3e Audio A7 [TPA3255 PFFB Stereo] Finished Amplifier - User Impressions | Owner's Thread

[SMen]

So, after reading ALL the comments several times (just to be sure I made the right decision) in attendance of delivery from Audiophonics.fr of two A7 Monos, they arrived about two hours ago. Just Running them in and installing my SS3602‘s that I still had as a reserve. To be honest not hearing too much of a difference compared to the included opamps. Sold my V3 monos recently, before I even considered the A7 as I hadn’t even heard of them. To avoid auto shut off after 5 minutes, I decided to run the amps at almost maximum volume and this seems to have resolved the auto shut off that has been discussed here in length, and controlling volume with my Wiim Ultra. Also there is a PO100 from SMSL, going to my Weiss 204 DAC. From there I go to my Swiss made Stereolith (dot com) which is 20 still today 20 years ahead of 3D holographic imaging that is currently possible. It’s a stereo Loudspeaker where left and right speakers are in the same chassis. It’s more complicated than that, also setting of pass filters and proportions, I have no room nodes whatsoever. I don’t know how the inventor (also worked at Revox back in the good old days. The man is a genius and he mentions something about esoteric atomic states that remove the sound nodes.

Anyway, the sound with 3e A7 is really quite impressive. Mostly I have to listen low volume because of the owner of the house I live in underneath my uninsulated floating wooden floor. But I did briefly hit 70 db’s and man I could sense what an amazing Amp the A7 monos are. So clear, with body and clean stable colorless sound. I have to say I am really impressed and ecstatic I hit the BUY button. Nice to be in the club of A7 owners. All the best to you all.

PS: It’s difficult to imagine how good the Stereolith (very smalll company with bespoke production), really performs without hearing it in person. Also, regardless of your position in the room, still sounds like you’re there live. If you are interested and you contact Stereolith, tell them Tomasz sent you

I'm finding it "interesting" getting my head around those speakers!

I'm curious as to why you use a PO100? It might be a dangerous question mind you. I commented earlier about reading about this with Wiim Ultra users finding it improved their USB connection. I ended up keeping a reclocker from the optical out of my wiim mini ..."le feeling" as they say in France ...

good to hear your feedback about the SS3602's.


post edit ... that speaker!

 

[dilu]

So, after reading ALL the comments several times (just to be sure I made the right decision) in attendance of delivery from Audiophonics.fr of two A7 Monos, they arrived about two hours ago. Just Running them in and installing my SS3602‘s that I still had as a reserve. To be honest not hearing too much of a difference compared to the included opamps. Sold my V3 monos recently, before I even considered the A7 as I hadn’t even heard of them. To avoid auto shut off after 5 minutes, I decided to run the amps at almost maximum volume and this seems to have resolved the auto shut off that has been discussed here in length, and controlling volume with my Wiim Ultra. Also there is a PO100 from SMSL, going to my Weiss 204 DAC. From there I go to my Swiss made Stereolith (dot com) which is 20 still today 20 years ahead of 3D holographic imaging that is currently possible. It’s a stereo Loudspeaker where left and right speakers are in the same chassis. It’s more complicated than that, also setting of pass filters and proportions, I have no room nodes whatsoever. I don’t know how the inventor (also worked at Revox back in the good old days. The man is a genius and he mentions something about esoteric atomic states that remove the sound nodes.

Anyway, the sound with 3e A7 is really quite impressive. Mostly I have to listen low volume because of the owner of the house I live in underneath my uninsulated floating wooden floor. But I did briefly hit 70 db’s and man I could sense what an amazing Amp the A7 monos are. So clear, with body and clean stable colorless sound. I have to say I am really impressed and ecstatic I hit the BUY button. Nice to be in the club of A7 owners. All the best to you all.

PS: It’s difficult to imagine how good the Stereolith (very smalll company with bespoke production), really performs without hearing it in person. Also, regardless of your position in the room, still sounds like you’re there live. If you are interested and you contact Stereolith, tell them Tomasz sent you

what do you think about the A7 Monos compared to the V3 Monos?

At the moment i power my Arendal 1723s Tower & Center with 3 x V3 Mono. Due to the gain difference between RCA und XLR i use RCA for all.
As i read the A7 works better with RCA compared to the V3.
But im not sure if its worth the costs to sell the V3s and buy 3 A7 Monos.

 

[niekos]

I think the factory installed OPAMP's are a perfect match and in my case my dartzeel is collecting dust since I switched on the A7 monos the 1st time

Ok, ok, I will switch back to the A7 with the stock opamps, give them another try. It is fun anyway to compare these two amps, while enjoying the music. It is a treat either way.

 

[LeStereolith]

I'm finding it "interesting" getting my head around those speakers!

