New Eversolo DMP-A10

Funny..I just went through 2 weeks of trying to decide if I should go for an A8 or an A10. I decided that I didn't need what the A10 was offering (I know.."need" is a four letter word) but seriously, I absolutely loved the A8 compared to my internal McIntosh DA2 DAC..the instrument separation is otherworldly..it's that good. I felt the A10 improvements didn't necessarily equate to better sound..just more I/O and visual options. 

I see it has no I2S output. Is I2S all that it's cracked up to be? Shouldn't a newly released player have this option?

It looks impressive although the website is a bit irritating. Two questions: I thought the A8 was supposed to sound better due to using an AKM dac but the A10 uses an ESS Pro. Any thought on that change? Second question: Has anyone bought an Eversolo product via Amazon and returned it? How was that process?

Now would seem to be the time to buy, if you're in the US, before new Chinese tariffs kick in.

@jjtarnow The A8 already sounds excellent, so there's nothing wrong with sticking to that one. I think the room correction in the A10 might be a big deal for some people and totally unwelcome for other people, so that really depends. Build quality appears to be a big step up but again the A8 is still very nice already. I guess at this point we just don't know how much all the little upgrades and tweaks in the A10 add up to as far as sound quality. 

@koestner I think Eversolo probably expects you to mainly be using the internal DAC on the A10. But I agree, it's a little weird to see that missing. They do supposedly improve the USB output with better isolation so maybe they just think that's good enough? My experience is that I2S is the best choice for some DACs but not in all cases, and they don't all work together anyway (there is no standard) so it's kind of unpredictable. 

@exley_99 Agree on the website, it's annoying. The A6 used a more entry level ESS DAC solution. The A8 uses the top model from AKM. The A10 is back to ESS but using the newly released top model. Any of them have potential to sound great or not, it's all in the implementation. But I can see why Eversolo felt the need to switch, just to differentiate the A10 from A8 in that area. Would have to hear it to decide how it really sounds though.

I would think if you are a prime member it would be a painless return. And I am not sure the tariff thing was anything more than a campaign promise that won't really materialize (as is the case with most campaign talking points from most politicians throughout history). But we'll see.