This is another small amplifier designed to power a room of music, the type we’ve called ‘zone players’ ever since Sonos made the first of the breed. They are designed to be unobtrusive boxes combining an app-controlled streamer plus amplifier, so that all you need really add is a pair of speakers. Invariably such zone players have an unpowered sibling, and that is the case here, with the equally shiny but half-height S1 being the streamer-only equivalent.
So if you’ve already got a hi-fi system in need of streaming, plug in the S1. If you’ve got nothing yet, the SA2 plus a pair of speakers will do the lot, or you can plug in a few external sources to expand the system. There are a good many examples of such streamer-amps available, with three key differentiators governing your choice.
Firstly, do its streaming services and inputs match your needs? Secondly, are you creating an ecosystem of products that need to work together? And lastly a crucial factor: what’s the quality of the amplifier? Electrocompaniet has chips in all three stacks. The streaming here and the control app were developed for the Norwegian company’s higher-end streamers, so not only ‘tried and tested’ but also offering an ecosystem connecting with other EC streamers and wireless speakers in the home. Both the AU$2599 SA2 and its S2 sister streamer (AU$2199) can connect to EC’s TANA L1 and L2 speakers; there’s also a wireless subwoofer, the SIRA L1 (pictured near the end of this review.