When assessing a product for SoundStage! Simplifi, our reviewers consider more than just sound quality: convenience, features, and ease of use all play a role as such qualities are important to Simplifi’s readers. In contrast, reviewers assessing components for our other sites focus, sometimes almost exclusively, on sound quality. Not surprisingly, shortcomings in one or more aspects of a component’s usability are often identified—few products can tick every box.
On occasion, however, a component comes in for review on SoundStage! Simplifi that does exactly that: exhibiting no obvious compromises. One such component is the Eversolo DMP-A8 streaming preamplifier, which Roger Kanno reviewed on Simplifi on November 1. In his review, Roger praised the DMP-A8’s well-implemented feature set, ease of use, and build quality, as well as its excellent sound. Considering all that the DMP-A8 offers, Roger could hardly get over its “almost unbelievably low” price of $1980 (all prices in USD).
The DMP-A8 was Eversolo’s top-of-the-line streaming preamplifier when Roger wrote his review, in mid-October. Just days later, on October 25, the company announced a new flagship model, the DMP-A10, which surpasses the DMP-A8 in size, feature set, and price ($3680). Nevertheless, the DMP-A8 remains in the line and is not at all overshadowed by the newer model. Its excellent performance, as experienced by Roger and measured on our test bench, remains undiminished. It may not be as “extravagantly overbuilt as some luxury audiophile products of this type are,” Roger writes, “but its tidy internal layout, high-quality parts, and solid construction are truly remarkable for the price.”
On the front panel, below the model name on the left, a pithy line indicates the DMP-A8’s functionality: “MUSIC STREAMER / DAC / DAP / PRE-AMP.” It is a digital and analog preamplifier with a built-in digital-to-analog converter, a streamer, and a digital player of local files, stored either on a USB-connected external drive or on an optional onboard SSD.
The DMP-A8 also has a digital signal processing (DSP) section that allows custom FIR-type filters to be imported. Roger created some filters using Room EQ Wizard (REW), a freely available software tool, and then uploaded his filters to the DMP-A8 to compensate for bass-region room modes. The DSP section, however, can only be used with digital source material, Roger notes. The DMP-A8 does not have an onboard analog-to-digital converter, so incoming analog signals are left in the analog domain.
The DMP-A8 can also act as a CD player or ripper if the user connects an external optical drive to it via USB, as Roger did. To find out more about this and the many other features of the DMP-A8, I encourage you to read Roger’s review. The scope of this writing does not permit proper coverage of the extensive feature set of the DMP-A8. To control the device you can use the touchscreen, the Eversolo app, or the accompanying remote control.
At SoundStage!, subjective evaluation of a component like the DMP-A8 is always conducted independently of our audio-electronics lab measurements. The results of these tests are not known to the reviewer until after the review is published, which ensures that listening evaluations are not influenced by test results.
After Roger filed his review, we were interested to see how closely his listening impressions correlated with Diego Estan’s findings at the measurements lab, particularly in terms of distortion and noise (which was found to be at the limit of what our two-channel audio analyzer can measure). The DMP-A8’s volume control, an R2R design using discrete components and operating in the analog domain, provided extremely precise channel-to-channel consistency. The DMP-A8’s crosstalk when measured at 1kHz with a 24-bit/96kHz 0dBFS signal was an excellent −122dB, bettering the manufacturer’s specification by 1dB. Using our standard 10kHz measurement, both left and right channels reached to an outstanding -146dB and 143dB, respectively. This is but a glimpse, of course, into the exhaustive measurements we perform at the lab. If you take a look at the measurements page for the DMP-A8, you will see that across the board, the DMP-A8 performed astoundingly well on the test bench, not just for the price—for any price.
The low noise measurement Diego obtained in the lab is consistent with Roger’s assessment. When listening to “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” from the soundtrack to the film Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus, with his imported FIR filters engaged, Roger reports hearing “a dead-silent background.” He describes the piano on the last track of the album, “Opus – Ending," as appearing to be ten feet in front of him, “in a large acoustic space with no walls around”; again, pointing to very low noise and, possibly, superb channel separation.
The “almost orchestral sound” of Bruce Fairbairn’s arrangement on “Spaceship Superstar,” from Prism’s eponymous debut album, and the “operatic quality of Ron Tabak’s vocals,” Roger writes, were “stunningly clean and precisely conveyed through the DMP-A8.” Then, on the title track of Eva Cassidy’s Nightbird, even “when the playing and vocals got raucous,” the presentation of vocals and instruments was “flawlessly clear,” he reports. “I could still distinctly make out each beat of Raice McLeod’s drum fills even though they were set well back behind Cassidy and the rest of the band.”
Roger’s reference preamplifier is the Anthem STR ($4300), which debuted in 2018. While many modern preamplifiers have built-in streaming capability, the older STR doesn’t. It does have a powerful DSP engine, however, with support for Anthem Room Correction (ARC), an advanced, subwoofer-aware room-correction system, which the DMP-A8 lacks. The STR also includes an analog-to-digital converter, which allows digital processing of incoming analog signals, and a phono stage compatible with moving-magnet and moving-coil cartridges.
When comparing the sound quality of the STR with that of the DMP-A8, Roger found that with some tracks, they were indistinguishable from each other. With some other tracks, however, he gave the nod to the STR, concluding that although the Eversolo’s presentation was “not as involving as that of the Anthem,” it was “exceedingly clear and ultra-quiet.”
In summary, Roger writes that the DMP-A8 was “an absolute pleasure to review thanks to its solid construction, stable operation, and excellent sound quality.” This combination of qualities, and its reasonable price, earned the DMP-A8 a Reviewers’ Choice award when the review was published. But it is for its sound quality, as assessed by Roger and as corroborated by our test-bench measurements, that the DMP-A8 earned a Recommended Reference Component award this month.
Manufacturer contact information:
Eversolo Audio Technology Co., Ltd.
Chentian Stock Building, Floor 13
Dingjunshan Film Technology Industrial Park
Baotian First Road, Xixiang Avenue
Baoan District, Shenzhen
China
Phone: +86 755 23500280
Email: sales@eversolo.com
Website: www.eversolo.com
