Aiyima A08 Pro Integrated Amp- Vintage Audio Review Episode #69

In this episode I look at the Aiyima A08 Pro Integrated Amplifier- its performance features.
Aiyima A08 Pro link on Amazon: bit.ly/3Wd6gX5
00:00 Introduction
03:33 “Tour” of the A08 Pro
06:11 Measurement Data
07:05 Frequency Response
08:08 Max Power
11:43 Output Impedance
15:29 Preamp (Aux Out) Measurements
24:00 Tone Control response plots
24:52 Listening & Final Comments

[@JorgeAnais]

Wow, thanks for your very detailed review. Very interesting and useful measurements. I had no idea how the tone controls affected the frequency response, but now I know :)

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thank you so much for taking a few moments out of your day to comment. Many vintage preamps/integrated amps have a tone bypass switch to give you a "straighter shot" from input to output which is ideal, but most folks I know like have at least bass & treble controls, which the A08 does- I did boost the bass a bit to my liking, which it does rather well..

[@flemingchrisjohn]

Thank you for your most informative (on many levels) review. As an ex-audio nut whom retired to the tropics now 65 in age my past life was KEK concertos, AR3s, Stax electrostatics, and KEF 2 way B200, T27 18 dB home made crossovers as were the Concertos. Class A (Lindsey Hood), Quad current dumper, and my friend and I designed a sliding bias amp which was IT forever; just a touch of the list; HI FI nuts;) Went cheap into retirement and a TI 59 calculator red LED sold me to TI at Tech University... Jamo S803 speakers and the A08 Pro for about $200 total sound pretty good (almost great) my wife just said Wow! I have had a Class D TI amp before for about 5 years but golly gosh the improvement is astounding since then. I have a Yamaha RX V363 (worth a review; probably not)

[@vintageaudioreview]

We are darn near the same age and I remember the TI59- didn't it have a card reader? I had a 58C for a while. And the Printer for it or maybe it was the 59..? Sounds like you were quite the audio nut. The A08pro may be the subject of another a/b test and video- its sounds pretty good...thanks for the feedback and comments!

[@christalbert722]

Interesting, nice review with good objective info- thanks!

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thanks so much for taking a few moments for the encouragement! I have the A08 pro almost all set up to do an a/b test against the Bryston 2B-Lp later today- it will be "interesting"....

[@mariocg]

Thanks a lot!!!!

[@vintageaudioreview]

you are welcome!

[@ericlo6370]

Great review indeed!!! Now I does know it can pump out more than 100W into 4 ohms, thanks! While a lot of KZbinrs tends to pair it with cheap speakers and infeior products and this simply cannot show the best potential of this little gem, or they would not bother since it's so dirt cheap! I owned a A08pro, my first and only cheap Classs D amps for half a year and am liking it a looot and is fixated omnto my setup ever since! It can drive my vintage Dynaudio Crafft at 86db to a respctable level while still sound crisp and dynamic as well as muiscal! Try pair it with a tube preamp and the performance will elevate to another level. With a slight loss in immediancy but a huge improvement in harmonics and timbre of instrumnets and lushness! One last thing, Aiyima is very seriously in designing their products and the use of parts are carefully tested through numerous trials to achieve a certain level of sound quality to a point they take their products inc are as if they cost more than a thousand bucks. Thus, replacing "exotic" parts may or may not help at all as the completeness in design is high when out of the factory! Please also let me know the A/D test results with other nice amps you have , cheers!

[@vintageaudioreview]

I appreciate your taking the time to write out such a nice comment! For a lot of people's needs, the A08 pro will work just fine. Aiyima is supposedly sending me another product to test. As for Tube preamps sounding better- watch my review of the Carver C1 preamp as well as the video this Sunday... I think you meant A/B and not A/D....

[@ericlo6370]

@@vintageaudioreview Carver is another well known names! I will definitely gpoing to watch it! BTW, it's A/B not A/D~ One thing nice about A08pro is that it has a sub-out and I hooked it up to a nice sub and it really opens up the soundstage!

