Roksan Attessa Streaming Amplifier Review

[Blumlein 88]

This is a good example of where a THD level of -66 db or so with low noise can be just fine. However, 66 db or so with most of it from PS noise is a no go. For this reason it should be a headless panther.

 

[Tovarich007]

Thanks for this review.

I see it in France between 1900€ and 1300€ (taxes included)

Your measurements also give some perspective on some "professional reviewers"' judgment.
"Diapason d'Or 2022" ? Seriously?
Tsss...

Diapason d'or 2022 : Amplificateur ROKSAN ATTESSA STREAMING

Amplificateur ROKSAN ATTESSA STREAMING : une offre homogène musicalement séduisante

www.diapasonmag.fr

It's a long time gone when Diapason was a serious magazine for audio .Now they're into pure audiophile subjective bullshit. In france, we don't have anymore a single good magazine for audio. I largely prefer exchange on good forums, this one in english, and HCFR in french.

But for classical music reviews, Diapason always have very interesting and competent musicals critics and great connoisseurs. I sometimes read Diapason for music, not at all for audio anymore.

As for this Roksan, it's a terrible waste of money. i'm not that surprised, small british audiophile companies are generally much overrated.

 

[martijn86]

It'll get 4.5 or 5 stars on WhatHifi, a review will describe subjective properties like pace and presence and be the runner up for product of the year. The price will help sell this all-in-one to high end enthousiasts. Some of these enthousiasts will defend their purchases on online forums claiming; "It has special properties that cannot possibly be measured!!"

 

[muslhead]

At least the product page does not make any kind of fantastical claims. Not sure how they justify the price though…

just curious ... why does a company have to "justify" their price. Is there a law somewhere where the price of any object has to be "justified"?

 

[restorer-john]

For this reason it should be a headless panther.

We're gonna need another panther.

Something that is broken, but not just a pile of steaming ceramic pieces.

 

[Deleted member 43957]

just curious ... why does a company have to "justify" their price. Is there a law somewhere where the price of any object has to be "justified"?

Perhaps the "law of diminishing returns".

 

[voodooless]

just curious ... why does a company have to "justify" their price. Is there a law somewhere where the price of any object has to be "justified"?

Because otherwise, nobody would buy it . "Justify" is of course highly subjective.

 

[testp]

Topping latest TP: ~same power, better measurements, fraction of the cost

 

[ocinn]

What a joke.

NAD/Audiophonics/MiniDSP/Matrix all have higher performing products for less $, not to mention you could do far better than all of the above if you were willing to split the duties into 2 boxes (streamer/pre, and power amp).

Thanks Amir for reviewing these “luxury priced” products. Very interesting to see just how broken many are.

But then it asked me for a Bluetooth pin that I could not find in the manual! How did it find it without Bluetooth? Over Ethernet? If so, why does it need Bluetooth to continue?

In my experience Bluetooth pins are almost always 0000, 1234, and sometimes 1111

 

[ocinn]

Topping latest TP: ~same power, better measurements, fraction of the cost

No streaming, no Bluetooth, no phono, no DAC, no input switching.

I mean, I 100% agree with the general sentiment here, but I see far too many apples to oranges comparisons thrown around on this forum.

Edit: also not even remotely the same power?

57@8ohm / 89@4ohm for the topping vs 75/121 for this…..

 

[Sokel]

Thanks Amir for reviewing these “luxury priced” products.

That's far,far away from been luxury priced.At 1500 euro (or even at the US price) is not even entry level high end price,you have to go up to 5K (per device,4 times that for speakers)to start.

 

[AudioSceptic]

This is a review and detailed meausrements of the Roksan Attessa streaming stereo amplifier with phono stage. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $3,199.
View attachment 297134
Company nails the "high-end lifestyle" look with this differentiated and attractive style. I like the feel of the main control knob but the likes stop there. A tiny orange OLED (?) display behind that sticker is the only user interface. I can't imagine a streamer in this and age to have such a tiny and non-informative display. Product is designed in UK but manufactured in China which I find surprisingly at this price:
View attachment 297135
I was disappointed that no balanced inputs are provided, nor is there a USB DAC interface. Company website said there was an update and said mostly to use the app to get it. So I downloaded and ran it. It found the unit which was nice. But then it asked me for a Bluetooth pin that I could not find in the manual! How did it find it without Bluetooth? Over Ethernet? If so, why does it need Bluetooth to continue? Anyway, I had to ditch the app. Manual has cryptic instructions for firmware update using the power button. I followed that and I *think* it updated. Net, net, very poor experience overall.

I warm up amplifiers at 5 watts for a few minutes. I was shocked that while producing this level of modest power, the right side of the amplifier was almost too hot to touch! Underneath those vents is a compact heatsink. If the case is so hot, I can just imagine how hot the heatsink had gotten and with it, the junction temperature of the output stage.

Edit: could not test streaming because Roon complained that their endpoint implementation was not certified.

Roksan Attessa Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard. Unit ships with variable gain with default of Low. Having no idea how to change it, I ran with that and adjusted the volume to get 29 dB gain:
View attachment 297136
Upon seeing all that low frequency noise, I thought I could reduce it with various grounding schemes. But nothing made any difference whatsoever. What you see is intrinsic to the amplifier, picking up power supply noise that way. The noise then overwhelms distortion but even that metric is not that great. Overall showing is very poor for an amplifier in this price range:
View attachment 297137

I wanted to see if it operated better with digital input so connected Toslink input and disconnected RCA cables as to eliminate any chance of ground loops. Identical performance was seen:

View attachment 297138

Edit: forgot to post the SNR graphs:
View attachment 297177

The "good" news here is that the DAC is much better than the amplifier so it is not the bottleneck (see measurements later). From here on, I stayed with analog input so that we can compare performance to other amplifiers. Here is our frequency response:
View attachment 297139
Strange to see a slight peaking of the response below 20 Hz. Overall response is flat enough and not load dependent which is likely due to class AB design.

