Different price classes - Emotiva BasX TA2+ costs roughly 1.9x what Cambridge Audio AXR100 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Emotiva BasX TA2+ has more power - 135W against 100W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.3dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Emotiva BasX TA2+ offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Price | B | Cambridge Audio AXR100 costs less - $699 against $1,299 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Cambridge Audio AXR100 is the cheaper watt - about $7 per watt against $10. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Emotiva BasX TA2+ B Cambridge Audio AXR100
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?
Emotiva BasX TA2+ is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 86% more. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - Cambridge Audio AXR100 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. Think about the whole system: the roughly $600 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.