I'm curious as to why you use a PO100? It might be a dangerous question mind you. I commented earlier about reading about this with Wiim Ultra users finding it improved their USB connection. I ended up keeping a reclocker from the optical out of my wiim mini ..."le feeling" as they say in France ...

good to hear your feedback about the SS3602's.


post edit ... that speaker!

The PO100 has a decent reclocking chip inside thats quite good, sure there are other reclockers that are better,

Yes, that speaker! Only Walter Schüpbach can get his head around it. He started studying this phenomena when he was just 17. I still don^t quite understand it , something to to with quantum states of electrons. Too good to be two

Ok, ok, I will switch back to the A7 with the stock opamps, give them another try. It is fun anyway to compare these two amps, while enjoying the music. It is a treat either way.

Nieko, That’s what I am intending to do as well. Give the stock amps more time to burn in. I’m wondering if the other internals also need time to run in.

 

[antcollinet]

The PO100 has a decent reclocking chip inside thats quite good, sure there are other reclockers that are better,

Reclocking on a USB interface is completely reduntant. The USB clock is NOT used for clocking the DAC.

Only the DAC clock is used, and no clock recovery is needed. Because the USB interface is bi-directional, the DAC is able to request data from the host to match its own internal clock.

See also:

Study: Is I²S interface better for DACs than S/PDIF or USB?

This is an analysis of I²S interface to see if it is superior to S/PDIF or USB interconnects for audio DACs. From what I recall, it was PS Audio that popularized I²S for external DAC connections. Phillips (now NXP) had invented I²S years early as an internal protocol to route audio. It was...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[LeStereolith]

It’s still really early days for me as I got the A7 monos just yesterday. On top of that I try not to go above 50-55 dB because of the landlord who lives beneath me. Low level listening is not as good as I had hoped but maybe they need some time to burn in. However when I listen at 60-70 dB my room really lights up with lush sound, it’s really quite impressive, more so than the V3 monos. Honestly, I would have taken the A7 but they are out of stock till end of February. But yes, if you can sell your V3’s (I got 200$ for mine) I would upgrade to the A7 or A7 monos. The A7’s do sound really great when hearing louder, and for me, much better than the V3 Monos.

 

[LeStereolith]

Reclocking on a USB interface is completely reduntant. The USB clock is NOT used for clocking the DAC.

Only the DAC clock is used, and no clock recovery is needed. Because the USB interface is bi-directional, the DAC is able to request data from the host to match its own internal clock.

See also:

Study: Is I²S interface better for DACs than S/PDIF or USB?

This is an analysis of I²S interface to see if it is superior to S/PDIF or USB interconnects for audio DACs. From what I recall, it was PS Audio that popularized I²S for external DAC connections. Phillips (now NXP) had invented I²S years early as an internal protocol to route audio. It was...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Antcollinet, thank you for the link and your advice, will definitely look at that link. Already I would agree with your comment, however, my DAC does not have USB input, only TOS and Coaxial. That’s why I thought I’d get an acoustic improvement, or even cleaner sound with the PO100. That said the Weiss DAC is quite remarkable and already is just awesome.

 

[antcollinet]

Antcollinet, thank you for the link and your advice, will definitely look at that link. Already I would agree with your comment, however, my DAC does not have USB input, only TOS and Coaxial. That’s why I thought I’d get an acoustic improvement, or even cleaner sound with the PO100. That said the Weiss DAC is quite remarkable and already is just awesome.

Even then, Toslink and Coaxial deliver audibly perfect sound with competently designed DACs (almost all of those made in the last 20 years).

The jitter you hear about has been a solved problem for a long time.

 

[LeStereolith]

Even then, Toslink and Coaxial deliver audibly perfect sound with competently designed DACs (almost all of those made in the last 20 years).

The jitter you hear about has been a solved problem for a long time.

You’re probably right, however there has been talk on the net about the solution implemented in the WiiM’s, including the WiiM Ultra, is below par and could be better. The WIiM’s in general are great, just too bad they saved a couple of cents with lower quality jitter prevention components for Toslink input. Too be honest with you, I don’t hear a significant improval, if any. Must be all in The mind.

 

[Sokel]

Because the USB interface is bi-directional, the DAC is able to request data from the host to match its own internal clock.

I was under the impression that DACs using the Isochronous transfer mode does not do a checksum, no error-correction and it's unidirectional.
That's how I interpret that corrupted packets are simply dropped and cannot be requested again.

How was I so wrong?

 

[EddNog]

Even then, Toslink and Coaxial deliver audibly perfect sound with competently designed DACs (almost all of those made in the last 20 years).

The jitter you hear about has been a solved problem for a long time.

