Premium Audio Mini GaN 5 Review (Stereo Amplifier)

[pma]

I love how the AIYIMA a07 has become a standard of reference at ASR since Amir’s review. As in, if something not measurably and audibly better or more powerful than that $70 box, see ya. It’s the Honda Accord of Amps.

It is neither good measurably nor audibly. Car comparison would be Mitsubishi Minica, not Honda Accord.

Mitsubishi Minica - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[musicforcities]

It is neither good measurably nor audibly. Car comparison would be Mitsubishi Minica, not Honda Accord.

Mitsubishi Minica - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

you disagree with amir then? for $70 the Aiyma ain’t bad dude…

Okay maybe it’s a Honda Fit.

 

[mcdn]

I love how the AIYIMA a07 has become a standard of reference at ASR since Amir’s review. As in, if something not measurably and audibly better or more powerful than that $70 box, see ya. It’s the Honda Accord of Amps.

The TPA3255 chip in the A07 is amazing for the price. Give it good output inductors and a sufficient power supply and you get 2 x ~180W or so into 4 ohms at under 0.01% THD+N. The chip itself is $15... Image taken from the TPA3255 datasheet. The A07 and similar amps are using lower power supply voltages and cheaper inductors to achieve certain price points.

Toyota Camry maybe?

 

[musicforcities]

Do you have measurments for the Aiyima A07?

See Amir’s review..

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

Thank you for agreeing with me.

Rick “who has said twice it’s not Amir’s job, but somebody should do it” Denney

Agree with your original post about the practice of asking for comment before publishing about a result with an unclear explanation. Regarding the other poster, Amir is definitely not a journalist, but it's also rather disingenuous to say he is only a "tester." While ASR doesn't seem to have a mission statement posted anywhere (please correct me), I think it's common knowledge that most of the forum members consider ASR as some catalyst for change in the industry. More importantly, Amir has remarked on this subject of seeing some companies or products improve as a result of his work.

ASR is obviously more important than just a repository of measurements. As such, it bears greater responsibility as well--especially if it wants to be more impactful in its mission. A previous moderator once mentioned that many more non-members come to ASR, look at the reviews, and don't engage in the forum. To the online public, ASR is primarily a blog of product reviews (just look at the format of the homepage).

IMO, ASR's closest "competitors" are blog-style tech review sites and social media influencers (this includes Youtube, in which ASR now has a direct presence). Again, this is just my opinion, but I strongly believe that only small percentage of the total relevant web audience (ASR + "competitors", etc.) finds ASR more credible than its competitors. I think it typically takes a person with a science, engineering, or studio background to begin to appreciate what ASR is doing and how ASR is doing it.

The vast majority of the audience on the web places more credibility and trust in factors they've spent a lifetime evaluating and inherently understand: production value, visuals and graphics, copy editing, and counter-intuitively, the presence of familiar ads. If you're someone that thinks FFT is video game about space travel, you're much more likely to be swayed by the production value of a Darko Youtube review.

 

[tomchr]

Interesting choice of gain settings. 23, 26, and 29 dB would be the more common values. 26 dB is the old THX standard. 23 dB (balanced) and 29 dB (unbalanced) are the new standards as far as I'm aware.

Tom

 

[Raindog123]

you disagree with amir then? for $70 the Aiyma ain’t bad dude…

Okay maybe it’s a Honda Fit.

To me, Aiyima A07 is more like a Tesla Model 3 (or more precisely a component of). State-of-the-art, loved by the new generation. And continuously bashed - “this is not how I designed them for many decades (ie in the last century!)” - by the audio dinosaurs…

Dinosaurs demand “I need my amp to be linear, all by itself!” “I need a perfect speaker, all by itself!”… While the new generation says “I do not listen my amp without my speakers (so do not need either perfectly linear in isolation), and I have some room imperfection I would like to take care of, and a smart DSP and EQ (that I can feed with a closed-loop feedback from my favorite listening spot through some cool software) — and this is how I can compensate and linearize the entire signal chain end-to-end... while saving a few grand for my other hobbies in the process...”

