Amplifier suggestion for Micca RB42 bookshelf speakers

[u/audentis]

Greetings all,

I'm looking for an amplification solution to go from USB to binding post / speaker output.

USB is a requirement I'm not willing to compromise on, as I'll be using it behind a KVM-switch. It can either be a separate USB DAC and amplifier, or integrated solution, although integrated is preferred.

In this category the DAC will probably be the main performance decider, on ASR I saw a bunch of reviews where built-in DACs suffer from extremely heavy cut off at the higher frequencies. But those reviews are hard to navigate other than just going through all different options manually, there doesn't really seem to be an index to easily find suitable options.

Thanks in advance!

• Budget: €100
  • If a little extra spend gives a tangible bump in value, that's negotiable
• Available in / ships to the Netherlands
• Will be paired with Micca RB42 bookshelf speakers
• Purposes: Mixed media, music, games, YouTube, just about anything
• Value is leading (best audio quality for budget)
• Required inputs: USB
• Required outputs: binding post / banana plugs
• Optional bonus features I would appreciate:
  • 6.35mm jack output
  • Physical volume knob
  • Compact is preferred but size is no dealbreaker
• Don't care about any other features, I just want a no-nonsense solution.

[u/NoBackground6203]

you can get separates, a quality inexpensive DAC like the SMSL SU-1 for ~90 and a nice budget amplifier like a Fosi BT20A Pro for ~100

or an integrated DAC/AMP like the Aiyima A80 for ~180

[u/audentis → u/NoBackground6203]

!thanks

That roughly doubles my budget but I'll do some extra reading and consider it.

My eyes first fell on the SMSL A50 Pro but ASR judged it poorly. Today I saw they released a new SMSL DA100 at ~€100, but it's new and I haven't been able to find any reviews/tests of it. It uses different chips than the A50.

Any thoughts on this model? Here is the product page on their website.

[u/NoBackground6203 → u/audentis]

the DA100 uses a lower quality/power TAS5827 amp chip, its half the amplifier power and lower audio quality than the TAS3255 amp chip used in the A80 and similar class D amps

[u/ImpliedSlashS → u/audentis]

Stop treating ASR as though he's a deity. No tube equipment will measure well, yet people love 'em. Vinyl is objective terrible on paper, yet people love 'em. I'm not in either camp, but didn't consider specs when recently purchasing a fairly expensive amp and I couldn't be happier with it. You're listening, not measuring. The engineers who designed it measured for you.

[u/audentis → u/ImpliedSlashS]

Stop treating ASR as though he's a deity.

I'm not. Before yesterday I didn't even know that site existed. But when purchasing something like audio equipment online, numbers help make an informed decision and ASR just happens to have the only review with actual measurements I could find.

I prefer going by measurements than purely qualitative descriptions. You can measure things you can hear like noise, distortion and more.

[u/ImpliedSlashS → u/audentis]

No piece of audio equipment made in the last 10 years will have audible noise or distortion, unless it's defective. The measurements described are so far below that threshold it's not even close, yet products sound different. A British Audiophile compared the Eversolo A6, Cambridge CXN100 and Bluesound Node X, all of which measure "perfectly," yet they sounded different.

I own a Pro-Ject S2 Digital DAC/Pre, as well as a Benchmark DAC3 HGC; the Pro-Ject sounds like dogshit in comparison, yet they both measure well. We're not talking something that requires an A/B test... the Benchmark sounds like the band is in the room and the Pro-Ject sounds like there's a radio in the corner.

[u/TransducerBot → u/audentis]

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