Yes and no. I've still run into issues where I get occasional pops/clicks mid-song (so not between songs when changing sample rate/bit-depth) and the only solution is either change the optical/coax cable, or change the interface (from optical to coax, coax to optical, optical to USB, etc.), so perhaps you can say jitter is a resolved issue, but signal integrity can still be an issue in general. My WiiM Ultra is a perfect example of this issue, where if I feed a signal via coax or optical from the WiiM to my DSPeaker Anti-Mode X2D via coax or optical, I get the occasional pop/click mid-song, but if I attach it via USB, the problem goes away. The problem also goes away when I stick a USB DDC in between the WiiM and the DSPeaker, where WiiM feeds USB to the DDC and then DDC feeds the DSPeaker via coax, so I am inclined to say that if there is a specific component with an issue, it is not the input end of the DSPeaker, but the S/PDIF output end of the WiiM.

-Ed

 

[antcollinet]

however there has been talk on the net about the solution implemented in the WiiM’s, including the WiiM Ultra, is below par and could be better.

Are any of the people talking presenting any actual evidence of that? Or is it the usual hot air being generated?

Because the measurements done here show near technical perfection, and certainly audible perfection.

 

[antcollinet]

I was under the impression that DACs using the Isochronous transfer mode does not do a checksum, no error-correction and it's unidirectional.
That's how I interpret that corrupted packets are simply dropped and cannot be requested again.

How was I so wrong?

You weren't. At no point did I say anything about error correction.

 

[antcollinet]

I get occasional pops/clicks mid-song (so not between songs when changing sample rate/bit-depth) and the only solution is either change the optical/coax cable, or change the interface (from optical to coax, coax to optical, optical to USB, etc.)

That is not jitter (which results in distortion - which is inaudible with competent clock recovery) that is data loss/corruption.

Jitter assumes the data arrives but is clocked into the dac at the slightly wrong time. Pops / clicks (mid song) will be the result of corrupt data or dropped samples.

 

[EddNog]

That is not jitter (which results in distortion - which is inaudible with competent clock recovery) that is data loss/corruption.

Jitter assumes the data arrives but is clocked into the dac at the slightly wrong time. Pops / clicks (mid song) will be the result of corrupt data or dropped samples.

Hence why I described it as signal integrity issues.

-Ed

 

[antcollinet]

Hence why I described it as signal integrity issues.

-Ed

Ah - your post was referring to the first sentence in mine (audible perfection) rather than the second (jitter). Sorry for misunderstanding.


I'll qualify - audible perfection if working correctly (ie no data loss). Clock issues (jitter) while present are sufficiently rejected by the clock recovery as to be inaudible.

 

[JeremyFife]

You’re probably right, however there has been talk on the net about the solution implemented in the WiiM’s, including the WiiM Ultra, is below par and could be better. The WIiM’s in general are great, just too bad they saved a couple of cents with lower quality jitter prevention components for Toslink input. Too be honest with you, I don’t hear a significant improval, if any. Must be all in The mind.

... "talk on the net" ...

I'm convinced.

 

[cfwotzka]

what do you think about the A7 Monos compared to the V3 Monos?

At the moment i power my Arendal 1723s Tower & Center with 3 x V3 Mono. Due to the gain difference between RCA und XLR i use RCA for all.
As i read the A7 works better with RCA compared to the V3.
But im not sure if its worth the costs to sell the V3s and buy 3 A7 Monos.

in my opinion, also coming from V3's, you will not look back...

 

[rvsixer]

I have no room nodes whatsoever. I don’t know how the inventor (also worked at Revox back in the good old days. The man is a genius and he mentions something about esoteric atomic states that remove the sound nodes.

A world without room modes...imagine that. I'd love to see your room measurements proving this out.

 

[LeStereolith]

A world without room modes...imagine that. I'd love to see your room measurements proving this out.

The great thing is that you don‘t need any acoustic conditioning in the room itself. It really is quite fascinating, how I can listen without room modes, regardless of the room size. My living room is approx 20 square meters, no curtains a door permanently open to the hallway, two sideboards and a sofa. I have also exhibited the system with this relatively small speaker in a shopping center. I got so many compliments on the sound quality and diffusion of the sound. Some people on the escalators were looking to the ceiling, looking around. They could not understand where the sound was coming. The guy who asked to play Macho City a little louder (70 dB or so) had tears of laughter watching these people who were so confused about the origin of the sound.

Edit:
I also had a client recently who bought a second hand Monitor 232 from Germany. He was fascinated by the concept and who also spoke to the inventor Walter Schüpbach to ask him explain the secret of how it works, and neutralizes any room modes. He got the just of it and still perplexed and fascinated, explained it t an accoustic engineer, who believes this Quantum play that seems to be part of the equation, believes this technology is still today 20 years ahead of its time today. The original Stereolith won the Geneva Inventor exhibition back in 1987 or so.