Arylic BP50 Preamp with HDMI ARC Review

[Torphie]

What a shame that this well specified preamp and the previously reviewed Juson tube amp (also well specified) tick the box on price but miss the mark on performance. If there were ever companies that could benefit from the recent ‘Standards for Audio Electronics Measurements’ topic on ASR, Juson and Arylic are top of the list….thanks for the review Amir and HNY to you all.

 

[laudio]

I gave it a "fine", no head blown off for the price. Because nobody makes a product like this anymore - and 82'ish is not horrible for analog in/out with switching (or DAC in). How's that phono preamp measure? Ha ha. Improve the performance and then put it in a standard size case.

 

[gvl]

Not impressed, they also misspelled Acrylic.

 

[AuricGoldfinger]

...mediocre at best...and give its been reviewed by the usual youtube crowd then you know they're being very lenient

The measurement of the digital output to an external DAC was what ended it for me. Hopefully they will seek intervention by an experienced designer.

I also agree about youtube, and the sheer number of clickbait reviews out there have made YT that much more irrelevant as of recent. I was looking for some opinions of Bluetooth products for an upcoming birthday - average 8 minutes per video of talking heads discussing the packaging or chromed plastic that nobody cares about, adjectives like “Amazing” and “astounding”. Most didn’t even do a listening comparison of any kind, or turned the sound on and off a mere 2 seconds later. It’s become a pattern among wannabe reviewers.

 

[TonyJZX]

YT reviewers are under a lot of pressure (boo hoo)

monetisation happens at 10 mins... they need 10 min videos

they cant play much music due to copyright

they downright dont want to shit on a product lest they never get any more free review samples to come

but i mean all you guys can really see thru the marketing... it was clear the unit would do a handful of things 'ok' but a lot of things would be bolted on with very little regard or no regard to performance

as a stopgap device in a non critical situation it's fine ie. that infamous situation where someone owns a coffee shop or diner and you need some background music... sure

 

[dannut]

Thankfully @amirm you uncovered 'couple' bugs, but as you mentioned the underlying 'performance' is capped by the MVSilicon BP1048b2 chip - ~83dB SINAD, >0.007% THD+N. That is actually better than the NAD T758 and all the vinyl systems out there.

Concerning is the response from sub-out. Can anyone check with 'ACPWorkbench' if there is a lowpass activated from the factory?

If not for the bugs, I would give it a golfing panther, just because it is the cheapest component that could correctly manage a subwoofer integration. I would compare it to a NAD T753 (yes, that one has Dirac Live, but this one also has sufficient DSP capability).

 

[TonyJZX]

yeah but the NAD HT receiver has a lot more gubbins inside... I give that more of a pass.

I havent looked into ACP Workbench even though I have a copy and pdf manuals are out there.

However I can tell you that you can control the subwoofer low level filter... that's the good news.

The bad news is that is only in 50hz increments so its 0-50-100-150-200 and up... and so... not super useful.

I mean 10hz increments would be fine but its clear they dont know what the hell they are doing on that alone.

Also I havent found a way to cut the main speakers... if you could cut 10hz increments on sub and mains that would be perfect.

 

[dannut]

Hi - if you go to 'Parametric Equalizer Plot' tab, there is possible to change 'Fc', 'Gain', 'Q' and 'Type'. Type can be either hi/lo shelf, high/lowpass or PK. Can you apply a highpass to main speakers in this tab? Should be 1Hz increments. Also how does the sub channel 'PEQ' tab differ from the main channel?

 

[BostonJack]

Despite the poor measurements, I hope this sells well to the uninitiated, and kick starts/accelerates the release of similar products from others l, with better measurements.

Plus PEQ and room dsp, etc., of course.

Wow. If you tripled the price and produced performance roughly equivalent to that of a Topping D10, this would be an amazing little device. Maybe Topping should get to work on incorporating this functionality for a budget price.

 

[Doenerkunde]

Not bad although be careful in using a DAC to drive it as it clips above 1.6 volt and severely so by the time you get to 2 volts input.

I really like that that you mention this in the review! Could potentially safe some folks from hassle (like clueless me, connecting my 2.3V CD Player to my 2V limited Wiim Pro Plus...).

A friend bought the Arylic BP50 a few weeks ago, but sent it back because bluetooth was very unstable. Got a SMSL D-6 instead.

