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 | A | Anthem STR has more power - 200W against 150W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Anthem STR holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 400W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. Cambridge Audio Evo 150 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | B | Only Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Anthem STR takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Anthem STR is Class A/B and Cambridge Audio Evo 150 is Class D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 takes up about 38% less shelf area (1190cm² against 1931cm²), and it is 75mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 costs less - $3,249 against $5,000 at list. |
A Anthem STR B Cambridge Audio Evo 150
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?
Anthem STR is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 54% more. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - Cambridge Audio Evo 150 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Anthem STR is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,751 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.