Aiyima A80: DAC(ESS9038Q2M) + Amplifier(TPA3255 PFFB) - User Impressions | Owner's Thread

[Guddu]

Dear FMs,

Putting up this thread Aiyima's new A80 DAC + Amplifier - User Impressions, feedback/issues & observations.
Product Details: AIYIMA's Portal

Quick Summary technical components inside Aiyima A80:
- Amplifier: TPA3255D2 with PFFB ckt
- DAC used: ESS9038Q2M
- Digital volume control, input control and tone control: NJW1194
- Bluetooth: QCC3040 - supports AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX-LL, APTX-HD
- USB Controller: SA9137L - supports 32bit/384KHz transmission
- OPAmps onboard: OPA1656+NE5532

I have been using A80 unit from about 2 weeks now, Here I mean to summarize:
> what I get as a buyer or user of Aiyima A80 amplifier
> aspects other than measurements that you might be interested in
> testing features & functions to see if there are any issues and how could get around those, if any
> I also hope that this thread could provide some information as to "what to expect" while you look to buy one for yourself

Price: Amazon had listed price of 229.99$ when I ordered in Nov2024 and seems like the first batch is sold out or delivery isn't available.

Case Work
- The case is solid aluminum, not so heavy through
- Smooth matt-ish black finish with curved edges
- Pics don't really justify the aesthetics but it looks much better in person than pics
Note: I have used some pics form Aiyima's portal to have some additional details
- Sides and bottom have decent vents

** It comes with a simple remote which works well.

Front has simpler look:
- Long Press the front knob - ON/OFF
- Short and multiple Press for menu with various options like input selection, bass/treble controls, display style and display light options
- Nice display which can run VU meter
- Display also shows current input and bitrate, but its too small to see form 2 meters or so.
*I, personally, am not fan of ON/OFF/Input merged to a potentiometer but its responsive and easy to work with.

Back panel of the amplifier:
- Analog Inputs: Balanced TRS and single-ended RCA
- Digital Inputs: Optical, Coax, USB (USB C) and Bluetooth
- 12v trigger: Input, ***product page says it doesn't support WiiM??? WEIRD!
- Output: aux out will full signal, and speaker out with the same better connectors as A07 Max/A70
*** Documentation says A80 uses OPA1656 + NE5532 OPAmps, if you care

Digital Volume Control and other features
- A80 uses NJW1194 for digital volume control, input switching and base/treble tone controls
- Base and Treble variance: -10 to 0 to +10 dB, works very well
- * No Volume or tone bypass switch

Power Adapter
- Comes with 48v 5a GAN PSU, but I am using 48v 10a with this amplifier

Idle Power Consumption
- A80 used about 9-10 watts when IDLE, connected and powered ON but no sound playing
- measured on 20A smart power plug

Some sort of "Auto Standby and Auto Start" feature - Totally worth liking
- After 5 min of inactivity or no signal, A80 moved to standby state but display remains operational with a message "No Signal"
- When it goes to standby or no signal mode, it cuts down the power usage to half: about 4-5 watts
- It gets into operational mode again after getting the signal or if power button is pressed

Case Temperature & Thermal Performance
- A780s case top mostly remain cool or just slightly warm on idle
- A80's case did get slightly warm to touch in playing music loud to longer period continuously
- It gets cool quite quickly as well, makes me say heat transfer is working well
- Overall, I think it's as good as it gets

Hiss/Noise and Pop Sound on Power ON/OFF or Input Switching
- NO HISS or any noise at all on FULL Volume position to my speakers, nothing that I could detect
- Same for all types of inputs
- NO POP sound on power ON/OFF toggle switch

Aiyima's posted measurements:
- For me, good enough for a DAC amplifier

USB C Input
- Uses Bravo SA9137L controller, supports 32Bit/384KHz
- Aiyima have included a USB drive with ASIO driver for it, which is working very well with Foobar
- I have all my media on my mini PC and USB input is my go to driver, It is performing Amazingly good
- I could not tell in blind test which one is which when listening Topping E50 to A80 vs USB directly to A80

