Aiyima A08 Pro anyone?

[mbhangui]

Has anyone got this cute little amp?

Beautiful little amp from Aiyima with a vu meter. Wish they had put two instead of the volume control

AIYIMA A08 PRO

Click pics to enlarge. Letter from Hong Kong (22-11): ELO on Aiyima A08 Pro (1kg vs 20 kg) Sidenote on Belden 9497 Editor's Notes: Read...

cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com

One can stack the T8 preamp and others on top of this amp

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Has anyone got this cute little amp?
View attachment 73361
Beautiful little amp from Aiyima with a vu meter. Wish they had put two instead of the volume control

AIYIMA A08 PRO

Click pics to enlarge. Letter from Hong Kong (22-11): ELO on Aiyima A08 Pro (1kg vs 20 kg) Sidenote on Belden 9497 Editor's Notes: Read...

cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com

One can stack the T8 preamp and others on top of this amp
View attachment 73362

Don't own one , but have auditioned it while visiting a store for buying BELDEN cables.With the volume pot near 9 it was pounding away through a pair of old metal diaphragm creative speakers paired with a edifier T5 sub.Lured me into requesting the shop guy to increase the volume which then sounded insane.I feel the tone controls on this make it sound better than the A07. However the vu meter on this unit seemed to be a dud. The Bass was fuller and sounded awesome (tho I'm not sure if it was the amp by itself or the sub that made it sound so full)

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Has anyone got this cute little amp?
View attachment 73361
Beautiful little amp from Aiyima with a vu meter. Wish they had put two instead of the volume control

AIYIMA A08 PRO

Click pics to enlarge. Letter from Hong Kong (22-11): ELO on Aiyima A08 Pro (1kg vs 20 kg) Sidenote on Belden 9497 Editor's Notes: Read...

cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com

One can stack the T8 preamp and others on top of this amp
View attachment 73362

Sir FYI ,perhaps you should look at the New kid on the block from Aiyima .......The A07 PRO , specs mention the latest BT 5.2 aptx + tone controls , under the hood what looks impressive are the "higher quality" caps... The new inductors and the 4 or 5 upgradeable op-amp slots. Now how much of a performance upgrade these might provide ? No idea ,but other senior FMs including yourself are way better equipped to answer this and even enlighten us about what these upgraded parts might achieve as a result.

 

[mbhangui]

Personally I won't be buying any of these all-in-one amps. But I like what the Chinese are doing in the design and looks dept. Primary reason for not buying the cute amps being that they have noisy chips in the same housing (bluetooth). My eyes are on the sabaj and will pull the trigger when it is available in amazon.in, hifimart, etc so that I don't have to deal with unpredictable customs at Pune. At the moment I have the allo volt +d without any of the extra gimmics and performs better in the SINAD dept.

For the pro version Aiyima did ask users what features to have in A07 pro and many users did convey to remove bluetooth, but they went ahead anyway. I hope they come up with a pure power amplifier one day (no bluetooth, no bass, no treble) with the same good looks.

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Personally I won't be buying any of these all-in-one amps. But I like what the Chinese are doing in the design and looks dept. Primary reason for not buying the cute amps being that they have noisy chips in the same housing (bluetooth). My eyes are on the sabaj and will pull the trigger when it is available in amazon.in, hifimart, etc so that I don't have to deal with unpredictable customs at Pune. At the moment I have the allo volt +d without any of the extra gimmics and performs better in the SINAD dept.

For the pro version Aiyima did ask users what features to have in A07 pro and many users did convey to remove bluetooth, but they went ahead anyway. I hope they come up with a pure power amplifier one day (no bluetooth, no bass, no treble) with the same good looks.


View attachment 73378

Thanks for sharing, it's nice to know your thought process. Sir does that mean having BT chips in the same board always results in noise or is it only pertaining to these cheap chi-fi amps. Is it mostly better to have an external BT reciever with a good chip thats connected to a power amplifier ?
Does this also hold good for the preamps that have BT along with other digital connects or its purely to do with power amps ?

 

[mbhangui]

Thanks for sharing, it's nice to know your thought process. Sir does that mean having BT chips in the same board always results in noise or is it only pertaining to these cheap chi-fi amps. Is it mostly better to have an external BT reciever with a good chip thats connected to a power amplifier ?
Does this also hold good for the preamps that have BT along with other digital connects or its purely to do with power amps ?

