Cambridge Audio Evo 150 smart amplifierMusical EVOcation
Now flushed with success in the EISA 2021-2022 Awards featured this issue (see p30), this Evo 150 smart streaming amplifier is the more powerful and the better equipped of two new all-in-one solutions from the UK’s Cambridge Audio. The lesser Evo 75 looks exactly the same as its pricier sibling from the front, with the same 31.7cm-wide black anodised aluminium chassis fronted by a 17cm full-colour LCD panel, the same luxurious two-section knob available for control on the right of the fascia. But moving up to the Evo 150 doubles your available power from the Hypex Ncore Class-D power modules within; it also adds facilities around the back – the Evo 150 has a phono stage where the Evo 75 has none, a USB-B computer connection too, a pair of balanced XLR inputs enabling connection of a better class of component, RS232 control, and two sets of speaker binding posts rather than one. There’s also a DAC upgrade: the Evo 75 uses an ESS Sabre 9016K2M (as used in Cambridge’s CXA81 amplifier) while the Evo 150 upgrades to the 9018K2M, which offers a noise floor some 10dB lower.
So there’s more to the higher model than simply more power, and we’re not in the least surprised to hear that, contrary to expectations, Australian hi-fi lovers are choosing the Evo 150 in similar numbers to the lower and cheaper model. It is, on the rather pretty face of it, a highly attractive proposition.
Equipment
The modern breed of smart amplifier has developed as an inevitable consequences of music streaming being added as a bonus set of abilities on hi-fi amplifiers, rather than requiring a separate streaming source to plug in. The earliest came from the multiroom world, with the Sonos ZonePlayer 100 adding not particularly impressive amplification to its ZP80 streamer to make a streaming amp, the likes of which was followed faithfully by all multiroom systems that followed.
But in hi-fi terms the next wave of higher performance came as those multiroom systems became modularised and then bolted on to more