*** Front display shows bitrate, its a bit small for me though

My Setup
nVidia Shield >>>> Bluetooth out >>>> A80 Amplifier >>>> Infinity R162 speakers
nVidia Shield >>>> HDMI/ARC >>>> Emotiva xmc-1 Gen2 >>>> RCA out for Fronts >>>>> A80 Amplifier >>>> Infinity R162 speakers
Sonos Connest streamer >>>> Optical out >>>> A80 Amplifier >>>> Infinity R162 speakers
Media MiniPC >>>> USB C out >>>> A80 Amplifier >>>> Infinity R162 speakers

Listening
- With 48v 10a PSU, I have too much power for Infinity R162 speakers (88 dB). Delivers power without complains.
- Smooth, clean and balanced sound with clear stereo separation - its like listening to any other similar PFFB amplifier
- I like Tone controls and it works very well in here. just -1 or -2 dB treble for my Infinity R162 makes it non-fatigue
- No complains at all...

Some Notes, Considerations and What Did I miss!
- Front display has dimmer as well as complete display off, using menu or remote.
- Would have been nicer if they used their normal XLR/TRS connectors for balanced input
- BIGGER Volume Display - why NOT ?????????????
- Volume is displayed with bar, why not a number ?????????????
- Overall, I am very confident in saying that this is the best DAC+Amplifier that I have owned or listened so far.....
- For me, it's totally worth a try.......

Any Issues or hick-UPs
- none so far, but I would add in this thread if I observe any issues

Please add your observations as well if you own one.......... I hope.


*Edit 1. Added some more pics and details on volume display

 

[bennjude19]

I'm one of owner of the first batch of A80 and I'm very pleased with it's performance. The 12V trigger input is not working if you insert the stereo 3.5mm jack all throughout though there is a workaround for this by inserting the stereo 3.5mm jack half through and it works for me using Wiim Ultras 12V trigger out powering my A80 and ZA3 from Fosi which is by the way same not working if inserted fully the stereo 3.5mm trigger cable. The A80 will stay with my rig for a long time

 

[pogo]

Stereo trigger cable
Use a mono one.

 

[bennjude19]

Stereo trigger cable
Use a mono one.

Have you tried the mono cables? Still not working in my A80 and ZA3 if fully inserted but working when half through (mono or stereo cables)

 

[pogo]

Not in your configuration.
Can you take a photo of the mono cable?

 

[bennjude19]

Not in your configuration.
Can you take a photo of the mono cable?

I'm using this type of cables connected from my Wiim Ultra with a stereo 3.5mm splitter cable (tried the mono splitter but no luck) then one each of 3.5mm cables to my ZA3 and A80 inserted half through to 12V trigger input. Both stereo and mono cable not working if inserted fully but half through works fine

 

[pogo]

What happens if you only use a mono cable without a splitter as a test?

 

[bennjude19]

What happens if you only use a mono cable without a splitter as a test?

12V trigger doesn't work with Wiim to A80 or ZA3 using mono cable

 

[Guddu]

Amir’s Measurements and Review:

AIYIMA A80 Stereo Amplifier & DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A80 stereo amplifier and DAC. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199. As you can see, the A80 sports a nice sized graphical display showing one of the prettiest "VU" meters I have seen. It works well too by auto-ranging...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[robbiekhan]

I have my A80 now with the Sparkos SS3602 OpAmps and really enjoy that sound, it's wider soundstage than the OPA627s I had in before and both are nicer flavoured than the stock NE5532P. I also had the OPA828 but binned those off as they didn't seem to gel with the A80 at all creating a narrow soundstage and muffled sibilance in some music.

I also now run the A80 purely as a power amp being fed RCA input from the Fiio K11 R2R. This config seems to produce a slightly wider soundstage than the A80's own DAC as well as bringing vocals and centrally placed items in the music a couple steps closer to the listener and then opening up the imaging width a tad so it now feels even more lively than it did before.

I hear no addition of raise in the noise floor even at 100% volume when nothing is playing, the R2R is set to LO mode so fixed volume line out.

For all intents and purposes this feels like the perfect pairing and configuration for the type of sound I've enjoyed for decades, an analogue signature without the analogue hiss from my Rotel and NAD Bee amps from back in the day. I do believe I am the only person online using the Sparkos OpAmps in this configuration too.

My speakers are the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary for reference, those Magnesium horn loaded tweeters REALLY set the soundstage and imaging on fire with this setup.

