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 | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 105W against 130W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (162W and 200W). |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Arcam SA30 handles MQA. |
| Streaming | B | Only Arcam SA30 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (4). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Rega Elicit MK5 is Class A/B and Arcam SA30 is Class G. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class G/H switches its supply rails to cut the heat a Class A/B design wastes. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Arcam SA30 is the cheaper watt - about $25 per watt against $32. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Rega Elicit MK5 B Arcam SA30
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?
Arcam SA30 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
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.