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AIYIMA A08 Pro Amplifier Review

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 8 3.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 34 14.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 169 71.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 24 10.2%

  • Total voters
    235

Joe Smith

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I think the A07 is still the "cheap champ" in my book. I have an A04 too, and like the sound, but the gain is far less than the A07. With the standard power supply, the A07 can get much louder without distortion. The A04 for me is only really good for nearfield uses.
 

GabrielPhoto

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Jul 14, 2020
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Apart from the ayimia, if you have the cash, is to go for the superb hypex. They are very good and a ton of positive feedback on the net. That's certainly what i would do.
Oh yeah this desktop system is just to improve on a lame soundbar while keeping size small and without spending a lot. Is not my main system...my $$$ goes to my Home Theater/Music room downstairs :D
 

john11

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If it's cheap and cheerful you want, i purchased the A07 upgraded the psu, op-amps, caps and inductors, and it blows away every class-d it has come up against
 

Joe Smith

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Apart from the ayimia, if you have the cash, is to go for the superb hypex. They are very good and a ton of positive feedback on the net. That's certainly what i would do.
A 2-channel Hypex NC252 amp from Buckeye is on my radar...at less than $600, pretty good deal. I just need to think more about my use case...for most of my rooms, 150wpc is overkill, that's where the little Aiyima fits in nicely, along with my vintage stuff.
 

grogi.giant

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Apr 30, 2021
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I think the A07 is still the "cheap champ" in my book. I have an A04 too, and like the sound, but the gain is far less than the A07. With the standard power supply, the A07 can get much louder without distortion. The A04 for me is only really good for nearfield uses.

With 32v power supply, they should perform identically. The only significant difference between the two (apart from minor technical differences, such as different switching frequency etc.) is that TPA3255 can work with higher maximal power voltage, thus generating more power.
 
Last edited:

john11

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With 32v power supply, they should perform identically. The only significant difference between the two (apart from minor technical differences, such as different switching frequency etc.) is that TPA3255 can work with higher maximal power voltage, thus generating more power.

I've never tried the A04, i'm just going off a lot of feedback i heard on this forum
 

Kegemusha

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Jul 16, 2020
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If I look into the review index, electronics, and search for AIYIMA, brand, I get the list of devices (A200, A07, dac a-6, etc) but not this one.
Can other member confirm this?
Skärmklipp.JPG
 

Joe Smith

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With 32v power supply, they should perform identically. The only significant difference between the two (apart from minor technical differences, such as different switching frequency etc.) is that TPA3255 can work with higher maximal power voltage, thus generating more power.
Well in my A04, the gain is set very low. I think I read there were two versions released and the later one had lower gain? That's the one I appear to have.

I don't think Amir ever tested an A04, just the A07.
 

Kegemusha

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The aiyima is good. The stock version has seen off all other class-d amps i have tried up to the £200 price point. The modded A07i did is much better, but probably not as good as hypex, so you are definetly on the right track
There a nc252 here for 415 euro https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/powe...reo-amplifier-ncore-2x250w-4-ohm-p-14185.html
or you can go for the 125W,

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/power-amplifier/audiophonics-mpa-s125nc-xlr-stereo-class-d-power-amplifier-ncore-2x125w-4-ohm-p-14516.html
 

Zeppelin

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Mar 6, 2023
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Today my A08 pro unit arrived to me.

I am kind of new in this HIFI world, and this is the second amplifier I have had in my life. I have read someone saying the sound it is not warm and returned it and that dissapointed me, beacuse my unit it's from Aliexpress and I don't think I can return it. Anyways I think I will be happy to keep it with me, but it would be perfet if @AIYIMA keep the exchangeble OpAmps. Bad done Aiyima, you just devalueted a great amp.

The only thing I can speak from now is the aestethics and tone controls. It shocked me the first time I've seen it, but I like it! It's different, but not ugly for me. The only complain about tone knobs is it would be great to have also a midd's tone control knob. I am happy to have bass&treble control at hand.

And about the volume, in my case I can't turn the whell further than 10. It sound so loud. I am using the stock 36V PSU.

Subwoofer: a user asked about the possibility to connect an active subwoofer. It is suposed to be possible, thus this is one of the reason I bought this amp.

Monday/tuesday I will have the speakers to connect to this amp. If there is any questions about the amp I could try to answer it, but I don't have any other amp to compare it.