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@ericlo6370 Technically, it is a preamp out, suited for use with a subwoofer, which I did not think about till you mentioned it ! I thought it was a nice feature. The Aiyima unit arrived just a little while ago so that review will be up in about a month....

[@rancosteel]

I couldn’t read your test screenshot. What frequencies are the bass and treble controls?

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thanks for the question. THe bass control has a +/- 14dB max boost or cut at about 20-30hz and the treble is +/- 4dB centered at 11khz

[@rancosteel]

@@vintageaudioreview Thanks.

[@gavinwagner1766]

Nice review. I currently own the A08Pro and have it hooked up to Outlaw mono-blocks and it sounds awesome. I'm driving CSS Audio 1TDX speakers which crave power. What power supply did you use for your testing? I'm using a 48V 10A switching power supply.

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thanks for taking the time to comment/share! I mentioned in the video that I just used the 36v 6A power supply that came with the A08Pro. I assume you are using the A08Pro as a preamp to drive the Outlaw monoblocks? If so, you probably don't need that large of a power supply...

[@gavinwagner1766]

@@vintageaudioreview Oh, sorry, I didn't here what you used for a PS. Yes, as a preamp through the aux. You have been the first reviewer I've seen who actually tested the aux for its specs. Thank you! The Outlaw mono's were an after thought. With just the A08 going through my previous amp (Akitika GT102) I was not getting the dynamics with the CSSA 1TDX (they are power hungry and rated @ 87db, but other reviewers have said its more like 85/84db) that I hoped for. Curious about class D amps and mono-blocks and quality power supplies got me the system I have today, perhaps in the wrong order. Probably overkill and ridiculous to have such a quality/semi expensive PS running a cheap amp, but its sounds great to me. Thanks for your quality review and explaining the specs as you did. I'm a novice and a lot of this goes over my head.

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@gavinwagner1766 I appreciate viewers taking the time to ask questions and share experiences. I would say PS over kill for the PRO 80 as you are using it, but if you want to run it as an amp sometime that changes... Since you are a novice, my advice is to find the best speakers you like and can afford, and then figure out what amp power you would need. Hopefully you live in an area where you can listen to speakers.

[@customsignschatt]

Thank You for the videos. Would a Aiyima ao7 upgraded, or a08 be better for a underpowered AVR hooked to DF Pro Towers400 at 250 rms ? my avr is Yamaha a780 at 95w.

[@vintageaudioreview]

I appreciate the question. The DF Pro Tower 400's are a powered speaker system from what I saw. I don't have any experience with the A07 upgraded amp. The A08 pro that I reviewed will do a good job for speakers in a small room or with very efficient speakers. The A08 pro is not a substitute for an AVR.

[@customsignschatt]

Correct, the 400's do have a powered sub in them but the mids and tweet are passive, I considered running from my pre outs on my Yamaha a780 to the amp. @@vintageaudioreview

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@customsignschatt I see now. That running the pre outs from the Yamaha to the A08 pro should work okay, you just have to play with the levels of it and your AVR to make sure that you don't put too much signal into the A08pro....

[@MasterofPlay7]

the a07 is more versatile you can swap the op amp, i owned the T8 and a07 but now i switched to fm300a clone suggested by the german youtuber, and that class a/b sounds very good

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I do have the A07, which works great. You could swap the op amps in the A07- I almost bought a pair so I could do a before and after measurement and just keep one "high performance" op amp in and do an a/b between them with a single speaker (mono). I doubt you would hear any difference. But I am too cheap to do that and looking at modern gear is not something I have done much with thus far, though this review has done very well. After spending more time A/Bing the A08 pro against my Bryston 2B-LP amplifier, you can't really go wrong with the $130 A8 Pro if your speakers are not demanding.....

