Eversolo DMP 8 audition going poorly...

Return it while you can.   Support from Eversolo is abysmal....  worst I have ever experienced in this hobby in 40 years.  

Or, give it a bit more time to settle in.  Eight hours ain't much!

I have the A8 and before this the Wiim mini and the pro. The problem is streaming in general. It just doesn’t sound as good as CDs.   Even on Qobuz. The CDs that I have ripped and in the internal SSD of the A8 sound great. Best digital sound I have ever gotten. Same DAC and should be same bit rate. They should sound the same. They don’t. The streaming is duller and has less sound stage. If you search on Youtube "streaming vs CD" you will find that several reviewers have found the same thing and on high end gear. One audio dealer even did a polled comparison over YT and about 40 out of 50 picked the local CD as sounding better than streaming.

My own experience with the A8 has been great. To improve your streaming experience, I recommend upgrading your internet connection by using a product like the Ifi galvanic isolator between your router and your A8. I also use a Puron AC Power Conditioner by Greg Voth on my quality power strip. In addition, I recently upgraded with jumpers for my speakers. All of this gives me very good dynamics, soundstage, and resolution. I pulled out my well known vintage pre-amp to use the A8 as my pre and haven’t looked back. I also moved from RCAs to mid grade XLR interconnects from the A8 directly into my LSA Warp1 amp which sounds dynamite. I stream using Qobuz and some Amazon Music.

This combination is the best my system has sounded.

I am really happy with the A8 for streaming Tidal only .  I have the Laiv DAC and c2800 pre amplifier.  Maybe you are asking to much for the internal DAC?  The A8 with EQ filters and all streaming features(radio, youtube, Tidal, qobuz, roon ) is a great streamer in that price range specially with its I2S output.  You need to pair it with a decent DAC.

I am using the same power cord than yours. 

@1happyman @dandion

I have a Puron and an Equi=Core 2400 in the power supply chain and a SmoothLan ethernet filter (Stack Audio).

I am a/b testing against a BlueSound Node N130 with LHY LPS and a BlackIce tube DAC with NOS Mullards. (exactly the same price at the A8 "all-in")

The N130 sounds slightly better than the A8 WITHOUT the external DAC.

The N130 with my DAC blows away the A8, and that is using WiFi and no SmoothLan.

The A8 sounds muffled, has less gain, no sparkle at all. Too warm, veiled and lacking detail. If you heard it with eyes closed, you would never guess you were listening to a $50K amp/speaker rig.

The N130+DAC using RCA not XLR, sounds engaging and "alive".

On the plus side, the A8 is a nice looking box that feels well made, the UX is fine, the app is fine, and set up was very easy.

@doni

Or, give it a bit more time to settle in.  Eight hours ain't much!

I left it playing overnight and today. No change. All cables are well broken-in.

PS. I really enjoy SXM radio for background music and this is missing on the A8 (which I knew in advance, and yes, I know I can stream it from my phone). I did try Paradise Radio on the A8 and it doesn't sound as good as SXM from the N130.

@1happyman @dandion

UPDATE: I kept at it and tried a few CD quality tracks as I had up to this point only streamed Qobuz Hi Res.

CD quality on the A8 sounds very good side by side.

So I went back to Hi Res and sure enough, lower gain and less sparkle from the A8.

Turned off Replay gain and MUCH MUCH better!!!

Next will try the A8 with my DAC.

Dump it while you can. Move on. 

Macg19 make sure all processing is turned off in the A8. And put few more hours on it. Too early to throw in a towel. 

make sure all processing is turned off in the A8?

what does this mean ?

It means…If there’s any upsampling, attenuation, room corrections, etc. not sure what it has if any as far as DSP goes. Disable it. 

I returned my A8 and got a Weiss DAC to run with my Bluesound Vault streaming Tidal And Qobuz.  Much better now.

I own the A8 and my experience with Qobuz is, it is way overhyped cannot wait until the prepaid year is up.My strong suggestion would be to try another streaming service. Qobuz is dull and lifeless in my opinion not the A8. In my experience the service that begins with the letter "A" and is the world largest retailer...offers the best fidelity I’ve gotten from the A8 when streaming. I also have Apple music and Roon both sound much better than Qobuz. Try a free trial of another music service, 8 hours run in time is nothing, my A8 did not start to really impress until after 50 hours and after 100 hours WOW. Truthfully based on your thread title it would appear a dissatisfaction bias (may) have been established for you, be honest with yourself and if so...Box it up while you are in your return window and move on.

