Eversolo DMP 8 audition going poorly...

@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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@mapman perhaps review my follow up posts

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

@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.  

@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.

@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.