Which is better Arcam 85 or Creek 5350Se

I guess I'm a little late here, but just for the sake of anyone else looking at these posts: I also would like to hear the Creek, I currently own a Bryston B60. I like the B60 and have tweaked it with high-end ICs to replace the stock jumpers, and a JPS Labs power cord, and that improved it for sure, but still would like to hear the Creek. THE ONE CONSIDERATION that holds me up is the utterly lousy warranty with the Creek -- is it 90 days or 2 years? Either way it's lousy. Any manuf. with pretensions to hi-end should be willing to stand behind their product with a DECENT warranty of at least 5 to 10 years, and I love Bryston for the 20 year warranty. But the Creek is British made and lord even knows who in the U.S. could repair it .... !!

From the various responses, the conclusion as always is to demo them, and decide for yourself which one you like better. You have narrowed it down to two. These forums are good for getting suggestions. We have probably gotten you as far as we can.

I had both in home with Tyler Reference Monitors and the 85 tore up the Stereofool Class A Creek. Later I used the pre only on some active speakers and was impressed. Today I used a Plinius CD-LAD 3k pre on the actives and preferred the pre section of the 85. The 85 has so many features that are not even talked about at Arcams web site or any reviews.
I also preferred the 85 to my previous Electrocompaniet ECI-4 3k. Add a P-85 and you are set for life. This is without question the best Integrated I have heard, and I also preferred over the Levison 383.

What's with all the typo's in the above posts? Thought I
was the only one that couldn't spel?

Used to play darts at a bar with friends....and we always
called it the "beer to darts ratio"!

I, also, have heard good things about both integrateds, for
the price. I have also heard about and heard the new Ayre
integrated...and although a grand more, very much a grand
integrated.

I replaced my Creek 5350SE with an LFD MIstral LE integrated much more open sound with superior transparency etc..

I have 5.0's and I auditioned them with both the Creek and the Arcam, and I was unimpressed both times. I ended up with a Bryston B60R and I am very happy. Buy one used off of Audiogon. With Bryston's 20 year transferable warranty (don't even need a receipt), you can't lose, and the Bryston is a much better built machine than the Arcam and Creek. I think Stereophile's class A rating for the Creek is ridiculous. It is definitely inferior to the Bryston.

I agree it does depend on the rest of your speakers, especially speakers at Royy mentions. The Creek will sound nice with British speakers like Epos and B&W (and others). It should sound nice with Epos. Mike Creek also ownes Epos. The Arcam is also a British amp BTW.

The general consensus is that the Creek 5350SE is perhaps the best integrated on the market today in the $1500 price range. It has competition, such as the Arcam, the Bryston B-60, the new Perreaux (which has 160 wpc, and is available from Audio Advisor), etc., but the Creek seems to have gotten everything right. I have heard the 5350SE, but not the others I listed above. If I were forced today to downsize my current system to something smaller, and had a budget of about $1500, the 5350SE would be at the top of the list, along with 2-3 others.

I can't say much about the Arcam, but I did look at the Creek. It sounds really nice, and it looks sharp. I would think it would be a really good mate for the Soliloquys.

Believe me they are both excellent amp. Which amp is better? It depends on your taste and the rest of your system specially your speaker. for example base on my experience if you have an Epos speaker the Creek matches with it very well. and the Arcam Diva matches very well with Dynaudio and Revel speaker.