Move with the times

How do you balance established design with the changing requirements of modern hi-fi? Ed Selley feels this duo shows how it’s done

- Ed Selley

COMPONENTS

ARCAM SA30 £2,000

Arcam’s flagship amp exemplifies all the company has been working on in recent years, combining its proprietary Class G amplification to provide 120W of power to a wide spread of inputs, with the added benefit of Dirac Room EQ software.

JBL HDI-1600 £2,000

The smallest member of the HDI Series that takes features from the larger and more ornate ranges, the HDI-1600 combines a 165mm aluminium mid/ bass driver with a compression-loaded tweeter in a trademark JBL waveguide.

In the ‘almost but not quite English’ language of marketing, ‘brand identity’ is a very good thing. The idea that products you produce can be instantly recognised as one of your own is a desirable way of standing out. The hi-fiindustry, consciously or otherwise, is rather good at this with many companies building product that is recognisable on sight as the work of one specific manufacturer. What happens, though, when your brand identity is ideal for a certain type of product, but you need to apply it to something outside that window?

JBL has had to grapple with that particular question. It has a fine reputation for a particular breed of speaker that is generally on the hefty side. Its larger models are held in considerable reverence in many circles and it’s done a fine job of mining a rich vein of heritage in some of its other recent offerings. What you see here is recognisably a JBL model, but one that takes the fight to more conventional rivals.