Arcam ST60

Arcam ST60

It’s all proper to stream. Compact disc and vinyl collections are private and valuable however as soon as sampled, on the spot entry to ‘all of the music on the planet’ is a tough behavior to interrupt. Part of the attraction is that it’s virtually tougher to not get related. If you personal a smartphone and a pair of earbuds, you’re simply an app retailer click on away. But if correct hi-fi sound high quality is the objective, community streaming functionality aided by a good DAC is the best way to go and the excellent news is that the mandatory instruments are constructed into a variety of equipment nowadays, from built-in amps to energetic audio system.

Those taking pictures for elevated streaming efficiency and the chance to take advantage of all of the medium has to supply might regard a devoted, standalone unit that may be built-in into any system as one of the best guess of all. The listing of potential candidates appears to develop longer by the month. I’m stunned, although, that Arcam – the Brit-fi model that established its place forward of the curve on the daybreak of digital within the UK – has waited till now to make its first devoted community streamer. Easily recognized by its sober styling and darkish gray hue, it’s the most recent addition the corporate’s HDA household of elements. Arcam and digital audio return some 40 years. With a distant future underneath the wing of South Korean big Samsung Electronics not even a twinkle in an accountant’s eye, the then small, Cambridge-based unbiased firm was liable for the primary, ground-up CD participant to be constructed within the UK that wasn’t a modification of another person’s, the primary outboard DAC (the now iconic Arcam Black Box) and the primary home DAB tuner.

It’s most likely secure to imagine that prospects for a devoted community streamer/DAC received’t be too impressed with any trimmed-to-fit compromises and subsequently no shock that the ST60 claims to be a full-nine-yards manufacturing with ease of use, connectivity and sound high quality prioritised, together with means to behave as a preamp to group with an influence amp or energetic audio system. For these eager to get going straight out of the field there’s Apple AirPlay 2, Google Chromecast built-in and Spotify Connect. Download Arcam’s MusicLife smartphone app and entry opens as much as UPnP, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer and Napster. The ST60 can also be ‘Roon Ready’, however not but certificated. And, as you’ve probably deduced, no Tidal Connect certification, both.

On the neatly configured again panel, connectivity is complete. In addition to Ethernet and USB 2 (for native media storage), there are broadly spaced wi-fi antennae sockets, balanced XLR and single-ended RCA analogue outputs, plus coaxial and optical digital outputs do you have to wish to hook up an exterior DAC. The standard codecs are supported – together with AIFF, ALAC, FLAC and WAV, together with compressed legacy codecs corresponding to MP3 – and full MQA rendering and decoding is supplied. Arcam hasn’t stinted on decoding horsepower both, using ESS Technology’s A-game ESS Sabre ES9038K2M, which handles PCM as much as 32-bit/192kHz in addition to DSD. Lastly, the ST60 gives full I/P and RS232 management for integration in each Control4 and Crestron dwelling automation programs.

Setting-up Chromecast and AirPlay 2 is easy and the full-sized distant (which helpfully illuminates all of the buttons while you press any of them) drives an intuitive and crisply offered menu system that’s straightforward to learn and navigate on the 5.2in show. Just a little simpler on the eyes, the devoted Arcam app, MusicLife, provides management of music saved on supported units and community drives.

Sound high quality
With the tools rack nonetheless heat from Cambridge Audio’s Evo 150 ‘just-add-speakers’ streaming system and the CXN v2/CXA 61 streamer/built-in amp I used for comparability (HFC 437/459), the Arcam is in the proper place on the proper time to indicate simply what it’s made from as all of the Cambridge elements set cracking requirements for each usability and sound high quality.

To put it mildly, the ST60 doesn’t hit the bottom operating on the previous entrance. Using the distant is a pleasure, however in contrast with Cambridge Audio’s slick and spry StreamMagic app MusicLife feels a little bit clunky, graphically malnourished and, until it’s taking part in from a queue, gradual to reply. Track hopping with StreamMagic and the CXN v2 is basically gapless, music and art work up and operating in simply over a second. Try the identical factor with MusicLife and also you’ll be ready within the area of 8 seconds whereas interplay with the ST60 types itself out. However, I’m assured by Arcam that it’s engaged on making MusicLife a slicker, quicker, better-looking expertise for the second quarter of the 12 months.

For now, there’s redemption within the sound. Let me put it this manner: if you wish to make the already very good sounding Evo 150 sound even higher, merely let the ST60 take over the decoding and streaming duties. No one realistically would, after all, because it trashes the purpose of Evo’s neat and handy one-box initiative fully. But spherical robin mixing and matching with the CXA 61, CXN v2 and the Evo 150 (particularly making use of its terrific built-in 150W Hypex NCore Class D amplification for the standalone streamers), it’s clear as day that, for pure sonic excellence as a supply supplier, the ST60 has the sting.

Whether it is a results of Arcam’s trumpeted 40 years of expertise within the digital audio enterprise and/or its selection of ESS Technology’s prime DAC chip – the Evo 150 makes use of the decrease tier ESS Sabre ES9018K2M and the CXN v2 a pair of Wolfson WM8740 24-bit DACs – I wouldn’t wish to hazard a guess, however with a recording as meticulously sewn collectively and polished as Steely Dan’s Things I Miss The Most from Everything Must Go, the Arcam defines photos extra exactly in a soundstage of notably better depth. It additionally wrings a little bit extra tonal color, texture and, effectively, sheer tunefulness from the fabric. This doesn’t make the ST60 sound ostensibly richer and hotter than the CXN v2, however it’s airier, extra lucid and relaxed, the Cambridge seeming a little bit opaque and constrained by comparability. The Evo 150 runs the ST60 nearer however, once more, it could’t fairly match the Arcam’s excellent transparency and openness.

Michael McDonald’s I Was Made To Love Her streamed by way of FLAC – a manufacturing of uncommon high quality with a surprising sense of area and dimensionality – has the knack of sounding good on modest equipment, however within the palms of the ST60 it’s scintillating. Stevie Wonder’s harmonica breaks are rendered with extra reduce and urgency, but in addition a more true sense of harmonic complexity whereas the honeyed voices of the feminine backing singers find and mesh extra coherently within the soundstage, seeming to type an arc behind McDonald – as standard, giving it the lot, however staying comfortably away from the ragged edge – as an alternative of being spotlit, flattened in perspective and pushed relatively artificially out to the far left as can generally occur with lesser elements.

Conclusion
It might have taken Arcam some time to make a standalone streamer, however it’s been definitely worth the wait. MusicLife isn’t the swiftest or most elegant management app we’ve ever used, however it’s secure and it really works. Not fairly the smoothest operator, then, however for those who actually wish to hear how good streaming can sound, the ST60 hits the spot with full pressure. DV    

DETAILS
Product: Arcam ST60
Type: Network music participant/DAC/digital preamp

FEATURES
● Apple AirPlay 2; Google Chromecast; Spotify Connect
● ESS9038 32-bit/192kHz Delta-Sigma DAC
● MQA supported
● Roon Ready

Read the complete assessment in  Issue 477

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March 25, 2024 at 01:46PM