Current Setup: Arcam Alpha 8 Integrated Amp, Sony CDP XE-500 CD player, B&W P4Speakers, & Tannoy Mercury M2 Speakers

Wow! What a change this amp has made from my Denon receiver. The Denon was responsible for brightness and treble edge in my system, which had a dramatic effect on classical music. Many discs were unlistenable on the Denon, which highlighted shriek and edginess on massed orchestral strings. No other genre was affected negatively by the Denon's brightness. This did not, however, compensate for the destruction of 65% of classical discs. I have spent the last five months investigating integrated amps. My shortlist comprised the Musical Fidelity X-A1, the Musical Fidelity A220, the Creek 5250, and the Arcam Alpha 8. I choose the Alpha 8. It is a fantastic amp!

Listening to the Denon was like watching a video picture with the sharpness control maxed. The aural picture sounded grainy and irritating with orchestral strings. Moving to the Alpha 8, I immediately noticed an alteration in tone for the better. The orchestra snapped into focus at last. It was as if the brightness control of a video picture had been turned down to reveal blacker blacks. Whereas, the Denon sounded overly gray(using this analogy), bleached, confusing, and edgy, the aural picture of the Alpha 8 sounded bold, beautifully focused, and realistic.

I am very impressed with the Alpha 8. I highly recommend its mature and sophisticated sound to anyone whose current setup sounds lean, bright, and/or edgy. Don't be fooled by the Alpha 8's 50-watt per channel rating. It sounds louder, more dynamic, and more in control than amps rated at 100 watts. It has the grip to drive low impedance speakers. The Alpha 8 is classy!

For my 'blue collar' system I wanted to look at CD players in the $800 to $1250 range. The players that I auditioned were the Arcam Alpha 7, 8 and 9, Rega Planet, Rotel RCD-971, Audio Refinement (YBA) Complete, and the new NAD S-500. I wanted to try the Acurus ACD-11, but the dealer took the unit for his own purposes on the appointed day. Based upon some good reviews of the Ultech and Adcom GCD-750 units, I tried to get these, but due to numerous (former) dealer comments about horrible service from Adcom and the apparent collapse of Ultech's distributor, these units were not available/considered.
The Arcam 9 is clearly the best of the lot (24-bit with Ring DAC), but it is beyond the target price range. I wanted to see what the next better class sounded like, so I took the opportunity. One thing about the Arcam equipment - they are upgradeable to the better units for the difference in price. The only fault I find with the Arcam 9 is that it has an extremely high floor noise. It has very good detail and texture, and has the best 3 dimensional sound of any unit. The new Rotel is judged to have the best overall sound characteristics (by a very, very slight margin) of the rest of the players. It had a hair-pin drawer that would close before the disc was seated properly. It also has HDCD circuitry. I picked the Arcam 8 over the Rotel because they are very close in the evaluation, but the Arcam 8 is upgradeable. The Arcam 7 has a flabby bass and a homogenized sound. It is no better than $200 Sony units. The Rega Planet is a nice, little machine, but you get what you pay for here. The Complete has a "thin" sound throughout the frequency range, and a particularly weak bass. The NAD is a brand new product. I had high expectations for this and the accompanying integrated amp. It additionally has balanced output terminals. By itself, the CD player gives mediocre reproduction with other components. With the NAD amp, it has the most detailed and textured sound of any combination, but the bass is extremely tight - much tighter than I like. This combination also projects an absolutely 2 dimensional soundstage - no depth at all - that is at the front of the speakers. The NAD CD player with other amps at least gives a hint of depth, but is otherwise uninspiring.

Note: The speakers I am using tend to minimize the depth of the soundstage, so a "hint" of depth is about average, and a little depth with a little vertical dispersion at the rear of the soundstage is outstanding (Arcam 9).

The Arcam 8 scores very close to the Rotel. Typically, the differences are in a judgement that certain sonic aspects are slightly better in one and certain other aspects are slightly better in the other. Both perform very well at all complexities of sound - solo through orchestral/choral. Both give a strong, refined, but tight bass when called upon. No real deficiencies in either except for the lack of upgradeability of the Rotel (which costs a little less).

