British stalwart Arcam surprised by introducing a serious stereo integrated amp at CES. The A49 is Arcam's biggest integrated yet, with a 200Wpc-into-8-ohms rating that doubles into half that load. It’s based on the Arcam AV750 chassis, which is a multichannel design that runs in class G. There is a white paper explaining how this works, and the technically minded can find it on the Arcam website. The important point is that the A49 runs in class A for the first 50 watts, which as we know are the most critical ones. The amp is fully balanced and analog only, but it offers power-supply outputs for Arcam’s rSeries devices such as the IrDAC and rBlink Bluetooth DAC. The A49 will retail for between $4500 and $5000.

Arcam also showed the miniBlink, a Bluetooth micro DAC that incorporates the technology from the $300 rBlink in a molded case. It weighs a mere 1.4 ounces and costs $149. But it’s not a toy, thanks to a low-noise Bluetooth receiver with aptX and AAC that make it well suited to operation with tablets and smartphones alike.