If you've got some brilliant speakers and want to upgrade your amplifier to bring you the best streaming services as well as your existing music, Cambridge Audio's Evo 150 is a five-star choice – and right now it's also a £500 off option. Richer Sounds is currently selling it for £1,999, down from the usual £2,499. That's a big discount on a seriously impressive bit of kit.
The Evo 150 is an all-in-one player, designed to amplify music from pretty much any source from vinyl to high quality digital streaming, and it has aptX for better Bluetooth streaming. The firm's StreamMagic app works with TIDAL, Quobuz, and network drives, and the amp also supports Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect, with MQA support for TIDAL's hi-res Masters.
A class act in a very competitive market
The Evo 150 sits in one of the most competitive bits of the hi-fi market, where you'll find people who are serious about sound and happy to pay for it. That means it's up against the likes of the multi award-winning Naim Uniti Atom – and before this price drop it was the same price.
Reviews for the Evo have all been very good. Audiophilia says it's "an audiophile gem in terms of performance", Hi-Fi and Music Source says it's "a fine piece of equipment... this is as good as it gets" and Stereophile says it changed their opinion about streaming's potential: "when streaming is done right, as it is in the Evo 150, it deserves a place at the big table alongside the LP and CD".
According to our colleagues at What Hi-Fi, who gave the Evo 150 five stars, the Cambridge Audio has better depth, breadth and polish than its closest rival, the Uniti Atom, but the Naim has "a greater sense of musicality", so they're quite evenly matched. However, that extra £500 off the Evo 150 may tip the balance firmly in Cambridge Audio's favour.