 

[Daviede]

请问有人知道他的SUB OUT是左声道、右声道还是立体声道的低频信号吗？

 

[musicforcities]

This is a review and detailed measurements of Arylic BP50 preamp with internal DAC, phono stage, HDMI ARC and Bluetooth. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $99.
View attachment 340236
Front panel doesn't hint at the immense amount of functionality BP50 provides. You get that from the back side:
View attachment 340237
This thing has every in and out you can imagine! It even comes with a remote, making it one of the most ideal preamplifiers there is as far as connectivity in modern era. How well does it work though? Let's measure:

Arylic BP50 Preamplifier Measurements
Let's start with the DAC measurements:
View attachment 340238
I kind of expected this level of performance and that is what we get. I didn't put it in my ranking table but would be in the "fair" category. Distortion is a problem as is noise to some extent:

View attachment 340239

Since there is digital out, let's see if that gives us transparency allowing an external DAC to do the job:
View attachment 340240
Ouch! That is serious amount of error! Good news is that volume control is in the path and maybe that is where the problem is. Strangely, in a good way, USB to Coax works better:
View attachment 340241

Jitter is expectedly poor:
View attachment 340242]
I don't have an HDMI ARC source but I expect it to be worse yet.

Frequency response of the analog output is fine but subwoofer out is incorrect:
View attachment 340243

Instead of a low pass filter, you have this strange sloping down two-step response.

Switching to analog input we get:
View attachment 340244
Not bad although be careful in using a DAC to drive it as it clips above 1.6 volt and severely so by the time you get to 2 volts input.

Once again I switched to digital out to see if that is better by eliminating the DAC:
View attachment 340245

Strangely, it is a hair worse!

Next I tested Phono input:
View attachment 340247

Not an even response.

Conclusions
My impression of Arylic as a brand is focus on price/performance and functionality first with performance possibly not a factor at all. That is what we have here. What a great deal it would be if some attention was put toward getting that aspect right.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the Arylic BP50 from performance point of view. On functionality and value, it is off the charts.

------------
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/

Serious bummer. A well measuring device like this at a reasonable price, even if twice as much, would be nice to have as alternative to an avr or old school preamp. Though I guess one could just use an hdmi audio extractor device, one box and one less power brick would be handy.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

请问有人知道他的SUB OUT是左声道、右声道还是立体声道的低频信号吗？

我不確定，但如果不是左右組合，我會感到驚訝。

 

[Daviede]

I haven't tried it before, do you know if using the left or right channel alone will cause some low-frequency signals to be lost?

 

[ocinn]

Feature set is downright incredible. If they doubled the price and were able to manage totally transparent measured performance this would be a superb product for casual users.

If they even quadrupled the price and added a competent DSP chip for basic 2 way crossover and per-channel PEQ/delay, this would check the box for my “ideal view of where consumer hifi should be going” metric.

We need more minidsp flex-esque devices.

 

[TonyJZX]

https://cdn.shopifycdn.net/s/files/1/0072/6899/1049/files/ACPWorkbench-ENG.pdf?v=1599874237

manual for acp workbench is here

there's a lot to get thru

the sad thing here is that there is a LOT of functionality here and there is potential greatness but not on this product

 

[DTTOM37]

Feature set is downright incredible. If they doubled the price and were able to manage totally transparent measured performance this would be a superb product for casual users.

If they even quadrupled the price and added a competent DSP chip for basic 2 way crossover and per-channel PEQ/delay, this would check the box for my “ideal view of where consumer hifi should be going” metric.

We need more minidsp flex-esque devices.

To be fair to the manufacturer, they've operated predominantly in an economic environment where competitive pricing is more pivotal for success than engineeing.
We may hope that they use the feedback and experience for the B50/BP50 to develop a technical superior device.
Arylic has already begun to explore higher priced territory in 2023, iirc.

 

[Mikig]

But for this amount, what more could you expect? it does practically everything, it can be the heart of a living room system, with TV and annexes and connections for those taking their first steps in the Hi-fi world. Question about preamps: do you have any idea if SMSL is planning a real analog preamp, without headphone output or DAC input, Pre90 style?!

 

[Vintagefan]

Got this for 2 months now and happy with it. I use is with a bp30 pro fossi amp and it easely beats my accuphase e405. Did I was lucky to have a good working unit? Ok, some glitches using app and bleutooth, but that does happen with much more expensive gear also. I use it mainly optical in from tv settop, good sound out of my jbl 4343B. $230 amplification worth every buck imho.
Bet the unit Amir got was faulty, mine was cleaner pcb than other pictures I saw on the user posts on internet. Perhaps change elcos to upgrade. Got some black gates somewhere, should double the price of this unit…

 

[Skelethor]

Be careful with this product and brand.
I have one and I have an anomaly with it and arylic is very bad at customer service, they simply don't give a solution and ignore the problem.
The problem is common to most people, this equipment cuts the sound coming from the speakers.
In addition, the sound is terrible, the equalizers are terrible, and even the TV doesn't feel like watching or listening to it.