All the best!

@balooo2 I had both Tidal HiFi and Qobuz for a year and preferred Qobuz. Like I said, once I turned off all processing the sound livened up a lot.

i also tried the A8 as a streamer with my DAC and thought it sounded pretty good but not good enough to spend $2K on just a streamer.

This exercise was interesting.

I didn’t want to like the A8 because of the many negative reviews and the fact that it is ChFi but the hype made be curious. I do like it. Are there better options for $2K. Maybe.

@macg19:  Dull and lifeless compared to what?

Baloo2 - in my experience different streamers sound different with different streaming services. In example, Lumin U1 Mini and Bricasti built in network card sounded best with Roon streaming tidal. Qobuz sounded a bit rolled off and not engaging. With Aurender Qobuz sounds better than tidal. 
Highly depends on streamer, system composition and personal preference. 

Streaming - even at "CD quality"  just doesn't sound as good as local CD.   So if folks are expecting it to they will probably be disappointed.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cd+vs+streaming+sound+quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10sXCRD-nls

@mapman perhaps review my follow up posts

My advice. Never stay in a relationship that isn't working.

You can grit your teeth and try to make things work, but most times it is better to just move on.

@ossicle2brain Analogue is my primary source. I have a new, maybe endgame TT arriving tomorrow.

@tony1954 The A8 is boxed up.

But to be clear for present and prospective owners, it is a decent product and sounded good once I figured out that all those fancy filters and reply-gain matching just get in the way. 

It just didn't beat what I already had.

Macg19, there is setting in A8 audio menu to bypass internal sampling/processing .  When it is enable, the A8 will stream directly the flac files to and external dac without processing. I prefer this setting to on.  

Check for : Eversolo original sampling rate audio engine.

@dandion Thank you - I did play with that setting.

Now, let your A8 plays radioparadise for a week 24h/day and come back to us with your impressions. I would be really surprised to see that you still prefer the node steamer...

The A8 is a completely difefrent animal with EQ, DSP, I2S, features.  Personally, I prefer streaming pcm than listening flac files stored with the A8 but I upgraded all my network route with better switch, FMC, ethernet Cat8 cables etc,,,,

I upgraded from the A6 with LHY power supply to the A8.  The A8 is step up regarding soundstage size.

If you want to exprience deep, wide 3D soundstage with A8, you need to correct your speakers with DSP but it is another story...

@dandion 

I will be honest and say that I initially thought the A8 was too good to be true, overhyped, saw quite a few really negative reviews, and checked out their website which gave me a negative impression of the Company. And I have said so on this forum.

What prompted me to try the A8 was my go to brick and mortar dealer started carrying it. His lines include Wilson, Dan Ag, Nagra, Clearaudio, HiFi Rose (etc) to give some perspective.

He said you get almost the Rose RS 150 for $3K less money. I was surprised.

We also discussed trading up my TT. My current analogue investment is more than 3 times digital.

I've decided to upgrade my TT to end-game instead of invest any further in digital so the A8 has been returned.  

I was wrong about the A8, it is a nice piece of kit, and I think the streamer section is better than the Node.  

I had purchased all 3 eversolos. A6, A6 master with  linear power supply and finally A8. Lots of nice features for the money but I was more interested in sound. The A8,was the best sound of the 3. However none of them sounded good in my system. I had to move up to an arunder n200 to get close to satisfaction. Then from there to the n20.Iim very happy now, but wallet isn’t. Yea the hype got me good.

I also have a N200  Aurenders are worth the money especially the A8 is now $2000.   I told my Dad to buy a bluesound node or Innuos, or Aurender. All good platforms.  He watched Steve Huff oooing and ahhhing over the A6 and bought one.  360 days later , immediately after update no USB to his DAC.   

Eversolo has no clue how to support their hardware,  many bugs pop up each revision.   Often times it is minor stuff, but when new firmware causes problems and a company flat out lies about a known issue that should be a red flag.  Another red flag is requesting an RMA for repair and being ignored....  still waiting on a reply since 6/22

You are buying into a brand with no channels for hardware support or repair.   If it fails within a year hopefully your dealer will offer to replace it.  After a year, no repairs.    That's OK for a $300 streamer , I'll accept that .  But $1299 $2000 products ?   C'mon.   They are not interested in after sales support or hardware repair.  Buy at own risk

Hmm, well consider this:  

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/eversolo-dmp-a8-balanced-streamer-dac-review.55826/

Means nothing, zero....  if a product measures great and has weak support how good is it really?    

