New ARCAM Radia+ Amps Prove Music Tech Can Still Sound This Good

The hi-fi world is a lot like tech X: full of people arguing about things you can’t actually hear but will absolutely mortgage their house to own. Into this glorious chaos strolls ARCAM, dropping its newest trio of Radia+ amplifiers—the A5+, A15+, and A25+—at CEDIA Expo 2025. And friends, this is not your dad’s dusty receiver with a giant volume knob and a remote that looks like it was designed by NASA in 1989.

No, this is ARCAM’s idea of a “plus factor”: upgraded circuitry, Bluetooth that doesn’t sound like a tin can, HDMI ports that actually play nice with your TV, and enough noise-reduction trickery to make you wonder if your neighbor’s lawnmower even exists anymore. In other words, it’s music tech that doesn’t just promise better sound—it promises to shut up the noise so you can enjoy it.

And the best part? Unlike most tech launches in 2025, this one doesn’t involve blockchain, AI, or some new “immersive social layer” nobody asked for. Just pure, unapologetic hi-fi goodness with a side of nerdy engineering flexes.

Music Tech, but Make It Sexy

When ARCAM says “Radia Series,” what they really mean is, “we’ve been making British hi-fi for almost 50 years and we’re tired of you buying disposable Bluetooth speakers.” The Radia line dropped in 2023, made some serious waves, and then added a few streamers in 2024 for good measure. Now, in 2025, the company is back with the A5+, A15+, and A25+, proving that the future of music tech is equal parts nostalgia and innovation.

Let’s run through the lineup:

• A5+ ($1,199.95) – The “starter drug” of premium hi-fi. It’s got 50 watts per channel, a phono stage for your vinyl habit, and Bluetooth 5.4 with Snapdragon Sound so you can pretend Spotify streams at the same quality as your $40 LP.
• A15+ ($1,499.95) – The middle child with 80 watts, HDMI eARC (translation: finally your TV audio won’t sound like it’s coming from a cereal box), and the same wireless upgrades as the A5+.
• A25+ ($1,999.95) – The flagship, with 100 watts of Class G power, a USB-C input (finally), an ESS9018 DAC that makes “bits” sound important, and a glass front panel that looks like it belongs in an Apple Store.

That’s right: ARCAM is making amplifiers that can flex on your phone and your TV at the same time. It’s like the Avengers of music tech, minus the Marvel-level disappointment.

Bluetooth That Doesn’t Suck

Raise your hand if you’ve ever streamed music via Bluetooth and thought, “Wow, this sounds like AM radio played through a sock.” Same.

ARCAM’s engineers clearly felt the same way, because the Radia+ models all rock Bluetooth 5.4 with AptX Lossless and LE Audio. Translation: it actually sounds like a CD instead of a bad MP3 you downloaded from LimeWire in 2002. And Auracast? That’s the feature where you can blast your playlist to multiple devices at once—finally, a way to annoy everyone in your house with your 400-song “deep work” playlist.

This is music tech catching up to the way we live in 2025. No pairing gymnastics, no hiss, no “why won’t it connect?” Just sound, everywhere.

Nerdy Power Tricks (That Actually Matter)

Here’s where ARCAM earns its engineering street cred. The new amps come with:

• Transformers so overbuilt they’d make Optimus Prime jealous.
• PCB refinements that reduce interference so your amp doesn’t hum louder than your fridge.
• Noise-floor reduction so clever it powers down idle components when you’re not using them. (Yes, the amp is smarter about conserving energy than you are when you leave every light on in your house.)

The A25+ even gets a dedicated DAC just for SPDIF inputs. Do you need that? Probably not. Will it make you feel superior on Reddit’s r/audiophile? Absolutely.

Why This Actually Matters in Music Tech

Snark aside, ARCAM’s Radia+ launch is a sign of something bigger. Music tech is finally waking up from the gimmick era. For years, companies tried to sell us on “smart speakers” that mostly listened to our conversations, or headphones that needed an app update every time you blinked.

But ARCAM is betting on something refreshingly old-school: people actually care about sound. They care about plugging in a record player, streaming Spotify or Tidal losslessly, and watching their OLED TV without sound that makes you wonder if you accidentally turned on the dishwasher.

In other words: music tech that respects music. Revolutionary, right?

The Snarky But Optimistic Take

Sure, these amps aren’t cheap. You could buy a whole month of groceries—or, you know, one concert ticket on Ticketmaster—for what ARCAM is charging for an A5+. But compared to the nonsense pricing in most of the tech world ($3,500 for a VR headset you use twice, anyone?), $1,200–$2,000 for something that will actually last a decade feels almost… reasonable.

Even better: ARCAM isn’t pretending these are “lifestyle devices” or “AI-powered experiences.” They’re amplifiers. They make your music sound better. That’s it. And in a tech world where every company wants to disrupt your soul, that level of honesty is almost punk rock.

So yes, I’ll snark about transformer windings and power supply impedance. But I’ll also admit: the ARCAM A5+, A15+, and A25+ are a reminder that music tech can still be exciting without being absurd. And that’s something worth turning up the volume on.

Final Note

The ARCAM Radia+ amplifiers make their U.S. debut at CEDIA Expo 2025 in Denver, Booth #2512 and will ship in early Q4. By then, we’ll probably have five new social networks and three new AI models that claim to “reinvent music discovery.” But these amps? They’ll still just be sitting there, doing the one thing that never goes out of style: making your music sound damn good.

Because sometimes the most radical move in music tech is to keep it simple—and make it sound better.