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ARCAM Launches the new Radia series of HiFi Components.  Very Stylish, Very Approachable, and Very British!

On the evening of October 3, 2023, at an exclusive gathering of industry and press held at The Vinyl Factory in London, ARCAM unveiled a new collection of stylish high-fidelity components squarely targeted at a younger generation looking for an affordable entry to the world of higher quality audio.

The US audio press: (L to R) Tony Ware – Popular Science, Chris Boylan – eCoustics, yours truly, Mark Henninger – Sound & Vision.

The new Radia series is the culmination of three years of design and development. Sporting a completely new and refined design language punctuated with the signature “Radia Yellow” lighting rings, ARCAM has initially released the following components:

  • The A5 Integrated Amplifier (50 watts/channel): $699.00
  • The A15 Integrated Amplifier (80 watts/channel): $1,099.00
  • The A25 Integrated Amplifier (100 watts/channel): $1,499.00
  • The CD5 CD Player: $699.00
  • The ST5 Streamer: $799.00

The A5 and A15 integrated amps feature a more traditional Class AB amplifier topology and sport ESS ES9018 Sabre DACs while the A25 steps things up with a higher efficiency Class G amplifier design, an ESS ES9280AQ DAC, USB-C inputs, LED illuminated highlights, and a seamless OLED display on the front panel. All the integrated amps come with Bluetooth aptX® Adaptive receivers, internal antennas, digital inputs, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and ARCAM’s signature MM phono stage.

With an internal Wi-Fi antenna, the ST5 music streamer supports an impressive list of music services, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Qobuz, Internet radio, podcasts, Tidal Connect, and Spotify Connect. In addition, the streamer offers support for MQA, Google Chromecast, Apple Airplay2, and Roon. The CD5 CD player offers CD, CD-R, and CD-RW playback; playback from USB mass storage; and support for FLAC, WAV, and MP3 formats. Both the ST5 and CD5 feature an ESS ES9018 DAC and boast 24-bit/192-kHz resolution.

The Radia’s new design language takes the classic notion of British understated elegance and brings it to the modern age. With bold, clean, yet refined lines, I found the Radia components instantly appealing to look at and interact with. Detail touches like the rear cowl that covers the sight of the connectors and the model numbers all screen printed on the top left corner were very cool. And yes, the yellow light rings around the input and volume dials are a distinctive but not distracting touch.

David Glaubke introduces Paul Neville, Jim Garrett, and Dave Tovissi from HARMAN Luxury Audio.

The event began with an introduction and presentation about the new line by Paul Neville, Director of Engineering, Jim Garrett, Senior Director, Product Strategy and Planning, and Dave Tovissi, Vice President/General Manager, all from HARMAN Luxury Audio. The team also introduced John Dawson, one of ARCAM’s original co-founders who was also in attendance.

Jim Garrett from HARMAN Luxury Audio and John Dawson, co-founder of ARCAM.

John is still actively involved as a guiding hand and mentor to the brand he helped found in the early 1970s.

After the presentation, we all had a chance to listen to two demo systems of the new Radia gear. The first system consisted of the ARCAM Radia A5 integrated amplifier, the ST5 streamer, and the CD5 CD player connected to a pair of JBL HDI-1600 bookshelf speakers on stands. The second system kept the same source components but swapped in the top-line Radia A25 integrated into the mix. The second system also used a pair of JBL L100 speakers to help light up the room.

Both systems sounded dynamic, and punchy, and scaled well to the large-ish space that we were in. The modern demo tracks from the likes of Beyonce, Storm Z, Dominique Fils-Aimé, and SZA (while not exactly my “jam”) sounded very clean overall. We will certainly be looking forward to getting review samples of the new Radia gear once the product becomes available in Q4 of this year.

For additional information, please visit the ARCAM HiFi components website.

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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