Arcam SA20 Integrated Amp Review

SHOP THIS AMP: The exterior of the SA20 is clean and simple. At first glance, you might not think this amp packs power but under the hood, the amp has quite the beefy power supply as it weighs just over 20 pounds. The gold-plated connectors are a nice touch at this price point and we were also able to easily connect our large spade lugs to the binding posts, which is always a plus. You should not be lacking for inputs with its combination of eight, covering analog, digital, and phono. Arcam includes a headphone jack on the front panel along with an AUX input with a mini plug. Every input selection is just a simple button push on the front. In addition, there is a preamp out for driving a second power amp if you wish to run another room, or biamp your main speakers. A really nice feature of the SA20 is the home theater bypass input. Basically, this allows you to get the best of both worlds: a great home theater and a pure two channel audio system. If your home theater receiver or processor has preamp outs for the left and right, you’ll connect your left and right speakers to the SA20 and select those inputs to be the bypass input. When you engage the bypass input for home theater use, the signal passes straight through to your speakers and all of your volume is controlled by your home theater rig. When you want to relax and just listen in stereo, the signals only go through the pure sound of the Arcam SA20. Arcam is serious about their sound, which is why the...