Yamaha A-U671 / Stereo Amplifier with USB DAC Function

[jmfrancolin]

Hey guys,
 
I'm starting in the hi-fi world, so I'm in the market for a stereo amp / DAC / headphone amp combo. After a lot of research, I found this Yamaha A-U671 for (what seemed to me) as an exceptional value of $280. However, I would expect that at this price point there would be a lot of positive reviews / recommendations out there.  To my surprise, I basically didn't find anyone talking about it on the internet. Even at the Yamaha website the product has no starts and no reviews. Am I missing some big flaw here??

 

[2K9R56S]

I bought one of these last week to replace an Emotiva Mini-X A-100 that was driving a pair of Focal Chorus 705V bookshelf speakers.  The Emotiva was no slouch, but the Yamaha (thanks to the tone controls) just blows it away.  Plus the ability to add a subwoofer later on for a 2.1 setup is nice.  I'm using it to drive the speakers only.  I haven't used the USB input (and probably never will).  The headphone output sounded great, though I only listened to a few songs.  It's being fed from an Oppo HA-1 in bypass mode.
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmfrancolin /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Hey guys,

 

I'm starting in the hi-fi world, so I'm in the market for a stereo amp / DAC / headphone amp combo. After a lot of research, I found this Yamaha A-U671 for (what seemed to me) as an exceptional value of $280. However, I would expect that at this price point there would be a lot of positive reviews / recommendations out there.  To my surprise, I basically didn't find anyone talking about it on the internet. Even at the Yamaha website the product has no starts and no reviews. Am I missing some big flaw here??

 

1. Could be too new

2. Form factor too large for most people into desktop audio

3. For people into headphone audio, they would assume that a speaker amp in that price range would have a high output impedance on the headphone amp, and they can get a dedicated headphone amp and DAC for a bit less (Magni+Modi, O2+ODAC). Even Rotel still uses 138ohm output impedance on their amps. Yamaha doesn't even list any specs for the headphone output, not the power, THD, noise, much less output impedance, so anyone into headphone audio who encounters this will just assume it probably sucks for low impedance headphones and probably not all that good with high impedance cans, on top of the size issue and how many dedicated headamps are going to be on their list.

 

4. People into desktop audio are more likely to use nearfield monitors, nearly all of which are active, which means a smaller headphone DAC-HPamp-Preamp unit is more necessary than an integrated amp

 

5. Given the popularity of direct selling, people into hi-fi and especially the headphone segment will assume less value from a big corporate entity vs companies that cut the middleman out of the equation, so they don't even get past Schiit, AudioGD, etc.

 

6. Speaker listeners with dedicated rooms or at least have them in the living room aren't flocking to Yamaha just for USB; also, a lot of competition, mostly from Class D amps with USB inputs

 

[DivineCurrent]

I am interested in this new Yamaha amp. I looked at the specs, seems like it's got a reasonable output impedance for a receiver (24 ohms). That's actually less than the Sennheiser HDVD 800 amp, which has around 30 ohms I believe. Now, I'm not sure if it beats some amps in the same price category in terms of THD or noise, but DSD playback with 384 kHz support, high power speaker and headphone amp for only $500? Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Does anyone else have this or have tried it with headphones?

 

[jist]

  I haven't used the USB input (and probably never will).  The headphone output sounded great, though I only listened to a few songs.  It's being fed from an Oppo HA-1 in bypass mode.

 
Hey 2K9R56S,
 
I am considering this amp and using it's on-board dac.
It would be really great if you could compare the sound quality of it's dac with your Oppo, and report a bit on that?
And, are you still content with the sq of the headphone output?