No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 100W against 100W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Cambridge Audio Edge A holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 200W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | McIntosh MA5300 is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 103dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | A | McIntosh MA5300 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 3. |
| Phono stage | depends | McIntosh MA5300 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Cambridge Audio Edge A 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 | A | Only McIntosh MA5300 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 | McIntosh MA5300 is Class A/B and Cambridge Audio Edge A is Class XA. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Cambridge Audio Edge A takes up about 25% less shelf area (1867cm² against 2488cm²), and it is 154mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | McIntosh MA5300 costs less - $6,000 against $6,499 at list. |
A McIntosh MA5300 B Cambridge Audio Edge A
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?
McIntosh MA5300 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 - Cambridge Audio Edge A is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, McIntosh MA5300 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.