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 | B | Peachtree nova150 has more power - 150W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.7dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Cambridge CXA81 II the better fit for a small room, and Peachtree nova150 for a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Peachtree nova150 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 250W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | evenly matched | Much the same signal-to-noise ratio (105dB vs 105dB). |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| 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. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Cambridge CXA81 II takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Peachtree nova150 has a built-in phono stage (MM) 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 | B | Only Peachtree nova150 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 | Cambridge CXA81 II is Class A/B and Peachtree nova150 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 | Peachtree nova150 takes up about 25% less shelf area (1200cm² against 1595cm²), and it is 33mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Peachtree nova150 is the cheaper watt - about $8 per watt against $15. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Cambridge CXA81 II B Peachtree nova150
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?
Peachtree nova150 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Peachtree nova150 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Peachtree nova150 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 80 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 70 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Peachtree nova150 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
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.