ARCAM at 50: a Class act

Cambridgeshire-based ARCAM marks its 50th anniversary and sets the stage for a major moment at HIGH END Vienna

Cambridge, UK, June 4, 2026 – ARCAM turns 50 this year and is marking the milestone not with retrospectives, but with significant new products to be unveiled at HIGH END Vienna 2026.

Founded in Cambridge in 1976, ARCAM has spent five decades doing things its own way: putting music first, focusing on engineering that matters, and creating products that are easy to live with and rewarding to listen to. From the original A60 integrated to the Radia Series, it has consistently offered a more accessible route into premium hi-fi. And while streaming sits at the heart of many of today’s systems, ARCAM continues to support listeners for whom physical formats remain a key part of how they listen.

As with many enduring brands, ARCAM’s origins were shaped by a particular moment. In the early 1970s, the shift from mono to stereo was transforming how people listened to music at home. In Cambridge, that shift met a culture of curiosity and engineering ambition. It was there that students John Dawson and the late Chris Evans met at the Cambridge University Tape Recording Society. In that collegial environment, the foundations of ARCAM (then Amplification & Recording Cambridge) were laid – so decisively that Dawson and Evans set aside their PhDs to focus on amplifier development.

The result was the A60. Originally built in small numbers for friends and fellow enthusiasts, it quickly found a much wider audience. Within a decade, thousands had been sold, establishing ARCAM as one of the defining names in British hi-fi.

What followed was not just growth, but a pattern of audio innovation. ARCAM helped shape several key categories, including the first domestic add-on DAC (the Black Box), the first domestic DAB tuner (the Alpha 10) and one of the earliest audiophile AV amplifiers (the Xeta 1). More recently, the Radia Series has introduced a fresh visual identity while staying true to the brand’s core sound and values.

Now part of the HARMAN Luxury Audio Group, ARCAM continues to operate from Cambridgeshire, combining its own engineering with access to wider expertise and facilities heritage. The result is a brand with both continuity and momentum.

That drive comes into focus at HIGH END Vienna this June, where ARCAM will introduce new additions to its portfolio. Full details remain under wraps until the launch; however, the significance of that moment is heightened by the involvement of John Dawson, who remains actively involved in product development – particularly in the evolution of Class G amplification. It is a rare continuity: the founding vision still helping to shape what comes next.

Exactly what can we expect from ARCAM at HIGH END? Well, John Dawson is fully signed up and, as Billy Joel sang just a year after ARCAM sold its first amplifier… Vienna waits for you.

About ARCAM

ARCAM is based just outside the historic university city of Cambridge. Its story began in classic fashion: two friends with a shared passion for music and electronics met while studying engineering at the University of Cambridge and, in 1976, founded Amplification and Recording Cambridge.

The brand has now been developing and refining digital audio products for decades, alongside the continuous evolution of the amplifiers that first established its reputation in consumer electronics. From the mid-1990s, ARCAM expanded into home cinema, earning a world-class reputation for producing AV electronics with a distinctly musical performance.

ARCAM has also developed its disc players in the UK, from CD through to DVD and Blu-ray, applying its deep experience in digital audio to ensure they perform with equal assurance for both music and film.

Hard-won expertise in preserving and handling delicate audio signals – and in reproducing music with all its subtlety, nuance and energy intact – is central to ARCAM’s design philosophy. As audio continues to evolve into higher-resolution formats, the company remains focused on faithfully serving the source and delivering maximum enjoyment to the listener.

ARCAM is part of the HARMAN Luxury Audio Group, a lifestyle division of HARMAN International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.

www.arcam.co.uk

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