Both wifi and bluetooth operate using radio frequencies in MHz region. It is undisputed that these chips create EMI. Put your ear close to any SMPS power supply and you will hear a very high frequency whine. wifi, bluetooth, SMPS, square wave, quasi sine wave circuits in invertors and telivision and computer monitors are the worst offenders. I turn off wifi and bluetooth on each and every device. On my computer, raspberry PI and other devices I disable wifi and bluetooth in the kernel itself. We audiofools go to great lengths to have the best performance. Some of these practice are Psychoacoustics and probably require psychiatric treatment.

Few examples whose end effect can be questionable.

1) shielded cables instead of twisted pairs (twisted pairs also do the job). Lately I have converted many of my cables and find they are much better than highly priced commercial cables because the twisted pairs from ethernet cables give very low capacitance.
2) Ethernet instead of wi-fi. This really helps if you are streaming.
3) isolation transformers instead of UPS (sine wave or otherwise)
4) Hi-Res instead of 44.1 kHz (I really can't make out difference but it gives me peace of mind)
5) Linear Power supplies. (I really can't make out difference, but the SMPS power supply by itself do make noise and I can hear with my own ears the high frequency whine). In contrast LPS transformers make a faint 50 Hz noise from the transformer.

Some of us go to extremes (thank my stars I'm not afflicted with the below).

1) cable mysticism
2) Distortion producing amps (valve amps)
3) Power cables costing more than the amp
4) Power conditioners which are nothing more than EMI filters

Many of us (me primarily) will not sleep peacefully in the night with the knowledge that the music room is spewing noise through wifi, bluetooth and SMPS units.

Noise plays a huge role in the way we percieve music. One of the first to realize that our brain alters the way we hear actual music was George Simon Ohm. So every person hears music differently and every person have different tastes. e.g. I just don't seem to like Hindustani or Carnatic classical.

Many studies of hearing occurred in the 18th century, and two areas of interest, pitch and sound source localization, have had a lasting impact on psychoacoustics. Helmholtz was influenced by Georg Simon Ohm’s (1789- 1854) “acoustic law” that stated that the ear performs a limited Fourier analysis by determining the sinusoidal components of complex sound. Ohm is perhaps better known for his work on electricity and for whom the unit of resistance is named. Fourier (1768-1830), a French physicist/mathematician working earlier in the 19th century, established a theorem regarding complex fluctuations of heat over time. Fourier’s theorem can be applied to sound pressure varying as a function of time. Helmholtz used Fourier’s theorems to describe a resonance theory of frequency analysis performed by the inner ear as the basis of pitch and argued that the resonance place with the greatest magnitude would be a determining factor in pitch perception. Because his inner ear resonators were more sharply tuned at low frequencies, low frequencies were likely to be a dominant factor in pitch perception.

Read this article. It is fascinating.

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Psychoacoustics-A-Brief-Historical-Overview.pdf

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Both wifi and bluetooth operate using radio frequencies in MHz region. It is undisputed that these chips create EMI. Put your ear close to any SMPS power supply and you will hear a very high frequency whine. wifi, bluetooth, SMPS, square wave, quasi sine wave circuits in invertors and telivision and computer monitors are the worst offenders. I turn off wifi and bluetooth on each and every device. On my computer, raspberry PI and other devices I disable wifi and bluetooth in the kernel itself. We audiofools go to great lengths to have the best performance. Some of these practice are Psychoacoustics and probably require psychiatric treatment.

Few examples whose end effect can be questionable.

1) shielded cables instead of twisted pairs (twisted pairs also do the job). Lately I have converted many of my cables and find they are much better than highly priced commercial cables because the twisted pairs from ethernet cables give very low capacitance.
2) Ethernet instead of wi-fi. This really helps if you are streaming.
3) isolation transformers instead of UPS (sine wave or otherwise)
4) Hi-Res instead of 44.1 kHz (I really can't make out difference but it gives me peace of mind)
5) Linear Power supplies. (I really can't make out difference, but the SMPS power supply by itself do make noise and I can hear with my own ears the high frequency whine). In contrast LPS transformers make a faint 50 Hz noise from the transformer.

Some of us go to extremes (thank my stars I'm not afflicted with the below).

1) cable mysticism
2) Distortion producing amps (valve amps)
3) Power cables costing more than the amp
4) Power conditioners which are nothing more than EMI filters

Many of us (me primarily) will not sleep peacefully in the night with the knowledge that the music room is spewing noise through wifi, bluetooth and SMPS units.