Well it is not inexpensive so one would hope for good overall performance for many years.  

It’s always interesting when a product measures well indicating quality design and execution but then someone finds the sound inferior. What to make of that? Who is right? The numbers or the person? Or both. Numbers are not subjective. Opinions are. You can argue either doesn’t matter but not both. It’s a dilemma of sorts with no answer that has all the cards.

Also I read  the thing has dsp built in which is a fabulous feature.  Have you tried to use it to tweak the sound?

Can’t really comment on the Eversolo A8 other than I had some contact with a guy who bought one but decided not to keep it and returned it for a refund. Now, regarding the comments about streaming thru Qobuz, I’ve been using the service for several years and have enjoyed it with no plans to change. The sound quality of many, many albums I have saved to my favorites is quite good in my opinion. Initially I listened through my Rose RS150b whose App seems tailored to Qobuz and never felt there were any significant shortcomings to the sound quality. However, recently I’ve added a Geshelli Labs Dayzee DAC and an Auralic Aries streamer. I can say with confidence that whether I’m streaming from the Rose or the Aries into the Dayzee, the sound is now even better. So, I guess there’s always something better out there, but for me, I’m hitting the pause button and just trying to enjoy the music for a while, hopefully a very long while.

Vdot, smart to buy a proven platform.  The streamer space is getting crowded fast...  too many wanna be flavors of the week.   Auralic, Aurender , Innuos, and Bluesound would be my only choices.  

Streaming is overhyped, along with streamers. It’s good in theory but it’s still not ready for prime audiophile sound time.  Despite what the mostly useless  measurements say.

I am actually very happy with the A8. I had it about 3 months. Nice one box solution with lots of flavor for $2K imo. What were you using before? 

@ossicle2brain I wonder what makes you think that. Streams are not that much different from CD and CDs are not error-free media (bit wise) while networks are.

@mikhailark I don’t know but streaming, even on Qobuz, never sounds as good as the CD. And I’m not the only one saying so. And the problem is that I think most people buy these expensive streamers thinking they will sound just as good as CDs and they don’t so they keep chasing the tail. If folks could temper their expectations, and I’m not referring to anyone here, they might not be as disappointed with streamers. I know I was expecting streaming to be like CD but have since found out differently. I’ve now just accepted that yes streaming is great, but not to expect that it will sound as good as CD. It’s close though. And on some of the high bit rate stuff on Qobuz 24/96 it does sound as good as and maybe better, but they are limited in numbers.

Sound silly maybe but as far as the A8, the thing that most improved it for me was moving it up on a shelf to eye level so I just use the touch screen instead of having to use a phone or tablet.

@ossicle2brain

Sound silly maybe but as far as the A8, the thing that most improved it for me was moving it up on a shelf to eye level so I just use the touch screen instead of having to use a phone or tablet.

Not silly at all. I found it annoying to have to kneel to operate the touchscreen.

@ossicle2brain - to some extent true - but streaming services do not necessarily stream the same material. I tried (1) LP, (2) same LP recorded into DSD by me, (3) HDTracks 24/96, (4) CD and (5) Tidal. (1) and (2) sounded identical to me via really good DAC. Everything else sounded different and hi rez not necessarily better. BUT some streams sounded better than my ripped CDs.

Also, people use streamer embedded DAC which is often a poor implementation.

I use source with the best sound for a particular recording. Sometimes LP (most often recorded into DSD), sometimes stream, sometimes CD.

@magp19 nothing beats operating Tidal from a PC with mouse and 34" screen. I don't use iPad much. Besides, this allows me to do other things while music is playing, if I have to.

One of the things I like most is not being in the same room and being able to control the A8 without kneeling or the unit being anywhere in sight via the app on my phone and tablets.Some may get the impression the only way to operate the A8 is to physically touch the device...

BTW the app UI works great in my opinion, but I'm sure some will find cause for complaint now that it is being mentioned.

I wish I could simplify the UI.  Remove stuff I don't use.