This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A300 stereo amplifier with balanced and Bluetooth inputs. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $177.
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I like that you can easily defeat the tone controls now and select one of three inputs, allowing the amp to replace a pre-amplifier as well.
Especially nice is inclusion of power supply which is a rarity in budget/small amps:
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The speaker terminals are small but typical for the price class.
I could see an aluminum heatsink in the box for the power device/IC. In use though, it never warmed up above room temp. Neither the top, or the bottom registered a temperature rise which is nice.
AIYIMA A300 Measurements
Let's start with unbalanced RCA input first, setting the gain to 29 dB as with other amps I test with adjustable gain:
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Switching to balanced we essentially get the same performance:
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That distortion spike at nearly -72 dB limits SINAD to below average:
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In fairness and comparison to a few amplifiers with much lower gain, I also tested the amp at 12 dB gain:
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A bit better but still not enough to cross the average line. For the rest of the tests, I stuck with XLR input and 29 dB gain.
Here is our SNR:
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These are disappointing numbers relative to what AIYIMA has shown it can do.
Multitone test result is not too bad:
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Crosstalk is good:
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Frequency response unfortunately shows load dependency:
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Key here is to see if we can get more power out of this small package and we do:
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Interestingly, we get almost as much with 8 ohm load!
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Back to 4 ohm load, with short bursts we get a lot more power:
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Finally, there is little frequency/power dependency which is very good for a class D amplifier:
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Warm Up Time Measurement
Amplifier stabilizes quickly:
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Conclusions
It would have been great if the A300 had followed the footsteps of previous AIYIMA amps but with more power. Alas, it delivers on more power at the expense of noise and distortion. Assuming you don't hear the noise, it may be the right trade off in a budget amplifier. On packaging, I really like the integrated box with XLR inputs. Amplifier power supplies can be huge and that is avoided here.
I am personally snobbish and want my power with low noise and distortion so can't recommend the AIYIMA A300. But your priorities may be different.
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