Eversolo DMP-A8 Streamer, DAP, DAC and Preamp

[jjazzy]

It’s placebo if you think just a streamer has a sound signature and there’s audible quality differences between devices. Kinda like cables. But I will leave it at that. It’s your money and decision making after all.

Seriously? Stop giving false advice, there is a difference, and it is big. It is just like saying al dac chips sound the same, which they are not. Did you do A/B compare with several streamers at the same time? Well I did! Was at the shop for 5 hours listening.

Eversolo a6, a6 master, eversolo a8, innuous mk3, lumin u2 and hifi rose rs130. As a streamer and dac chord tt2+ mscaler, And I can tell you there is a difference. Eventhough it is not day and night, you mostly hear it in the build up stage. In that regard the a8 is a bargain. And the innuous and hifi rose too expensive, if listening to music is you goal.

 

[Signal2Noise]

I never stated DAC chips sound the same nor do I believe they do. There is a difference in DACs, and that is the point I was alluding to in the first reply you quoted of mine. No point in an expensive streamer if internal DAC is never being used. Buy cheaper streamer and external DAC to save some money.Good for you doing all those tests to make your own “opinion”.

Btw, my advice is not “false”. It is well documented on many an audio site that can easily be researched. After decades in this crazy hobby I share in those findings.

 

[Jake2]

Subtle but clear audible differences here between three different streamers providing a digital input into a single DAC, where the only variable is the streamer used. This guy does consistently high quality, well micced comparison vids of a range of components.

 

[Jake2]

Incidentally I just watched/listened to his A6 vs A6 ME vs A8 comparison vid, where the streamer-to-external-DAC differences are more stark than the vid I linked above.

I normally find myself agreeing with his preferences and descriptions of the differences between components (I try to only view/read these after listening so as not to bias my perceptions) but not in the case of the A6 ME v A8 external DAC comparison. Even having heard his stated preference for the A6 ME in the segment immediately prior to the sound demo of these units acting as streamers feeding external DACs, I was surprised to find I did not agree with his description of their relative tonality and presentations, apart perhaps from the wider A8 soundstage though. To me the A8 sounded more natural, more focussed in soundstage elements, with less digital glare/edginess and grain in the treble and midrange, more midrange body/palpabilty and generally richer timbre and decay. A calmer, more lilting and engaging sound with better tempo too. No contest to my ear and quite the opposite of what he described. Odd.

 

[droid23]

Thanks everyone for helping me decide my future living room setup... you made me re-think my whole strategy and since I have quite some hi-res files on local storage as well in the meantime (which are not directly supported by the DYNAUDIO XEO 4 > will be downsampled to 16-48 anyway, so I'm going to sell them asap), I'll go for new active speakers... and yes, I became a fan of active speakers. Momentarily I still favor the DMP-A8 as a Streamer/DAC/Pre-Amp for my future setup in terms of price/performance according to many opinions and reviews so far... and for the speakers, I likely go for the buchardt A700 LE, with their "master tuning" ability and also because they offer analog XLR inputs on their back, which seems a rarity among active wireless speakers still. I guess this could be a very nice "reduced" setup and financially not too extreme IMHO. ...or?
On another note, now I need a good desktop headphone amp, since so far I only have a portable hi-res setup at the moment.

 

[Henrik Nordberg]

Haven't seen this posted here, so here goes. I can confirm that I2S connection from A8 to Holo Audio May works. I have set the pin out to option 1 on the A8 and Alt 1 on the May. Connecting via HDMI:

 

[wirefriend]

Yesterday I stumbled upon “JPlay” music controller (UPnP) app when looking for something to use with Minimserver and/or Asset UPnP DLNA (dBpoweramp). I am looking to move away from ROON and the ROON Ready certification is taking too long.

