Need advice for how to best use 2 Aiyima A07 amps

[Chrispy]

To you, a troll is anyone who challenges your point of view. What does that make you?

Poor conclusion as to what I believe. Does this fit your purposes better, tho? Seems so....goodbye!

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

Devil's advocate for much of it and it gets tedious.

When did I lead you to believe I shared your perspective on anything?

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

Poor conclusion as to what I believe. Does this fit your purposes better, tho? Seems so....goodbye!

My purpose here was simply to get some advice about an amp, not to be indoctrinated into some cult trying to gaslight me by saying I’m hearing things that aren’t actually there. Not my cup of tea. Bye.

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

ASR is not a budget website it is for all price ranges and for different customers too.

Yet this particular thread is about a budget amp. Hardly a thread gear snobs should be wasting their precious time weighing in on.

 

[deadwood83]

Are you talking to me? If you are, I never said I pushed my amp to clipping. Like I said, it gets plenty loud but perhaps they would exhibit the sibilance with a more powerful amp cause my room sucks. All I know is the Polks don’t have that issue and neither so my Sonys. It could be due to the huge waveguides but then again, they aren’t sibilant at all when powered by my $200 50watt hybrid tube amp. I guess that’s impossible in your book.

Maybe an analogy would help. If I have a car with an engine which makes 40hp in 4th gear at 3000rpm; then I swap the engine for one with the same RPM range but twice the power. The new engine makes 80hp in 4th gear at 3000rpm. I can drive it at 40mph in 5th gear now at a lower RPM. In all testing, I drive the car at 30mph with the same transmission and the same tires at a constant speed.

Does the newer engine change the sound my tires make on the road at 30mph?

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

A motor drives wheels, an amp drives speakers- except a high power motor definitely sounds different while a new amp apparently doesn’t and a high power motor can easily light up those tires making them scream like the old motor never could. Are we through with analogies?

 

[Holmz]

ASR is not a budget website it is for all price ranges and for different customers too.

OK - but ASR is not a “The General Public”. It is people with an interest in the audio.
Most people don’t care and get a sound bar or a Bose.

The rest are either into it for status or because they like music or because they like gear.

A motor drives wheels, an amp drives speakers- except a high power motor definitely sounds different while a new amp apparently doesn’t and a high power motor can easily light up those tires making them scream like the old motor never could. Are we through with analogies?

Are you planning on lighting up the tyres with your system?
You probably need the SPL and distance… But we talked about this with the higher voltage power supply.

Either save up, or get the cheap amp. (Both choices can be defended as being rational with ease.)

The A07 does pretty good, but maybe a nice amp is something that You would like better.
Only you can know that.

I have 3 of the A07s, and may get a 4th… but I also have some good amps.

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

OK - but ASR is not a “The General Public”. It is people with an interest in the audio.
Most people don’t care and get a sound bar or a Bose.

The rest are either into it for status or because they like music or because they like gear.




Are you planning on lighting up the tyres with your system?
You probably need the SPL and distance… But we talked about this with the higher voltage power supply.

Either save up, or get the cheap amp. (Both choices can be defended as being rational with ease.)

The A07 does pretty good, but maybe a nice amp is something that You would like better.
Only you can know that.

I have 3 of the A07s, and may get a 4th… but I also have some good amps.

You know, I must just have to just to blow off some steam! Lol

 

[MAB]

You know, I must just have to just to blow off some steam! Lol

My take, post just a bit less. These online forums get edgy if you post too many times, you gonna get into an argument. We gave you some pretty good advice. Keep the Aiyima and do nothing for the time being, save for an amp with actual power to match your speakers. And we provided some solid options from $420 to over $2k (aspirational I know!) We said you should avoid jumping around and wasting money. Don't go and try to squeeze the Aiyima for more, lest you blow tweeters and actually make a mess of things. I think I tried to point out that a good Class A/B, or Class D, or whatever isn't gonna bring some magic to your system, more power will since what you describe sounds like your little amp can't power your speakers. No surprise, looking at the review of the speakers, it is noted that they are particularly difficult to drive. So there you are. You got your advice but it just seems not enough. You really don't have any steam that should be blow off, you got us all trying to help you and you seem to not really want to listen!!!

Hardly a thread gear snobs should be wasting their precious time weighing in on.

What?!?!? I recommended an amp that will be awesome with those speakers that costs $420, and you yell @Doodski that we're all gear snobs! We are: not-getting-ripped-off snobs and not-falling-for-the-old-magic-sound-differences trick snobs!!! You're funny!

I think I am going to change my recommendation on your amp from the $420 Niles to something much simpler since it is clear that your entire problem and the bad sound you hear is because your amp is woefully underpowered and distorts at even moderate volume. Get four 12V car batteries and run those in series for 48V and use that as the power supply for your Aiyima. Actually, it's really about 57.6 Volts since car batteries are about 14.4 V but it will actually be fine... If you want to be safe, use an inline fuse, perhaps 10A... more if you are looking for awesome. According to Aiyima, you should get to about 190 W in 8 Ohm, 300W into 4 Ohm, maybe a bit more with the slightly higher battery voltage. Your speakers should no longer sound bad at elevated volume.

Then, get an 8 or 4 Ohm dummy load and measure how much power you can get. If you blow the fuse, put in a bigger fuse and try again and see if you can get anywhere near the power that Aiyima claims. If you can, gosh that is awesome and I take back every snarky thing I said about that cigarette-pack sized POS amp. If you have problems with he power measurement, a number of us who are trying to help you with this low-end purchase can also help you with how to measure power.

I wouldn't tell you this if I thought it would damage anything, it almost assuredly will not. But, since I gave up on trying to help I thought it would be fun to see how much guts this little amp has!

 

[Tangband]

I read a few threads but couldn’t find anything that addresses my particular needs.

I have a pair of JBL studio530 speakers that are bi-ampable. They’re 6ohm nominal impedance with a sensitivity of 86bB which I’ve heard will sound best powered by an amp/s with more available headroom.

I was using a single Aiyima A07 power amp to drive them and they do sound good (if not a bit bright with the class D amp) but are noticeably quieter than the more sensitive speakers I own with a 4 ohm impedance.

I purchased another A07 and have the following questions:

Would it be possible to run my 2 A07 amps in bridged mono parallel? I’d be using the stock 32v power supplies so as not to overload the op amps.

Or

Do you think it would be better to just bi-amp the JBLs with the A07s?

PS. I’m trying to do this on a budget and can’t really afford a better amp ATM.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

The best advice I can give you with those two amplifiers and if you are serious in trying to max the performance, is to buy a mini dsp and rebuild your speakers for active mode. It will maybe take some months to get the sound right ( keep one of the speakers passive as a reference ) , but soon you might have some advantages. One is the baffle step compensation that in the active case can be done digitaly before the amplifiers. You will then save about 6 dB in power needed for the bass driver. This compares to having an amplifier of 200 watts instead of 50, so in this case you will not need more power than Aiyima a07. - ofcourse you will need measurement gear If you go there.

As MAB points out, and because I know/have this speakers, the jbl 530 are low sensitivity and needs power if used as they are. The crossover point in this passive speaker is to low at 1,5 kHz, optimal is 1,8 kHz.

I wouldnt advice you to spend anymore than 500 bucks for an amplifier to this speakers. The hard truth is that there are better speakers out there for twice the money, both passive and active, and in the case of Genelec G3 or 8030C, much better . And you dont need amplifiers for those.

 

[Joe’s Apartment]

Seriously though, I do appreciate the equipment advice and will definitely take them all into consideration. Let’s just leave it at that- peace out my fellow audio enthusiasts