The VU meters I find cool, it's visually appealing and something nicer to just look at than a sterile faceplate. Can turn it off if desired...

No review mentions that there is display/coil whine if and only if the brightness is set to anything but 100%, my ears (age 41 here...) can hear these whine tones in anything from power bricks to RGB LEDs in keyboards so I just leave the display on max brightness and it's never really a distraction I find. I'm only using the 48v 5A power supply. not the 10A one as that has a fan and is even bigger and costs like £90 here, so no thanks.

My setup:

A playlist I am thoroughly enjoying currently on this new config is:

And my own curated playlist of stuff my ears enjoy on this:

 

[Guddu]

I have my A80 now with the Sparkos SS3602 OpAmps and really enjoy that sound, it's wider soundstage than the OPA627s I had in before and both are nicer flavoured than the stock NE5532P. I also had the OPA828 but binned those off as they didn't seem to gel with the A80 at all creating a narrow soundstage and muffled sibilance in some music.

I also now run the A80 purely as a power amp being fed RCA input from the Fiio K11 R2R. This config seems to produce a slightly wider soundstage than the A80's own DAC as well as bringing vocals and centrally placed items in the music a couple steps closer to the listener and then opening up the imaging width a tad so it now feels even more lively than it did before.

I hear no addition of raise in the noise floor even at 100% volume when nothing is playing, the R2R is set to LO mode so fixed volume line out.

For all intents and purposes this feels like the perfect pairing and configuration for the type of sound I've enjoyed for decades, an analogue signature without the analogue hiss from my Rotel and NAD Bee amps from back in the day. I do believe I am the only person online using the Sparkos OpAmps in this configuration too.

My speakers are the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary for reference, those Magnesium horn loaded tweeters REALLY set the soundstage and imaging on fire with this setup.

The VU meters I find cool, it's visually appealing and something nicer to just look at than a sterile faceplate. Can turn it off if desired...

No review mentions that there is display/coil whine if and only if the brightness is set to anything but 100%, my ears (age 41 here...) can hear these whine tones in anything from power bricks to RGB LEDs in keyboards so I just leave the display on max brightness and it's never really a distraction I find. I'm only using the 48v 5A power supply. not the 10A one as that has a fan and is even bigger and costs like £90 here, so no thanks.

My setup:
View attachment 432754

View attachment 432755

A playlist I am thoroughly enjoying currently on this new config is:

And my own curated playlist of stuff my ears enjoy on this:

Looks stunning

 

[Chris kriventsis]

I am running mine with the 48v 5ah power supply. I have a pair of klipsch rp-600m second Gen and a pair of Wharfedale D320. It sounds very good with both. It has a clean transparent and open character compared to my other amps especially after changing the op amps into opa1612 s. It became even cleaner and the highs and lows sound more "correct". I also tried the opa828 like some people here but I didn't like them. I feel that the sound of the dac improved significantly too with the opa1612 s. Now I am waiting for a set of opa1656 and a set of muses01 to test. The only thing that I feel like is missing a bit, is bass, compared to my other amps, especially compared to the Denon. I also tried it with the 48v 10ah aiyima power supply that I had for my Aiyima a07 pro, hoping that it would give it some more bass but I didn't notice a difference since my speakers are relatively easy to drive. Lately I had some issues when listening through its dac. I don't know if anyone else has faced it. The sound would suddenly become very distorted and weird and the only way to bring it back right, is to unplug the power supply for a while. I am suspecting that it is caused by the 10ah supply because it started having this issue when I started using it with that supply. Has anyone else faced the same issue? And if so, any ideas why this is happening? It only does this via usb.
I also tried it with other dacs and interfaces and I did see a difference, but after the opa1612 swap, I don't feel so much the need to play it with other dacs and I am perfectly happy to listen wirh the internal dac.

 

[daniboun]

I have my A80 now with the Sparkos SS3602 OpAmps and really enjoy that sound, it's wider soundstage than the OPA627s I had in before and both are nicer flavoured than the stock NE5532P. I also had the OPA828 but binned those off as they didn't seem to gel with the A80 at all creating a narrow soundstage and muffled sibilance in some music.

Placebo, OP amps rolling makes no difference check measurements :

Does Op-amp Rolling Work?

