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 | Arcam SA35 has more power - 120W against 90W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (200W and 150W). |
| Noise floor | A | Arcam SA35 is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 106dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. Arcam SA35 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | A | Only Arcam SA35 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Room correction | A | Arcam SA35 has room correction. In an awkward room that does more for the sound than any other difference on this page. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Arcam SA20 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Price | B | Arcam SA20 costs less - $1,650 against $3,300 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Arcam SA20 is the cheaper watt - about $18 per watt against $28. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Arcam SA35 B Arcam SA20
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 SA35 measures better, Arcam SA20 costs about 50% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,650 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.