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Iconic British audio brand invites listeners to "Be The Centre Of The Music" with a new look and feel to lead its product development and industrial design into the future while advancing innovation and expanding to new customer opportunities
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Oct. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- HARMAN Luxury Audio Group introduces new branding for ARCAM that is created to lead its product development and industrial design into the future with three key tenets: amazing sound, British heritage, and luxury within reach. The branding will be revealed to the New Zealand market with the launch of the ARCAM Radia Series, a new family of luxury audio products including the ARCAM A5/A15/A25 Integrated Amplifiers, the ARCAM CD5 CD Player, and the ARCAM ST5 High-Resolution Streamer.
"When we set out to create the Radia Series, there were a number of technical innovations that we wanted to put into the product and we ultimately settled on a design that we think is one of the best sounding amplifiers we have ever created," said Jim Garrett, Senior Director, Product Strategy and Planning, HARMAN Luxury Audio. "In addition to a sleek new design that will define ARCAM's image for years to come, with the Radia family, we've renewed our focus on intimate performance and embraced the very latest audio technologies. For today's audio enthusiasts, especially younger ones looking to get into a luxury audio system at a reasonable cost, the resulting solutions surpass not only our past offerings, but any product that's come before."
Radia family products offer a subtle symmetrical design that compliments their aluminum shells. They are adorned with seamless front fascias, redesigned knobs, and gentle lighting effects, creating a sense of power and finesse. The products showcase a smooth, matte black surface cut through with the new signature Radia yellow highlights. On the top, ventilation cutouts are masterfully hidden within a pattern of dynamic lines, ensuring a flawless aesthetic. The rear sports a connector cowl, reminiscent of ornate rear diffusers found in performance cars, that effectively hides unsightly connector housings from view. And, to ensure optimal user interaction, the redesigned knobs are elegantly curved, finished in satin black, and textured to mask fingerprints.
As a storied British audio brand founded in Cambridge, UK, in 1976, ARCAM will continue developing for high-end audio aficionados, and music creators with a discerning sense of quality. However, the industrial design aesthetic was created to also appeal to a new and younger segment of customers with a more affordable, sleek and attractive design without compromising on advances in audio innovation for future products.
"There is a third core customer where we see an opportunity, and that's younger audio enthusiasts who are ready to elevate their sound systems by making investments in high-end systems but are more budget conscience, or as we say, luxury within reach," said Tim Giblin, Director of Global Marketing, HARMAN Portfolio Brands. "With an aspirational call to 'Be The Centre Of The Music' we are having our customers identify with a brand that is forward thinking not only in styling, but in the sound innovation that has made ARCAM a top brand in luxury audio for nearly fifty years."
The main design feature for the ARCAM rebranding is the introduction of Radia Yellow chosen for its contemporary look, its differentiation in the audio industry and its universal appeal. Radia Yellow is incorporated throughout the five new Radia Series products.
"Radia Yellow was chosen and so named for ARCAM because it speaks to everyone, everywhere," said Jason Gokavi, Principal Designer at Huemen, HARMAN International's in-house design firm, who worked with the HARMAN Luxury Audio product development team in the industrial design of the Radia products. "Music is energy and we wanted to hint at that energy by infusing the brand with a vibrant yellow that will be used throughout the product design and marketing assets going forward."
The rebranding and product design doesn't stop at the use of colour. Made to be displayed out in the open and blend into a listening environment, there are also subtle design features made to be discovered and to enhance the performance of the product.
"While we wanted to retain a familiarity with how the product looks from afar, the magic is in discovering design details as you get closer to it, especially elements that are a nod to the rich British heritage of ARCAM," said Gokavi.
ARCAM officially unveiled the new flagship family at an event held on October 3rd at the Vinyl Factory in London. Products will be available at ARCAM authorised retailers in the fourth quarter of 2023.
ARCAM new flagship family, Radia Series:
For more information and high-res visuals, please refer to the Spec Sheets, Product and Lifestyle Images of the ARCAM Radia Series here.
Learn more about ARCAM's new branding philosophy and the ARCAM Radia Series by visiting www.arcam.co.uk
About ARCAM
ARCAM is based just outside the famous university city of Cambridge. Its story started the classic way: two friends with a passion for music and electronics met up while engineering students at Cambridge University and founded Amplification and Recording Cambridge in 1976.
The brand has now been developing and making CD players for almost 30 years and for 40 years the descendants of the amplifier with which the company started in consumer electronics, and as far back as 1995, expanded into home cinema electronics, developing a world-class reputation for making some of the best-sounding AV electronics. ARCAM has also developed its DVD players and, more recently, Blu-ray players from scratch in the UK, engineering them using its decades of experience in CD players to ensure they play music as well as they do movies.
Hard-won techniques for preserving and handling the most delicate signal and reproducing music with all its subtleties, nuances and excitement intact are now in ARCAM's blood. And, as audio moves to even higher definition formats, the maker is determined that its products continue to serve the music faithfully and deliver maximum enjoyment to the listener.
ARCAM is a HARMAN Luxury Audio Group portfolio brand. HARMAN Luxury Audio Group is a lifestyle division business unit of HARMAN International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. www.arcam.co.uk
ABOUT HARMAN LUXURY AUDIO GROUP
Headquartered in HARMAN's global center of acoustic engineering in Northridge, California, HARMAN Luxury Audio Group brings together five prestigious brands — JBL, JBL Synthesis, Mark Levinson, Revel, and ARCAM — to offer the most advanced high-performance audio systems with award-winning products including loudspeakers, subwoofers, preamplifiers, amplifiers, turntables, and headphones. From the finest stereo listening to state-of-the-art multichannel home theater systems, HARMAN Luxury Audio Group delivers pure, uncompromised sound. HARMAN Luxury Audio Group is a lifestyle division business unit of HARMAN International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