When I post my last video on review of Douk A5 amplifier, I mentioned that rolling (changing) op-amp ICs in there is fruitless. I got have a dozen comments under that video in youtube asking why so I thought I experiment again with the A5. Note that I have done the same testing with both DACs...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[robbiekhan]

Placebo, OP amps rolling makes no difference check measurements :

Does Op-amp Rolling Work?

When I post my last video on review of Douk A5 amplifier, I mentioned that rolling (changing) op-amp ICs in there is fruitless. I got have a dozen comments under that video in youtube asking why so I thought I experiment again with the A5. Note that I have done the same testing with both DACs...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Fake news. The soundstage literally changes. I know what I have heard back to back, I don't care what measurements show. That linked test was done with one particular product that compared 2 OpAmps, I have no idea how good that Douk is but have the Sparkos and NE5532 and OPA828/627 on the A80 - It's very obvious there is a difference on the A80 which seems to make good use of the OpAmps with loads of power on tap,. The 828 is too narrow in soundstage making music sound too central and annoying, the 627 solves that and the SS3602 goes one step beyond the 627.

I went back and forth between all of these OpAmps multiple times and heard the same differences each time. That is my observation on my setup (Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary speakers).

I also tried it with the 48v 10ah aiyima power supply that I had for my Aiyima a07 pro, hoping that it would give it some more bass but I didn't notice a difference

The bass can be improved with the discrete OpAmps too, the stock NE5532 has a fairly neutral output across the range to the ears, everything sounds "safe" if that makes sense but for me the SS3602 made the bass go deeper which was impressive given my speakers are not known for deep bass although the speed of bass is very good. Now they reach lower than one would expect and to the point I have yet to even consider adding a subwoofer. I game, movie and music on my setup as it's my workstation gear since I spend a lot of time where editing and writing so nice to have great audio for whatever use.

You could also just adjust the tone controls to up the bass if you just want a little bit more low to mid range boost.

 

[Hellboy.]

Fake news. The soundstage literally changes. I know what I have heard back to back, I don't care what measurements show.

If you think @amirm reviews are fake and you "don't care what measurements show", what are you doing here in audiosciencereview?

Posts like yours should be removed by moderators because they only share ignorance.

 

[robbiekhan]

You are implying that decades of OpAmp rolling across the board of DACs and amps are null because "There's no difference" - And you are basing that claim on one amp model and 2 specific OpAmps and only based on what a graph measures as per the link that the member above posted.... I have never read something more idiotic.

 

[Scrivs]

Fake news. The soundstage literally changes. I know what I have heard back to back, I don't care what measurements show. That linked test was done with one particular product that compared 2 OpAmps, I have no idea how good that Douk is but have the Sparkos and NE5532 and OPA828/627 on the A80 - It's very obvious there is a difference on the A80 which seems to make good use of the OpAmps with loads of power on tap,. The 828 is too narrow in soundstage making music sound too central and annoying, the 627 solves that and the SS3602 goes one step beyond the 627.

I went back and forth between all of these OpAmps multiple times and heard the same differences each time. That is my observation on my setup (Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary speakers).



The bass can be improved with the discrete OpAmps too, the stock NE5532 has a fairly neutral output across the range to the ears, everything sounds "safe" if that makes sense but for me the SS3602 made the bass go deeper which was impressive given my speakers are not known for deep bass although the speed of bass is very good. Now they reach lower than one would expect and to the point I have yet to even consider adding a subwoofer. I game, movie and music on my setup as it's my workstation gear since I spend a lot of time where editing and writing so nice to have great audio for whatever use.

You could also just adjust the tone controls to up the bass if you just want a little bit more low to mid range boost.

I’m having a hard time not calling this retarded.

 

[robbiekhan]

Do what you like, those of us who have tried a broad range of OpAmps on wide array of amps from soundcards to Class A/B to Class D now know what is heard and don't need to live life by what a graph says it /might/ sound like as it's not always reflective of what is actually heard.

 

[Scrivs]

Ok brosef

 

[Guddu]

Fake news.

Respectfully, you have your reasons to believe and Amir has his measurements to believe.
You can surely avoid saying this because there wasn’t anything “fake” in his thread.
Why not just agree to disagree.