Arcam Integrated Amps


What are your thoughts / experiences with Arcam amps in general? And which models do you recommend for sound quality and build quality / reliability? There are lots of inexpensive used Arcam integrated amps on Ebay. I've been wanting to try one for a while as a back up amp (my main one runs rather warm) but the selection's overwhelming.
greg7
You can check offerings from, Exposure, MF, Naim, Cambridge, Rega,...generally better voiced than Arcam.

G
This sums it up rather nicely: https://www.whathifi.com/us/features/was-then-ar-cambridge-a60-1976-vs-arcam-a19-2013

The original A60 was most memorable back in the day. Today, I appreciate what Exposure is doing. They seem to play well with most any system.
If my experience is of any value to you:

I recently bought an Arcam SA20, to pair up with my Dynaudio evoke 30 like of speakers. Initailly, it sounded good - perhaps because of being fresh off the bos etc - it had somewhat of a tubish sound, but within a couple of weeks the sound deteriorated quite a bit. Had very little dynamism. 

From a build quality and design standpoint it was BAD. I have owned a couple of Luxmans, a couple of NADs, a Marantz, a Mcintosh and Denons in the past. If the NADs are a 4 on a scale of 0 to 10 with Luxmans being at the top end, the Arcam SA20 was AT best a  low 1. The build quality is POOR, the buttons are made of plastic, they are loss & shaky, and the "click" of the button feels like something from an 80s car stereo. It is just poor design for $1500. 

I sent it back and bought a beautiful Luxman SQ -N150 in its place.
I purchase an ARCAM AVR550 only because I wanted to use it for both Home Theater and 2 channel listening.  Their AVR850 model sounds extremely good because they have a new G technology that is able to play the first 50 watts in Pure A.  Wonder what else is out there than sounds better that can be use for both purposes.  Wouldn't even mind finding something that can play only front channels when watching TV and playing 2 channel with better sound quality for 2 channel.
I meant to add customer support from ARCAM is absolutely horrible.  The customer service person after a couple of questions told me to not contact him again.  He was the rudest person I have ever talked to.  Wonder if anyone else experienced the same.