AIYIMA A08 Pro Amplifier Review

[PeteL]

Nice brick, you have to wait years for "established" brands to adopt at least (non-HD) apt-X, wheres these chinese companies implement it charmingly easy, t

I never noticed that. But it'd be interesting to know if all these brands actually pay for Qualcomm's licence and royalties. I don't want to be presumptuous but it remains a fact that it's very hard to sue Chinese companies. There is nothing hard in that. "Charmingly easy" makes me giggle a bit, the only thing uneasy about AptX is on the budget. I find that totally normal that some companies to assess if it's worth it. Measurements here show mediocre performance but I am in the camp that Traditional 1K FFT may not be the right measurments to assess the benefit or uselessness of these CODECS. That said, If I was doing a BT speaker with 2 inch drivers or a very cheap pair of headphones, I'd surely skip on those, nobody would hear the difference.

 

[AndreaT]

I never noticed that. But it'd be interesting to know if all these brands actually pay for Qualcomm's licence and royalties. I don't want to be presumptuous but it remains a fact that it's very hard to sue Chinese companies. There is nothing hard in that. "Charmingly easy" makes me giggle a bit, the only thing uneasy about AptX is on the budget. I find that totally normal that some companies to assess if it's worth it. Measurements here show mediocre performance but I am in the camp that Traditional 1K FFT may not be the right measurments to assess the benefit or uselessness of these CODECS. That said, If I was doing a BT speaker with 2 inch drivers of a very cheap pair of headphones, I'd surely skip on those, nobody would hear the difference.

Why would Qualcomm rely on self reporting from the company and not in a mark-up in the chip price at the point of sale?

 

[PeteL]

Why would Qualcomm rely on self reporting from the company and not in a mark-up in the chip price at the point of sale?

Because they want to sell chips to everybody that design Bluetooth products I guess? Their SOCs are the most integrated and easy to implement, but it doesn't come with the licence, unless it changed lately. And You have to tell them a range of serial numbers to calculate the Royalties. It's not huge, like 70 cents a unit + maybe 15K or so for the Licence, But for smaller companies it adds up if you make a run of let's say 10 000 units,Well that's about 25K that you have to pay upfront before you sold even 1 units. On top of the Bluetooth SIG registration and certificate, on top of all other certifications. It may have changed but it used to be like that.

 

[JSmith]

@AIYIMA not a bad little amp for just over $100, watts per dollar is great and love the VU/tone controls, even BT.

A suggestion rather than a criticism, however I honestly think it would be better if your company changed their spec's to be more accurate... I mean, 300W@4Ω is simply not possible;

Aiyima could even link to ASR or other test results in marketing and specification listings. Customers may appreciate the more accurate approach and now your company is sending devices in regularly for testing it could be beneficial if those results matched closer for all products.


JSmith

 

[JayGilb]

Ugly little thing, but the price/performance for about a C-note is good.

Thanks again Amir.

 

[raif71]

Do you guys think the aux-out suitable to connect to a headphone? Say Sennheiser hd600 or a Sundara?

Edit: maybe I should ask whether the aux-out is affected by volume control of A08

 

[oivavoi]

Excellent review. The amp is not in the upper echelons of measurements, it is a good choice for non-believers in high SINADs as the price is affordable. Thank you Amir! Your reviews are extremely precise and a joy to read. In contrast with Denon, Aiyima improves the quality with its new products.

Indeed, this seems like a great budget choice. Great price-to-power ratio. Due to the load dependency in the treble it is probably not completely audibly transparent, at least with some speakers (I would gladly trade away 20 db of distortion for a flat frequency response that is not load dependent). But all subjective reviews so far indicates it sounds fine!

EDIT: I see it sold for 139 USD at Amazon, quite a bit higher than the price Amir gives in the review?

 

[voodooless]

@AIYIMA not a bad little amp for just over $100, watts per dollar is great and love the VU/tone controls, even BT.

A suggestion rather than a criticism, however I honestly think it would be better if your company changed their spec's to be more accurate... I mean, 300W@4Ω is simply not possible;

Aiyima could even link to ASR or other test results in marketing and specification listings. Customers may appreciate the more accurate approach and now your company is sending devices in regularly for testing it could be beneficial if those results matched closer for all products.

