I love my music – making it, listening to it and creating the playing environment to enjoy it. its probably the only thing in life I couldn’t really do without. its taken me on quite a journey – and emptied my pockets along the way!
while the term “investment” is often overused to justify spending (too much) money with hifi, the right choice of components can repay you both sonically and financially. such products are sought after and can last many years. but occasionally, they can fail catastrophically and can cost a fortune to repair, if repairers are still around, that is.
end of the line for my most expensive piece of hifi
I’ve bought and sold over time to get from a budget system to a high end, premium one from British brand Meridian. I bought this as an evolution into digital music reproduction away from a turntable and into CD. that comprised of a CD “transport”, which required a separate unit called a DAC – a digital to analogue converter to convert from digital bits to analogue music to drive the amplifier – well two amplifiers really – a pre-amp and a power amp and the speakers.
I sold the CD transport and its DAC when I ventured into high quality streaming music. the DAC wasn’t capable of supporting HD sound files, so that had to go – as expensive as it was to buy. luckily, I sold the CD and DAC and got a decent price for them. the two items went to buyers abroad as British hifi is sought after. that left me with just the power amp which still sounded pretty good. but just recently, the amp suddenly blew up and I knew by the manner of its passing, it was a terminal experience.
the monster was dead
the failure of this amp presented a number of problems. firstly, it was well over 25 years old and repair agents had long since gone. secondly, the unit was massive. I could barely lift it and it took all of my strength to even persuade it out of its mounting rack – which I swear gave a sigh of relief when I did get it out. thirdly, this monolith would take all my skills to even discover how to open it up, let alone attempt to repair it. a new amp had to be sought – fast!
the replacement ironically came from Amazon. they stocked the A70 amp from Aiyima that had great reviews elsewhere and promised a similar level of output. its physically almost laughably tiny not just in comparison, but actually tiny in comparison to anything electronic. it cost me less than £200 and looked really well made. but would it perform as well as my old Meridian 577 (which cost well over 10 times as much) sonically?
a leap forward in technology
early hifi’s first solid state amplifiers used a technology called class-A. these had a lower-power, purer tone, but they also consumed far more electricity and even at rest could heat a small house. these gave way to the more powerful class-B design. that ran cooler and used far less power by not being on all the time but suffered from a distinctly inferior sound. a compromise was found in a hybrid of class-A and B not unexpectedly called class-AB. currently, versions of this are the most common design used in hifi and the only option for driving today’s less efficient speakers.
the emergence of multi-amp home cinema set-ups saw a new kid on the block appear, called class-D. This radical technology allows everything to be a lot smaller and run cooler. techno-snobbery kept it away from most hifi amplifiers, but recently class-D is gaining a foothold in hifi too. ironically, the latest range of Meridian amps feature Class-D. my new A70 amp is in good company!
clever little box – very high quality components
Class-D’s widespread use gives it the benefit of scale not enjoyed by the comparatively small conventional hifi market. class-D components are largely constructed in an integrated chip package and used in many consumer products, such as home cinema, TV sound bars, professional audio PA systems and ICE in vehicles, exposing the technology to a far bigger market than just a few hifi products.
that lowers the cost compared to conventional high-end hifi with its expensive exotic and rare often hand-assembled components. that explains the difference in cost – but also profit margins are tighter as class-D hifi is not as popular with audiophiles so manufacturers can’t get away with charging that much for them currently. so you get the best parts makers can fit to entice buyers.
high spec and premium features
make no mistake – the A70 is no budget consumer design. it uses leading edge, top of the range circuit componentry to return impressive imaging and sound stage. you can use the amp’s RCA (phono) sockets, with a switched +3dB output level if too low. but for ultimate performance, a full complement of professional XLR sockets is provided. speaker connections are high quality banana or wrap-wire sockets. it even allows a slope-selectable sub woofer output if you choose to use one. the amp accepts the new standard 12V trigger signal used in the home cinema world to switch the amp into standby.
the amp keeps things tiny (and electronically silent) by employing a generous (read big) external 40V 5A PSU “brick” with a fixed mains lead or an optional, really huge in comparison 40V 10A unit with a quality IEC mains socket, allowing some premium audiophile-grade mains leads to be used to complete the power section for the ultimate in performance.
There’s just one front-panel control knob. this powers the amp, sets volume level and selects either RCA or XLR inputs with discretely-restrained tiny indicators on the front panel. this control has sense and memory. in operation, the amp is ghostly silent at rest with no power up or down pops. ultimate power output is dependent on the PSU it uses, but it specced to deliver a theoretical 300 watts into 4 ohms. Its actually more powerful than my Meridian 557, which was far less civilised when powering down, by the way!
Aiyima encourage users to open up the amp and try alternative sounding “op-amps”. they provide pluggable sockets which are easily accessible by removing a handful of standard socket screws and the power knob. a two-minute job.
so has this little David won the battle with its Goliath or will I be “slinging” it?
Its only been a couple of weeks, but I’m surprised verging on thrilled with my class-D newcomer. it’s doing everything the old amp did and more, its ghostly silent when at rest and using virtually no power. still a few things to try before I’m happy – like some of those special op amps – tinkering is a part of hifi ownership after all – but at the moment, yes, I’m a very happy class-D convert.
coming soon – I was getting ready to review the Eversolo DMP – A6 hifi audio streamer but just been advised the new Gen 2 version is coming soon. when it drops, look out for a review of the original versus the gen 2. this is going to be interesting – stay tuned!