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 | Cambridge EXA100 has more power - 100W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Cambridge EXA100 the better fit for a large room and a very large room, and Roksan Attessa Integrated Amp for a small room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (155W and 130W). |
| Noise floor | B | Roksan Attessa Integrated Amp is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 91dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. Cambridge EXA100 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 EXA100 has Roon. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Cambridge EXA100 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Roksan Attessa Integrated Amp has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Cambridge EXA100 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 | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A Cambridge EXA100 B Roksan Attessa Integrated Amp
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 EXA100 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, Roksan Attessa Integrated Amp 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.