Cambridge Evo 150 SE

Introduction

It’s taken a little over four years for Cambridge to get around to putting fresh eyes and ears on its great little Evo 150 music streaming amplifier, and it’s now reborn as Evo 150 SE.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at the product, or glancing at the spec-sheet – but can you hear the difference?

Design

• 39 x 317 x 352mm (HWD)
• Swappable magnetic side panels
• Big, crisp, full-colour display

In terms of design, the Cambridge Evo 150 SE is basically all you want from an all-in-one, just-add-speakers music streaming system. It’s usefully compact ( just 39 x 317 x 352mm, HWD), it’s carefully made and finished, and it has a big, bright and well-rendered full-colour display giving access to album artwork, set-up menus and, by way of a nice kicker, virtual VU meters.

The Evo 150 SE has one design difference to the model it replaces, but it’s so minor and/or subtle as to be easily overlooked by anyone who doesn’t take an abiding interest in this sort of thing.

The control/volume dial on the right of the front panel is a two-tier arrangement – and the outer wheel has a different knurling pattern to that of the old Evo 150. Told you it was minor, didn’t I?

Mind you, the Cambridge does at least have one design flourish it’s carried over from the outgoing model: magnetically attached side panels. The Evo 150 SE is supplied with a pair in a real wood veneer and grey slatted pair that look a little less traditional hi-fi. It’s a nice touch.

Interacting with the Cambridge can be done in a few different ways. There’s a remote control handset, of course – it’s fairly logical in its layout and not as overtly cheap-feeling as those provided with some rival products. The display hosts big, clear menus dealing with set-up, input selection and so on – they are navigated using that control dial (the one with the iconoclastic knurling).

Features

• ESS Sabre ES9018K2M 32-bit/384kHz and DSD256 DAC
• 150 watts of Hypex NCOREx with Class D amplification
• Bluetooth 4.2 with SBC, AAC, aptX and aptX HD compatibility

Much as with design, there’s not a great deal of difference in the features set of the old Evo 150 and this new 150 SE. But at least the difference here is meaningful rather than cosmetic.

The Evo 150 SE twists out 150 watts of power into an 8-ohm load, just as the old model did. But for this new machine, Cambridge has worked so closely with Hypex on its NCOREx Class D amplification that it’s been officially branded ‘tuned by Cambridge’. At last, a reason for that ‘SE’ badge…

Mind you, the old Evo 150 was so well specified it’s difficult to know where Cambridge could make a meaningful upgrade. So, quite sensibly, the company hasn’t tried.

This means the Evo 150 SE has an ample selection of physical and wireless inputs and outputs. Analogue inputs run to a line-level unbalanced input using stereo RCAs, a balanced equivalent using XLRs, and a moving magnet phono stage for use with a record player. Digital inputs consist of a digital coaxial socket, a digital optical input, an Ethernet socket, a USB-B input and an HDMI ARC.

Wireless connectivity is handled by dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 with SBC, AAC, aptX and aptX HD codec compatibility. The Evo 150 SE is Roon Ready, can deal with AirPlay 2, Chromecast, the Connect versions of Spotify and TIDAL,  and has access to internet radio too.

Outputs consist of binding posts for two pairs of speakers and a 3.5mm headphone socket, along with pre-outs for a subwoofer and for a power amp. The Bluetooth connectivity works in both directions, so the Cambridge can connect to your wireless headphones.

Incoming analogue signals go straight to that all-new amplification, of course (unless they’re from a turntable, in which case they need a rocket of pre-amplification up them first). Digital stuff must visit an ESS Sabre ES9018K2M digital-to-analogue converter on their way – it can handle resolutions of up to 32-bit/384kHz and DSD256, and is pretty much agnostic about file types.  

And there’s also the latest (4th) generation of the StreamMagic control app – it’s a very good example of the type, and covers virtually every eventuality in stable, logical and easy-to-navigate fashion.

From integrating your favourite music streaming service(s), fiddling with EQs, saving some favourite internet radio stations as presets, ensuring the front page only includes those inputs you’re actually using, performing a rudimentary room correction routine and more besides, it’s a very thorough and useful interface. 

Performance

• Energetic, insightful and full-scale sound
• Organised and dynamic presentation
• Overplays its low-frequency hand a little

It’s worth saying at the start that the Cambridge Evo 150 SE is a brilliantly consistent performer. No matter the source of music you use, nor (in the case of digital audio files) the size or resolution, its overarching character is always apparent.

It sounds better with some DSD64 content from local storage than it does when given the same music as a 320kbps file via Bluetooth, of course – but it’s still identifiably the same nature of performance.

And its character is lively, full-bodied, dynamically potent and very attentive to detail – a 24-bit/96kHz FLAC file of Karen Dalton’s Something On Your Mind allows the 150 SE to express itself in quite a number of ways. The striking vocal that occupies much of the midrange is direct, articulate and alive with detail both broad and fine – the secrets of Dalton’s technique, as well as information regarding her tone and her attitude, are made plain.

The top of the frequency range is bold and substantial, but has plenty of bite to offer some contrast. These areas of the frequency range share a common tonality – it’s very slightly on the warm-ish side of neutral. And the integration between the two is smoother than an extremely smooth thing.

The soundstage the Cambridge can create is open and well-defined – even when a recording is as tightly ‘together’ as this one, and it seems that there are fewer mics in use than there are elements of the recording, the Evo 150 SE manages to open it up and allow a little space and elbow room.

Switch to a more modern recording like Lorde’s Shapeshifter as a 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC file and all of the above is made even more apparent, especially the facility with soundstaging. And this song allows the Cambridge to demonstrate its facility with broad-strokes dynamics and its ability to identify the more low-key dynamics of harmonic variation too.

Its command of transient details, and its ability to put them into convincing context, is really impressive – and the same is true of the way it can unify a recording into a convincing ‘whole’.

The transition to the bottom of the frequency range is confident, and once it’s down there the Evo 150 SE is just as observant of detail and just as willing to describe tone and texture as it is elsewhere.

The attack of bass sounds is carefully controlled, and as a result the machine expresses rhythms confidently. Issues, such as they are, concern the simple quantity of low-end presence the Cambridge serves up relative to the rest of the frequency range. Basically, there’s a little too much of it.

The low-frequency stuff the Evo 150 SE delivers is punchy, substantial, controlled and varied – but it doesn’t balance as well as it might against everything that is occurring above it.

This bottom-heavy over-confidence is, I suppose, preferable to underpowered or tentative bass performance – but neither is as good as a sound that’s truly balanced in its response from the bottom of the frequency range to the top. Some system-matching, especially where loudspeakers are concerned, would seem to be in order.

Should you buy it?

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