 

[tomchr]

I checked that. As best I can identify, it is set to 110. I am not sure what the switch is doing anyway as this has a switching power supply.

Not all switching power supplies are auto-sensing. Some have a voltage doubler at the input which is engaged when it's running on 120 V. Flipping the 120/230 V switch engages the voltage doubler.

Tom

 

[Kuba]

The TPA3255 chip in the A07 is amazing for the price. Give it good output inductors and a sufficient power supply and you get 2 x ~180W or so into 4 ohms at under 0.01% THD+N. The chip itself is $15... Image taken from the TPA3255 datasheet. The A07 and similar amps are using lower power supply voltages and cheaper inductors to achieve certain price points.

Toyota Camry maybe?

View attachment 157450

Toyota starlet

 

[musicforcities]

Regarding the question of whether Amir should have offered the company a chance to respond before publication. The journalist standards argument does not hold up because it conflates different sorts of journalism.

If a story is investigative and/or involves criminal activity, asking for comment is convention.

But not for many other forms of journalism. For good reason. No film or music critic /journalist is under obligation to let the film maker, etc respond first before posting a negative review. for obvious reasons.

Less subjectively, and more relevant here, If a reviewer at at car magazine has a door handle pop off or the car didn’t start properly, or was unable to reach mpg, speed or come close to advertised horse power specs they have no obligation to let the manufacturer respond before publishing a review stating these experiences and measurements. They are reporting their findings as journalists.

Amir is not a credentialed journalist. He is however a writer and has a “public” profile of sorts.

But Nor is he a free QC or testing firm for a company.

He gets a product. He tests said product. He reports his findings. His ethical obligation is to be reasonably conscientious (not exhaustively) in methodology and to not dissimulate the results of his measurements. And that is all. In NO WAY is there any need to contact the company before publishing such findings. None. Nada. Zilch.

Nor is there any imperative to retest, or even engage a company. He is independent and maintaining that is important. It is above and beyond to do so. That he has does this before does not oblige him to do so always.

Also, If a device acts up when plugged into an industry standard testing platform when the vast majority have no such issue, that is not Amir’s problem. Indeed, he could have stopped the review after the first paragraph and given it a form of negative recommendation based solely on it not behaving properly and the operation of its protection circuitry. He is not here to troubleshoot another company’s device.

Lastly, this device has “floating heat sinks”. That alone deserves a headless panther. Like putting speaker wires on mahogany risers. Or putting a battery with one terminal connected (or 2 terminals for that matter) on a speaker cable. Amir is too much a gentlemen however and tests it anyway in good faith. Thank you

 

[restorer-john]

To me, Aiyima A07 is more like a Tesla Model 3 (or more precisely a component of). State-of-the-art, loved by the new generation. And continuously bashed - “this is not how I designed them for many decades (ie in the last century!)” - by the audio dinosaurs…

The Aiyima is not, by any stretch of the wildest imagination, state of any art.

 

[musicforcities]

The Aiyima is not, by any stretch of the wildest imagination, state of any art.

I’m sorry I made the comment. Whew. Guess the AIYIMA is more like a Saab, you either love em or don’t get why one would want one.

All I meant was that it’s notable a $70 amp gives a collective sense of a threshold for acceptable (not stellar) performance. I used the term “baseline” not “benchmark” for a reason.

 

[daniboun]

IF there is something wrong with the amplifier and Amirm is kind and conducts a new measurement, then Premium Audio may send a new one. In addition, it is hardly an oil tanker that should be sent by mail.

IF the manufacturer is interested in a new measurement and Amirm conducts a new measurement. If you have a good product, it is in my eyes a no brainer. Just off with a new one.

Here Tom's last answer.
If he assumes that the measurements announced are true and will therefore be republished on the site even after Amir's test, then I'm sure he'll return a new amp to Amir and we'll all be fixed.
If Tom keeps his promise then we should be able to have a second test and we can put aside the hypothesis of a faulty amp.

