This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA DAC-A6 stereo USB DAC plus Bluetooth input and volume control. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $186.
The A6 has one of the better implementations of display/UI than most DACs:
It is also quite responsive to volume control input. Inclusion of volume control means you can directly power a studio monitor speaker or power amplifier without the need for a preamplifier. Note however that there is no remote control so it is for desktop use mostly.
Back panel has the usual inputs and outputs:
Note that the power supply has a blue LED which is nice in telling you it is plugged in. But may be annoying to some. Bit of tape may be useful for people in that camp.
AIYIMA DAC-A6 Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard:
Distortion is below threshold of hearing at around -118 dB. One channel though as you see in blue, has some interference. It is not grounds or mains related as I could not influence it that way. SINAD also varied a couple of dBs during operation. Still, performance is very good as it sits, landing in our excellent category:
Dynamic range is in the same bucket:
Multitone shows rather variable level of distortion, rising at both ends of the spectrum:
IMD test shows our old "friend," the rising of distortion in mid levels:
It is not as extreme as some others I have seen.
There is slight jitter which may be a manifestation of what we saw in the dashboard:
Linearity and hence accuracy is excellent:
There is only one filter which has the correct cut-off response but not a lot of attenutation:
This naturally causes a rise in distortion as frequencies go up in our wideband test of distortion+noise relative to frequency:
Conclusions
General performance of A6 is quite good. But has a bit of variability across all the tests which I wished was not there. This is countered with very nice interface, screen and inclusion of volume control. As such, I like using it more than I like looking at some of the graphs above.
I am going to recommend the AIYIMA DAC-A6.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The A6 has one of the better implementations of display/UI than most DACs:
It is also quite responsive to volume control input. Inclusion of volume control means you can directly power a studio monitor speaker or power amplifier without the need for a preamplifier. Note however that there is no remote control so it is for desktop use mostly.
Back panel has the usual inputs and outputs:
Note that the power supply has a blue LED which is nice in telling you it is plugged in. But may be annoying to some. Bit of tape may be useful for people in that camp.
AIYIMA DAC-A6 Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard:
Distortion is below threshold of hearing at around -118 dB. One channel though as you see in blue, has some interference. It is not grounds or mains related as I could not influence it that way. SINAD also varied a couple of dBs during operation. Still, performance is very good as it sits, landing in our excellent category:
Dynamic range is in the same bucket:
Multitone shows rather variable level of distortion, rising at both ends of the spectrum:
IMD test shows our old "friend," the rising of distortion in mid levels:
It is not as extreme as some others I have seen.
There is slight jitter which may be a manifestation of what we saw in the dashboard:
Linearity and hence accuracy is excellent:
There is only one filter which has the correct cut-off response but not a lot of attenutation:
This naturally causes a rise in distortion as frequencies go up in our wideband test of distortion+noise relative to frequency:
Conclusions
General performance of A6 is quite good. But has a bit of variability across all the tests which I wished was not there. This is countered with very nice interface, screen and inclusion of volume control. As such, I like using it more than I like looking at some of the graphs above.
I am going to recommend the AIYIMA DAC-A6.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
