Cambridge Evo One

Build & design

Built like a sort of scaled-down Brutalist structure, the Evo One’s careful blending of a rectangular exterior with that dominant front grille makes for a pleasing fusion of hard and soft. It’s a classy system and, when put up against the retro-modern aesthetic of the Ruark Audio R410 or the industrial looks of the Naim Mu-so 2, demonstrates that there’s more than one way to skin this particular metaphorical cat. The Ruark’s crafted wooden grilles are arguably on another level of drop-dead gorgeous, while Naim’s metal finish and illuminated control dial has a touch more je ne sais quoi, but the Evo One is far from an ugly stepsister.

It is a bit of a beast, measuring 12.9 x 67.5 x 29cm (hwd) and weighing 14.5kg, so you’ll need to make sure you have a sturdy, robust and sufficiently capacious surface on which to house it. Beastly it may be in terms of dimensions, but there’s beauty to be found as we cast an eye, and indeed a hand, over the Cambridge’s particulars. The removable honeycomb grille sits tight to the main unit, whereas that smooth walnut top panel – very much the star of the show – lends a premium feel. Squat down and you’ll notice that the Evo One is mounted on a recessed base stand, allowing the speaker to stand above its surface without detracting from the frontage’s bold aesthetic – again, that’s a nice touch.

To keep you in the picture and grant you hands-on control of your chunky all-in-one unit, the Evo One furnishes you with a 17cm colour display screen sitting above a decent array of slightly cheap-feeling physical buttons. That display screen grants access to the likes of album artwork, track information or a pair of virtual VU meters, whereas the accompanying buttons handle playback, volume control, play/pause and information selection.

For access at a distance, Cambridge Audio has provided a utilitarian but decently furnished plastic remote control for managing the same range of functions as handled by the on-unit buttons. If that seems a bit too 20th-century, the StreamMagic app will perform the same range of functionalities while also granting access to the Evo One’s built-in array of streaming services, platforms and source inputs.