Crosstalk was about average (which is again poor for this class of product):
View attachment 297140

19+20 kHz intermodulation test shows good performance:
View attachment 297141
This is due to no rise in distortion with frequency as we see in multitone test:
View attachment 297142
In other words, performance is good at high frequency, but so so at lower.

With the compact traditional amplifier in there I didn't expect a ton of power and that proved to be the reality:
View attachment 297143
View attachment 297144
Ditto for 8 ohm:
View attachment 297145

Sweeping power with different frequencies showcases the frequency independence:
View attachment 297146

I saw this strange pattern on the blue channel during warm up:
View attachment 297147

I measured the highest levels I have seen for both power on and off:
View attachment 297148

So best not have sensitive speakers paired with this amplifier.

Roksan Attessa DAC Measurements
I ran a quick dashboard measurements on the DAC, measuring the preamp output:
View attachment 297149

Quite disappointing performance although as noted, better then amplifier:
View attachment 297150

Didn't see the need to keep going.

Conclusions
I really like the look and feel of the Attessa amplifier. It is slick and modern. Sadly the likes stop there. Out of box experience with the app was very poor. The user interface dates back to 1980s. And measured performance shows an amplifier with major weaknesses in noise and distortion. It also runs hot despite not being very powerful.

Company needs to ditch the amplifier and put in a performant class D amplifier in there. No lifestyle product should run this hot and at this price point, they can easily afford a proper class D amplifier. While there, get a proper DAC in there or license one for $99.

I just can't see a reason to recommend the Roksan Attessa streaming amplifier. It is clear all the innovation went into the looks of the unit, and not performance or ease of use.

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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/

I expected "good but pricey", but what a disappointment! I wonder how many units they sell each year?

 

[ocinn]

That's far,far away from been luxury priced.At 1500 euro (or even at the US price) is not even entry level high end price,you have to go up to 5K (per device,4 times that for speakers)to start.

IMO, It’s luxury priced in comparison to the status quo of the highest preforming products reviewed and discussed here.

If you can live without analog inputs, as many can, most people here would consider the Audiophonics DAW250 the superior competitor to this, for a mere 750 EUR before vat.

 

[gpauk]

Maybe they need some help from here:
https://www.machinadynamica.com/machina64.htm
Warning - put your coffee down before reading...

 

[AudioSceptic]

FYI, owner said he heard it at a dealer and it had hum in one channel! So my results must be accurate. See how JA concludes his measurements:

"With separates, it is possible for the designers to maximize resolution and minimize noise. With a single-box solution like the Roksan Attessa, it is difficult to do these things, with the current-heavy power supply in such close proximity to the low-level analog and digital decoding stages. However, the Attessa's measured performance, especially that of the low-noise, low-distortion phono input, indicates that the inevitable compromises have been managed well."

This, while measuring SNR of just 66 dB at 1 watt: "The unweighted, wideband signal/noise ratio (ref. 1W into 8 ohms), taken with the inputs shorted to ground and the volume control set to its maximum, was 66.5dB (average of the two channels), ...."

No wonder these companies sit still and don't think they have to do better. 66 dB is just 11 bits of dynamic range!

"Highly Commended" by Hi-Fi News <https://www.hifinews.com/content/roksan-attessa-streaming-amplifier> for £1500, and I thought HFN was one of the more objective mags.

 

[Rja4000]

Oh, this thing has BlueOS ?
That's, at least, a positive point.

Strange that it's not recognized as Roon ready then.

 

[Overseas]

It is like 1/3 of that price here, in EU. Roksan was always positioned as very special brand, bla bla sound, though not publishing extensive specs and so on. Never bite that.

 

[voodooless]

Oh, this thing has BlueOS ?

No:

Our entry-level Attessa amp offers the same class-leading performance as the streaming amp, just without BluOS connectivity.

 

[AdamG]

A total Train wreck that they probably can’t keep in stock. Might find a use as a boat anchor in a pinch. Made in China means they give you much less at a higher profit margin. Positive side is that they rake it in on this and you get to brag to your Audio friend circle that you own one. Do people who buy this kind of audio jewelry carry pictures of it on their cell phones and include it in the background on their holiday greetings cards? They can at least make the believable claim that they can hear the difference.

Thanks for the Test and data Amir. Keep saving us from buying junk like this. Membership has its perks and a solid ROI. Every review increases the community’s knowledge quotient.

 

[Koeitje]

FYI, owner said he heard it at a dealer and it had hum in one channel! So my results must be accurate. See how JA concludes his measurements:

"With separates, it is possible for the designers to maximize resolution and minimize noise. With a single-box solution like the Roksan Attessa, it is difficult to do these things, with the current-heavy power supply in such close proximity to the low-level analog and digital decoding stages. However, the Attessa's measured performance, especially that of the low-noise, low-distortion phono input, indicates that the inevitable compromises have been managed well."

This, while measuring SNR of just 66 dB at 1 watt: "The unweighted, wideband signal/noise ratio (ref. 1W into 8 ohms), taken with the inputs shorted to ground and the volume control set to its maximum, was 66.5dB (average of the two channels), ...."

No wonder these companies sit still and don't think they have to do better. 66 dB is just 11 bits of dynamic range!

I often see these kind of conclusions by @John Atkinson. He is way too nice. I've learned that if he uses language such as "a compromise was made" that I should avoid the product. Compromise seems to mean that it works and that's about it. Must be a consequence of being reliant on advertising to survive.