sound but from components that are in a very different price category from this component. The software seemed solid, there are plenty of inputs, and the amp is certainly musical with no obvious warts.

Although the unit is advertised as 100 watts per channel, however at the usual 8 ohms, it’s a 60 watt per channel amp, and there’s no specifications about distortion at high and low frequencies. I did think it sounded good on some challenging program material, but many audiophiles would like a little more detailed info on the amp performance.

I think the unit needs a remote. The mobile app can control inputs and equalization, but a handy remote should be included to switch inputs and adjust volume.