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 | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has more power - 150W against 105W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.5dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Rega Elicit MK5 the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and Cambridge Audio Evo 150 for a very large 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 (162W and 250W). |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. Cambridge Audio Evo 150 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | B | Only Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Rega Elicit MK5 takes more analogue sources - 4 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Rega Elicit MK5 is Class A/B and Cambridge Audio Evo 150 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 | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 takes up about 19% less shelf area (1190cm² against 1469cm²), and it is 32mm 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 | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 is the cheaper watt - about $22 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 Cambridge Audio Evo 150
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 Audio Evo 150 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.