I had 6 interconnects available to audition with this equipment. Particularly for the Arcam and Rotel CD players I found the WBT interconnects to be noticeably better in virtually every sound characteristic and music genre tested than from YBA, Transparent, BEL, Audioquest, and Radio Shack (for a baseline) at the less than $200 range.

When I purchased the Arcam Alpha 8, Arcam had a promotion to upgrade to the 8SE (HDCD circuitry + ?) for only $50. A good deal, and if I want to upgrade to a 9, I am that much closer.

System: Classe CAP-100 integrated amp, Well Tempered Reference (Audioquest interconnects), Yamaha TX-950 tuner, Mirage OM6 speakers (Tara Labs Crystal cables). (See my reviews of these components for more details).

Ratings: Arcam 8SE = 4 speakers (good sounding but at the top of the price range - less value); Alpha 8 = 5 speakers (good sound at mid-price range + upgradeability); Rotel RCD-971 = 5 speakers (good sound at low end of price range).

After my old Sony ES series player died, I listened to many possible replacements. Direct comparison of the Arcam Alpha 7 to any of the topend Rotel players showed it to be more musical, the Rotels all sounded harsh.We also listened to the Rega Planet, which would not fit into the space available. After further matched listening between the Arcam Alpha 7 and 8, even my non-audiophile wife agreed the Alpha 8 was more musical and worth the difference. We are very happy with this unit.

I upgraded from the Alpha7 to the Alpha8 SE and am still breaking it in so I may be premature with this review but I am so pleased with it's performance I will rate it as is. BIG improvement over the 7 in detail , smoothness and improved soundstage depth. The bottem end is tighter and more defined while the mid is smooth as silk and highs are sweet. A symbol sounds like a symbol. For HDCD disks I notice an improvement in depth and detail with the music playing with a more open sound, but this will vary between disks. I listened to everything in the price range and consider this to be the player that suits my listening style the best. I think that when you get to the $1500.00 and up rang most players are good at different things and it may become a matter of taste, but I like the upgrade path and sound of the Arcam.

Clear revealing sound, robust design, upgradeable

does not like to play some brands of CD-R discs

I find the Alpha 8 (I own the Alpha 8, not the 8se, so there is no HDCD decoding) to be a very reliable CD player. It performs consistantly well and the sound is great. My system is a bit weak when it comes to reproducing music played on the piano, I think that this is at least in part due to the CD player. In all other areas the sound is just great. I listen to jazz/classical/classic rock etc. and it handles all of it with ease.

It does not like alot of CD-R's, especially the blue ones, which is kind of a pain for me seeing as how I have alot of them. It will usually play them eventually-- if you can get them to load; it just won't always read them in to begin with.

The actual CD mechanism is made by Sony.

It does pretty well on the Digital Test CD from disques Pierre Verany (A two CD set- the second disc is a special CD that tests the CD players ability to deal with various types of CD's- scratched, poorly pressed, or what have you). For those who have the CD it sucessfully gets through tracks 1-33, 40-41, 44-47. The most important thing that this test disc reveals is that the CD player starts to skip/click when it encounters a scratch bigger than 1.25mm. This is above average performance and good for any CD player. I think I once read that the Linn Sondek CD12 (approx. US$20,000) only got to track 31, but I could be mistaken.

I am very happy with the Alpha 8 in general. The remote is a bit cheap but it is not a big deal. I don't think that they are selling the straight up Alpha 8 anymore, but the comments on the CD mechanism probably hold for the other players in the Alpha series seeing as how they all use the Sony mechanism.

Oh yeah, the fact that Arcam sells upgrades if a great policy IMHO.

System:
Arcam Alpha 9 Int Amp
Arcam Alpha 8 CD
Sony WA7-ESA Tape
Yamaha TX-492 Tuner
Phillips 212 Phono
B&W 602s2 w/Audioquest Cables
SIlver Audio Interconnects