[@lollipolly-am4323]

Hi Sir , Do you recommend A07 Pro or A08 Pro ? They almost have the same spec but A07 is cheaper than A08. Thank you

[@vintageaudioreview]

What I tested here was the A08 Pro. I had purchased an A07 (not the pro version) for my speaker testing maybe 8months ago. I never did a video on the A07- It works really well, though. Aiyima recently send me a T9 (not Pro) for testing which I should get to and post a video within a month. Thank you for your interest.

[@lollipolly-am4323]

@vintageaudioreview thank you BTW, did you upgrade the power supply to 36v , 48v or still using the original 32v 5A ? The reason I ask about the pro version because they have a better power supply 36v 6A so I can drive my speakers louder .

[@vintageaudioreview]

As I have not tested the A07 Pro, I can't comment about it, but I have no hesitation with recommending the A08 Pro. I used the 36v 6A PS that came with it, which would allow you to get around 40w/8ohms or about 70w/4 ohms as I recall. If you need a bit more power you can move up to the appropriate power supply. I would guess that for most people, that would be enough power unless your speakers are not efficient enough.

[@lollipolly-am4323]

@vintageaudioreview thank you for letting me know that BTW, I have another question about the 36V 6A PS come with A08 pro . Their website say the 36V 6A PS will give 85w @ 8 Ohm Is the 85w for each channel or for 2 channels which is 42.5w each channel? Thanks

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@lollipolly-am4323 I had to rewatch the video and from what I saw it would be good for about 55w/8ohms with good THD and not too bad and SNR. Likewise, you can do 80w/ohms with good THD and SNR. Aiyima may be quoting those power levels for 1% THD, but the SNR is going to be pretty bad when you are at 1% THD. I would not use the A08 Pro to run a mobile disco or nightclub sound system, but, with a lot of speakers it will sound great.

[@amanieux]

any vintage amp at this price on the used market will sound better or only a few hard to find vintage amps at this price will sound better ? thanks

[@vintageaudioreview]

Thanks for the question. I have done an a/b test with the A08 Pro and the Bryston- very eye opening! Most likely the vintage amp- if you can find one for $130, would sound as good as the aiyima A08 pro with the exception that the vintage amp would have more hum and hiss, but that would only be when you are close to the speaker. A big part of having vintage gear is the good sound plus just the neatness of it, or being able to afford something you could not when you were younger- kinda like buying that old Mustang or Camaro...

[@amanieux]

@@vintageaudioreview interesting, so for near field, $100 vintage amps are overall worse than the $100 chinese class D amps or we can get better sound at the cost of a little hiss/hum ?

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@amanieux That is not what I was saying- or trying to say. First off, it is not easy to find a lot of vintage integrated amps for $130 that are working- at least from what I have seen. If the vintage integrated amp is working decently, let's say it has not been serviced, most likely it will sound fine other than scratchy volume, balance and tone controls. If it is the same power rating as the A08 Pro, either one should do what you need it to. By near field I am assuming for use in a small room/space. But some of us like having all of the controls that vintage gear has...

[@amanieux]

@@vintageaudioreview for near field use case you already answered that vintage will have "good sound" at the cost of "more hum and hiss" but what do you mean by "plus just the neatness of it" ? did you take into consideration the loudness compensation feature that most vintage amps have but affordable chinese class D amp don't ?

[@vintageaudioreview]

@@amanieux By neatness I mean having a lot of controls like the integrated amps I reviewed in episodes 16 # 30- they just look and feel cool, and work well. I think both of those have a loudness switch and both have bass/treble controls. The Aiyima A08 pro has bass and treble controls, so you can make some tweeks to the sound.

[@sonofsandwiches6892]

Not really an integrated amp. It only has one set of RCA inputs. Treat it as an amp, and don't use bluetooth. It has a subwoofer output as well.

[@vintageaudioreview]

I appreciate your taking the time to comment. I would still consider this and integrated amp- several receivers only have 1 aux input. I agree with you about not using the Bluetooth. THe line output is a variable, full frequency range preamp out, which could be used as a subwoofer input...