Siblings in ARCAM's Radia range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | ARCAM AVA25 has more power - 120W against 85W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.5dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Speaker load rating | B | ARCAM AVA25 is rated down to 4 ohms against 8, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (3). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | ARCAM AVA15 is D and ARCAM AVA25 is AB. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | A | ARCAM AVA15 costs less - $4,500 against $5,500 at list. |
A ARCAM AVA15 B ARCAM AVA25
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
The usual trade-off: ARCAM AVA25 measures better, ARCAM AVA15 costs about 18% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.