About the VU meter, It is ok, but the LED it has there it is nuclear orange at evening, so I would have to cover the VU meter with something to be able to sleep. Soon I will open the amp and take off the LED.

To upgrade this amp I would take back the OpAmps, add midd's controls and lower the intensity of the LED, then would be perfect for me.
 

john11

Active Member
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Mar 8, 2021
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216
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Today my A08 pro unit arrived to me.

I am kind of new in this HIFI world, and this is the second amplifier I have had in my life. I have read someone saying the sound it is not warm and returned it and that dissapointed me, beacuse my unit it's from Aliexpress and I don't think I can return it. Anyways I think I will be happy to keep it with me, but it would be perfet if @AIYIMA keep the exchangeble OpAmps. Bad done Aiyima, you just devalueted a great amp.

The only thing I can speak from now is the aestethics and tone controls. It shocked me the first time I've seen it, but I like it! It's different, but not ugly for me. The only complain about tone knobs is it would be great to have also a midd's tone control knob. I am happy to have bass&treble control at hand.

And about the volume, in my case I can't turn the whell further than 10. It sound so loud. I am using the stock 36V PSU.

Subwoofer: a user asked about the possibility to connect an active subwoofer. It is suposed to be possible, thus this is one of the reason I bought this amp.

Monday/tuesday I will have the speakers to connect to this amp. If there is any questions about the amp I could try to answer it, but I don't have any other amp to compare it.

About the VU meter, It is ok, but the LED it has there it is nuclear orange at evening, so I would have to cover the VU meter with something to be able to sleep. Soon I will open the amp and take off the LED.

To upgrade this amp I would take back the OpAmps, add midd's controls and lower the intensity of the LED, then would be perfect for me.

For me, the opamps made the least improvement. The psu definitely made the most. I sniped a meanwell 10 amps for £25 from ebay, RRP was £75 it was a customer return looked and worked like brand new
I also saw a few psu with metal cases, the kind that need to be placed inside an abs enclosure - £5
 

Zeppelin

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Mar 6, 2023
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For me, the opamps made the least improvement. The psu definitely made the most.
Reading this thread and others here I kind of understand a quality PSU can prevent noise problems, but reading your message give me the impression you say also could improve the qualities of the sound, like the possible absence of "warmth" sound described for another user. Am I understanding it well?
 

john11

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Mar 8, 2021
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Opamps nowadays are so good even a basic one will perform very well. Some opamps will sound sharper than others, some sound more balanced, some give a bassy kind of sound, some a warm kind of sound, some harsh or brittle. If you want to try out a couple of op amps the lm4562 i tried as an upgrade is good as is the lme49720.
They only cost a couple of bucks so fun way of upgrading without breaking the bank. They do sound better / different, they can bring back the warmth you are missing out on from the stock opamps
The power supply is the best way of improving the amp and you can get end of line or customer return good quality power supplies from ebay, at low prices. You need 10 amps or greater current supplying capabilities from the power supply. This will change the sound of the amp for the better.
Between the power supply and the amplifier place a 10 watt 0.5 ohm resistor. After the resistor place a good quality 3300uf capacitor bypassed by a 100uf capacitor. This forms a crc filter which really reduces power supply noise. There is plenty of information on the net about crc filters so you can read about it.
Once these two upgrades are done, you will not recognise the amp, it will become a different beast all together
 

NoxMorbis

Senior Member
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Mar 21, 2023
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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
Now you have two Bluetooth options. lol You could probably connect two different streams for Halloween.
 

NoxMorbis

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Mar 21, 2023
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One thing I don't like is that the BT is perma ready to connect. They need a switch on it. My last amp was like that and some asswipe connected to it at 3AM. I guess I should shut it off at night.

Am I the only one who thinks the amp case is nice looking? At least its not another rectangle.
 

NoxMorbis

Senior Member
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Mar 21, 2023
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Excuse me, does the load dependency at 8 ohms mean the treble may need a little help to quiet down?
At 61 years old, my hearing disappears shorts after 13kHz. According to the graph, at 13kHz, that's about .4 dB. So, it's all good for me using 8 Ohm speakers.
 

NoxMorbis

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Using the 3V 6A PSU, what is the maximum wattage per channel at 1% or less THD @ 8 Ohms?

I jsut ordered this unit. Should ahve it at the time of this writing in 15 hours or so :)
 

NoxMorbis

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I also found someone using a couple of your charts:


That irritates me because the site is nothing but wasted space.
 
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