One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 75W against 80W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases modestly (110W and 120W). |
| Noise floor | B | Cambridge CXA81 II is the quieter design on paper - 105dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. Cambridge CXA81 II goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only Cambridge CXA81 II has Roon. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Phono stage | depends | Advance Paris X-i75 has a built-in phono stage and Cambridge CXA81 II does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Advance Paris X-i75 offers a pre-out/main-in loop - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Advance Paris X-i75 is Class AB-T and Cambridge CXA81 II is Class A/B. 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 | B | Cambridge CXA81 II costs less - $1,199 against $1,299 at list. |
A Advance Paris X-i75 B Cambridge CXA81 II
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?
Cambridge CXA81 II has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If you play records, Advance Paris X-i75 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.