Noise plays a huge role in the way we percieve music. One of the first to realize that our brain alters the way we hear actual music was George Simon Ohm. So every person hears music differently and every person have different tastes. e.g. I just don't seem to like Hindustani or Carnatic classical.

Read this article. It is fascinating.

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Psychoacoustics-A-Brief-Historical-Overview.pdf

Sir. Even before I go through the article- I feel YOU ARE A WALKING ENCYCLOPAEDIA of sorts, my gosh- the amount of information you provide is really Humongous,not sure if you are an Engineer by profession having studied all this or it's a keen interest you have that's made you gather all of this. Most of the technical parts happen to fly above my head,yet there's so much I keep learning from you and other FMs via each & every interaction.
Wrt the first point you mentioned about Cables I'd like to share my latest find ,i had read and watched a lot of material that said cables don't make a difference ( they all sound similar & that it's just a marketing stint) ,but after reading many posts on this forum about Belden 8477 cables i decided to go ahead and use them & to my surprise they made such a huge difference to SQ that's literally mind blowing.In lay mans terms i can describe this as a much thicker sound with pronounced clarity across the spectrum and a huge addition of LF, it's a sea change to what I had ever experienced before. I can no longer fathom using any other cables after I've started using the 8477 & I'm gonna make it a point to inform people about what they are missing out on (hearing is believing , i know i digressed from what you were explaining ,but I thought it was worth sharing my new find with you).
This forum is a treasure trove.

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Both wifi and bluetooth operate using radio frequencies in MHz region. It is undisputed that these chips create EMI. Put your ear close to any SMPS power supply and you will hear a very high frequency whine. wifi, bluetooth, SMPS, square wave, quasi sine wave circuits in invertors and telivision and computer monitors are the worst offenders. I turn off wifi and bluetooth on each and every device. On my computer, raspberry PI and other devices I disable wifi and bluetooth in the kernel itself. We audiofools go to great lengths to have the best performance. Some of these practice are Psychoacoustics and probably require psychiatric treatment.

Few examples whose end effect can be questionable.

1) shielded cables instead of twisted pairs (twisted pairs also do the job). Lately I have converted many of my cables and find they are much better than highly priced commercial cables because the twisted pairs from ethernet cables give very low capacitance.
2) Ethernet instead of wi-fi. This really helps if you are streaming.
3) isolation transformers instead of UPS (sine wave or otherwise)
4) Hi-Res instead of 44.1 kHz (I really can't make out difference but it gives me peace of mind)
5) Linear Power supplies. (I really can't make out difference, but the SMPS power supply by itself do make noise and I can hear with my own ears the high frequency whine). In contrast LPS transformers make a faint 50 Hz noise from the transformer.

Some of us go to extremes (thank my stars I'm not afflicted with the below).

1) cable mysticism
2) Distortion producing amps (valve amps)
3) Power cables costing more than the amp
4) Power conditioners which are nothing more than EMI filters

Many of us (me primarily) will not sleep peacefully in the night with the knowledge that the music room is spewing noise through wifi, bluetooth and SMPS units.

Noise plays a huge role in the way we percieve music. One of the first to realize that our brain alters the way we hear actual music was George Simon Ohm. So every person hears music differently and every person have different tastes. e.g. I just don't seem to like Hindustani or Carnatic classical.

Read this article. It is fascinating.

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Psychoacoustics-A-Brief-Historical-Overview.pdf

@mbhangui ....have exactly followed what you had said about using Bullet connectors for terminations. Just love the snug fit on both ends when using BC's. Attaching a pic to check if it's done correctly.

 

[mbhangui]

@mbhangui ....have exactly followed what you had said about using Bullet connectors for terminations. Just love the snug fit on both ends when using BC's. Attaching a pic to check if it's done correctly.

This is banana connector and this is used for terminations on speaker cable. In general thicker cable 12AWG and above will give good bass. Bass requires more energy and small amount of DC resistance due to thin wires or non-copper or non-silver wires will destroy bass. Here the power is sufficiently high to get spoiled by small amount of capacitance of the speaker cable.

What I was talking about was the bullet RCA plug. This RCA plug does not have a cylinder surrounding the centre pin. This keeps the capacitance low as possible because capacitance is directly proportional to the surface area of the two conductors. It has the centre pin and another thin rod that runs along the periphery from the front to behind. The tiny golden dot you see on the red RCA plug below is the other conductor


Here is another picture of the bullet connnector which clearly shows the two conductors.

The bullet connector is good for interconnects where the signal levels are low where small amount of capacitance destroys HF more than LF.