All of these tiny amps are marketed like this. I think this is for a great part due to the PSU, 100W into 4R, and 58 into 8R is about 20V. For 300W you'll need at least 35V, and 10A (per channel). Clearly, the PSU is current-limited here in both 4R and 8R. A 36V 10A PSU may pull it off.

 

[AndreaT]

Indeed, this seems like a great budget choice. Great price-to-power ratio. Due to the load dependency in the treble it is probably not completely audibly transparent, at least with some speakers (I would gladly trade away 20 db of distortion for a flat frequency response that is not load dependent). But all subjective reviews so far indicates it sounds fine!

EDIT: I see it sold for 139 USD at Amazon, quite a bit higher than the price Amir gives in the review?

Aliexpress $ 105, Walmart $ 115…

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Nice brick, you have to wait years for "established" brands to adopt at least (non-HD) apt-X, wheres these chinese companies implement it charmingly easy, this time with modern BT v5.0 with both Apt-X HD and LDAC.
Seems like it goes through CS4344 24-bit, 192 kHz DAC chip while using BT as source.

Combo mentioned above, looks avant-garde
View attachment 240573

Wow nice pic at this price point ,if the dac only preforms half as good as the amp now

 

[voodooless]

Wow nice pic at this price point ,if the dac only preforms half as good as the amp now

Nope, in theory, the DAC performs twice as well, it has a 6 dB better SINAD

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Nope, in theory, the DAC performs twice as well, it has a 6 dB better SINAD

Wow not bad for eye candy

 

[voodooless]

Wow not bad for eye candy

Well, it's only 90 SINAD. For this kind of stuff, good enough.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Well, it's only 90 SINAD. For this kind of stuff, good enough.

Here’s the question…value wise….how likely are we to notice the difference between 90 Sinad and my gustard x16 , 120 Sinad, in a room that is complicated ….with speakers that have not been equalized ….or any room equalization applied to it….and the speakers are not allowed to be in optimum position because it’s the living room.

 

[KR500]

Fordiebianco,

Thanks for posting your link in post # 14to the cheap tube audio article about the Aiyima Company, interesting

 

[TonyJZX]

about the BT chipsets... i feel like the Chinese arent copying these chips... its probably cheaper for them to just license these by the 1,000,0000 per tray and just spray them anywhere...

oddly enough in a very very chinese way of operation, the preamp has this:

QCC3031 SoC | QFN Bluetooth chipset for Speakers with aptX & aptX HD audio | Qualcomm

QCC3031 is an aptX HD audio-enabled Bluetooth SoC for Bluetooth speakers in a QFN package designed to reduce development cost and time-to-market.

www.qualcomm.com

notice it only supports AptX HD

but the power amp has this:

QCC5125 SoC | BGA Bluetooth 5.0 chipset with aptX, noise cancellation & TrueWireless | Qualcomm

QCC5125 is a low-power Bluetooth 5.0 BGA chipset for earbuds and speakers, with integrated noise cancellation, Qualcomm TrueWireless, and aptX technology.

www.qualcomm.com

supports LL and LDAC etc.

so this is just bad timing I guess, the tube preamp came out before the A08 Pro.


About pricing....

Arrow Components says that is min. 2600 parts for usd$3.636... so you can imagine the cost if you buy a million.

 

[amirm]

Company tells me price with power supply is $139.99 so I updated the review.

 

[Jim Shaw]

Is the "aux output" controlled by the volume & tone controls? Or what? We would need it to be controlled by the volume control to be suitable for use with a powered subwoofer.

 

[TonyJZX]

right now its $125 delivered due to China 11/11 mass consumerism event

amir's tested psu is 36v 6amp

their chart here:

https://cdn.shopifycdn.net/s/files/1/0018/5257/1723/files/2_9bc81453-d381-4a33-8249-3a8bb95d8cbf.jpg?v=1659419824

copy:

https://imgur.com/a/Yx7tDZU

says 32v 5a *should* do 75w @ 8 ohm but who knows what thd? 10%?

however power climbs strongly given enough amperage

up to 135w (LOL!) at 48v 12.5amp but these may be undernourished chinese watts

i wonder what the hell happens when you run an amp that is "48w" on a normal day to "135w" given a sufficient psu... is that kind of increase even safe?

 

[Jim Shaw]

Where does one go to find a more powerful supply for this class of amps? Amazon (at least) doesn't seem to offer a 48v 12 amp brick.