[bearbearbear]

At the moment I'm living in China and some DAC/Amps are more expensive than usual, others a lot cheaper. Two of the cheaper options are the Sony PHA-2A and 1A (even PHA-3 to an extent) but I'm struggling to find any detailed reviews at all, having searched for a while.

Does anyone have experience with either of these, or has come across discussion before?

I can get the 1A for about $100, and 2A for about $200, which seems to be good compared to Amazon prices, but I have absolutely no idea what the devices are like. It's odd how little information there seems to be.

 

[438555]

Have had a PHA-1A for a while, and it's pretty nice. Can acceptably drive something up to an HD600 in high gain mode. The PHA-2A will have quite a bit more power in balanced mode, but I don't have that one.
Problems I ran into with the PHA-1A and iOS devices were some random pop/click issues that would happen near the beginning of tracks. Pretty quiet, but annoying anyway. I only use it now with my Sony NWZ-A17 player, which doesn't have any of these issues.

 

[TonyTripleA]

I have the original PHA-2 and it has been great. An improvement in sound quality that is significantly noticeable over an iphone 6 or my Sony player. Very good connectivity. I have compared it to a few other DACs and would say only the Chord Hugo beats it but I cannot live with the lights and controls of the HUGO. I mainly use my DAC on planes or while travelling and wouldn't change it. Only negative is inability to charge battery while playing songs... it does take power from the charger rather than the battery though when playing songs so at least you don't flatten the battery. Also, it takes a while to recharge.

Cheers,

TonyAAA