On the other hand, if I had been in Tom's place: I would have tested my amp a hundredfold before sending it to ASR.

 

[Raindog123]

The Aiyima is not, by any stretch of the wildest imagination, state of any art.

Your opinion against mine…

In my line of work, it‘s like demanding a perfect return of a [eg SpaceX’s] first stage booster by “we have to throw it from the stratosphere so precisely - account for every wind blow beforehand and such, and then cross our fingers, shut our eyes, and pray - so it will land perfectly vertically on a tiny floating landing platform… Meanwhile, the actual way to do it is to invoke a number of correcting and compensating maneuvers as you go, use multiple sensors, thrusters, and algorithms… Every piece by itself is pretty much just a dumb chunk of metal, but together they are a precise fine system!

Wildest imagination, not state of the art, says he… ask TI what did it take them to bring TRA3255 to the market.

 

[musicforcities]

On the other hand, if I had been in Tom's place: I would have tested my amp a hundredfold before sending it to ASR.

this is the same guy who seemed not to understand how heat sinks work?

 

[daniboun]

this is the same guy who seemed not to understand how heat sinks work?

Read the review, I shared what have been reported by Tom and the other representative. Anyway, we're all OK that there is one hell of a design problem.

 

[whislai]

I'm more concern on the sonic and tonal balance and distortion power handling (great enough up to the point human ears not detectable is fine), I dun mind it's a little bit bigger for this GAN amp though, further listening conclude that my favorite still the SDS-470C in terms of overall tonal balance and power handling, as compare to the NAD M22 v2 & GAN Mini 5, while there is a recent GAN amp from Peachaudio GaN400, unfortunately it's one hell of an expensive amp way beyond my budget.

 

[DanielT]

The Aiyima is not, by any stretch of the wildest imagination, state of any art.

For the price performance for Aiyma A07 is OK . Found some other measurements on it. Frequency range, THD + N measured at 1 and 20 W.
Complement to:

AIYIMA A07 TPA3255 Review (Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A07 desktop amplifier based on TPA3255 class D amplifier chip. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. The cost is US $72 on Amazon including prime shipping. And as of this shipping, it also included a 32 volt, 5...

audiosciencereview.com

faktiskt.io • Visa tråd - Aiyma A07 mätningar. Är Kejsaren naken?

 

[boXem]

For the price performance for Aiyma A07 is OK . Found some other measurements on it. Frequency range, THD + N measured at 1 and 20 W.
Complement to:

AIYIMA A07 TPA3255 Review (Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A07 desktop amplifier based on TPA3255 class D amplifier chip. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. The cost is US $72 on Amazon including prime shipping. And as of this shipping, it also included a 32 volt, 5...

audiosciencereview.com

faktiskt.io • Visa tråd - Aiyma A07 mätningar. Är Kejsaren naken?

The frequency response is the exact thing that gets people thinking that class D is just good for subs. If one considers that humans can hear differences of 0.1 dB, this amplifier cannot be considered as accurate above 5 kHz with an 8 Ohm load. That's class D from 1990, not from 2021.

 

[pma]

The frequency response is the exact thing that gets people thinking that class D is just good for subs. If one considers that humans can hear differences of 0.1 dB, this amplifier cannot be considered as accurate above 5 kHz with an 8 Ohm load. That's class D from 1990, not from 2021.

And even worse with real speakers - absolutely unpredictable and depending on the speaker impedance curve. This is what it makes when loaded with JBL Control 1 Pro:

And it is audible in the A/B test exactly as you would expect. More bright and harsh than a neutral amplifier. Though it is not a day and night difference, it is distinguishable.
Interestingly, in the test against original data, when analyzed by DeltaWave which yields the corrected difference file, even the bass is affected - it is seemingly more tough and "edged" than in the original file. My assumption is that the reason are unpredictable intermodulations from higher frequencies.