 

[MasTerasTrix]

This is banana connector and this is used for terminations on speaker cable. In general thicker cable 12AWG and above will give good bass. Here the power is sufficiently high to get spoiled by small amount of capacitance of the speaker cable.

What I was talking about was the bullet RCA plug. This RCA plug does not have a cylinder surrounding the centre pin. This keeps the capacitance low as possible because capacitance is directly proportional to the surface area of the two conductors. It has the centre pin and another thin rod that runs along the periphery from the front to behind. The tiny golden dot you see on the red RCA plug below is the other conductor
View attachment 73393
The bullet connector is good for interconnects where the signal levels are low where small amount of capacitance destroys HF more than LF.

My bad...coz when I asked for bullet connectors this is what was given to me( pic below). Was told that these are gold plated and have a 10 year life span on the coating. Will try and hunt the bullet connectors you suggested for IC.

 

[mbhangui]

My bad...coz when I asked for bullet connectors this is what was given to me( pic below). Was told that these are gold plated and have a 10 year life span on the coating. Will try and hunt the bullet connectors you suggested.

This is good enough for speakers. You have used the correct connnector. From the picture it looks like you got good quality connectors. You can't use the bullet RCA plugs for speakers.

Interconnects are different
speaker connection is totally different. Don't mix the connectors.

 

[MaSh]

Any Balanced options from them for speakers? Not sure how they sound, but man they look gorgeous.

MaSh

 

[MasTerasTrix]

This is good enough for speakers. You have used the correct connnector. From the picture it looks like you got good quality connectors. You can't use the bullet RCA plugs for speakers.

Interconnects are different
speaker connection is totally different. Don't mix the connectors.

Nope....i got what you said. I was thinking of getting the bullet rca plugs for the IC as the one I'm using are normal Neutrik plugs.

 

[mbhangui]

Nope....i got what you said. I was thinking of getting the bullet rca plugs for the IC as the one I'm using are normal Neutrik plugs.

Ok. Yes. The neutrik will give you around 10 pF per connector. The bullet plug gives around 2-3 pF per connector. The only problem with the bullet connector is the sturdiness. The thin outer cylindrical connector is not strong. It gets bent easily. When inserting, insert gently. The neutrik connector can take lot of abuse.

 

[MasTerasTrix]

Any Balanced options from them for speakers? Not sure how they sound, but man they look gorgeous.

MaS

Any Balanced options from them for speakers? Not sure how they sound, but man they look gorgeous.

MaSh

Wrong Post-- deleted

 

[mbhangui]

Any Balanced options from them for speakers? Not sure how they sound, but man they look gorgeous.

MaSh

You have the Aiyima 300 for that. But it doesn't look as good as this

AIYIMA A300 Review (Stereo Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A300 stereo amplifier with balanced and Bluetooth inputs. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $177. I like that you can easily defeat the tone controls now and select one of three inputs, allowing the amp to replace a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[MaSh]

You have the Aiyima 300 for that. But it doesn't look as good as this

AIYIMA A300 Review (Stereo Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AIYIMA A300 stereo amplifier with balanced and Bluetooth inputs. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $177. I like that you can easily defeat the tone controls now and select one of three inputs, allowing the amp to replace a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Yes I had seen this one, but the VU meter model is . I have a fetish for VU meters. They instantly improve sound quality for me.

MaSh

 

[geraldomagella]

I was wondering if it has high pass filter if you plug in a subwoofer in the AUX out... Any thoughts?

 

[Dinesh Menon]

Has anyone got this cute little amp?
View attachment 73361
Beautiful little amp from Aiyima with a vu meter. Wish they had put two instead of the volume control

AIYIMA A08 PRO

Click pics to enlarge. Letter from Hong Kong (22-11): ELO on Aiyima A08 Pro (1kg vs 20 kg) Sidenote on Belden 9497 Editor's Notes: Read...

cheaptubeaudio.blogspot.com

One can stack the T8 preamp and others on top of this amp
View attachment 73362

Sir, please clear my confusion:
Does AO8 Pro amp need T8 pre amp support to power speakers ?
Or Norge Concerto Gold 1000 amp the better option ?

 

[premoddev]

T8 or any pre amplifier is not mandatory to use with A8 as the later comes with a volume knob. T8 is not only a pre amp, but a dac which you might need to use with your digital sources.

There are lot of reviews of Norge amplifier in this forum, which might help you to choose between. I don't have personal experience with any of these amplifiers, but the main difference is Norge is a Class AB design where as the A8 is a class D.