At first I thought JPlay was related to JRiver Media, but it isn’t. JPlay finds all audio endpoints in my household, including the DMP-A8. It however does not see any BluOS devices but that’s okay. While the Eversolo app is decent it can be a bit fiddly, especially with selecting tracks and adding to a queue. I have to say this JPlay (using iOS version, also available for Android) is quite good and looks like it borrowed the UI/UX from ROON, albeit more limited feature set. It has a 14 day trial then about $50 US/year, a third of the cost of yearly ROON which to me is more reasonable. Sound-wise it’s fantastic, imo.

Anyone else know of this and use it?

I briefly tested JPlay with A6 Master and to my ears Tidal from the Eversolo app sounded better than from the JPlay and better than Tidal Connect from MacOs.
Do you use Tidal? Did you test the Eversolo app with Tidal?

 

[Signal2Noise]

…
Do you use Tidal? Did you test the Eversolo app with Tidal?

I dropped Tidal as soon as Qobuz became available here in the North country. So Tidal was out of the picture well before I took ownership of the Eversolo.

As for sound quality, I’m not saying JPlay improves anything compared to other utilities but at the same time I have zero complaints about the audio output on the A8. I’m not disappointed.

 

[mikeypas]

Just got my hands on the A8 and am having a weird issue. I set it up over WIFI (no other inputs), and play from my shared SMB drive on my network. Everything works, playing FLAC, streaming QOBUZ, but when I try to play any DSD files (DSD, ISO, DSF, DFF, etc..), it looks like its playing, but no sound comes out.

I tried from SMB shared drive, external USB stick, and copying to internal storage. I tried with multiple different DSD files.
I've tried with XLR cable out, and with RCA cable out, directly to power-amp.

The screen shows all the correct information and looks like its playing, but no sound.
I did a full reset with the pin on the back, restored factory default etc., nothing helps.

Any advice?

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

I'll go
- wire connections from A8 to amp
- amp setup (input/output settings)
- Go again setup settings of A8

Had that many experience, the culprits were:
- Improper input settings from amp
- Improper input settings from streamer
- Improper input settings from DAC
- cables where not plugged correctly.

mostly human error...
OR you really have a damaged unit... part of life...

 

[mikeypas]

I'll go
- wire connections from A8 to amp
- amp setup (input/output settings)
- Go again setup settings of A8

Had that many experience, the culprits were:
- Improper input settings from amp
- Improper input settings from streamer
- Improper input settings from DAC
- cables where not plugged correctly.

mostly human error...
OR you really have a damaged unit... part of life...

Honestly at this point, I suspect its a faulty unit. Dealer is shipping a replacement on Monday

Wire connections from A8 to poweramp - tried both XLR and RCA
poweramp has no settings - monoblocs burson timkepeers
using internal a8 dac and streamer
since playing all other pcm formats - settings are correct unless there is a dsd settings im unaware of
cables are plugged in , pcm is playing fine

 

[droid23]

Guess you have several DSD options in the A8 output menus (depending what output you select e.g. SPDIF, USB, HDMI, XLR, Wireless,...).

For example:

D2P（DSD to PCM）：DSD decoding with PCM output.

DOP：（DSD over PCM）：Transmitting DSD through PCM

Native（DSD native）：Direct output of DSD

My question now is, if you set DSD to be principally converted to PCM, do you have sound?

 

[mikeypas]

Guess you have several DSD options in the A8 output menus (depending what output you select e.g. SPDIF, USB, HDMI, XLR, Wireless,...).

For example:

D2P（DSD to PCM）：DSD decoding with PCM output.

DOP：（DSD over PCM）：Transmitting DSD through PCM

Native（DSD native）：Direct output of DSD

My question now is, if you set DSD to be principally converted to PCM, do you have sound?

To my knowledge, you can set that when using usb out to external dac. But I’m using the internal dac so these settings aren’t available to edit.
I’ve gone through every setting there is, and using internal storage so there’s basically no setting left to change

 

[mikeypas]

UPDATE: It was indeed a faulty unit. Received my replacement DMP-A8 today, and works 100% with all file formats. Must have been something faulty with the previous unit.

 

[droid23]

Excellent! Have fun