Outboard DACs

To DSP Or Not DSP
It’s hard to imagine a bolder stylistic clash than pairing this digital do-it-all with Musical Fidelity’s throwback Class A amplifier, the A1. Visually it might not be a marriage made in heaven, although the cooling fins on the side of the DMP-A8 do match the griddle-like top plate of the MF amp. Keeping the Focal speakers in place, I was only a few albums in before I blithely ignored the sacrilegious undertones and fired up Eversolo’s comprehensive DSP war chest.

At first this was to lower the DMP-A8’s gain by about 5dB, as I had detected some harshness in the fixed-level mode and wanted to create headroom (and lowering the gain to prevent clipping when experimenting with parametric equalisation is a good idea anyway). This made introducing a slight bass bump easy when dusting off Madvillian’s hip-hop classic Madvillainy [Stones Throw Records; 44.1kHz/16-bit], lending rather more of a nightclub-style bass extension to the whole.

Rap is not a genre typically thought of for its refined recordings, but this album from 2004 has more to offer than most. The DMP-A8 made a worthwhile contribution, exposing Madvillain’s gritty sound and some of the bizarre samples used. Furthermore, while it should be said the EQ and DSP functions of this DAC/preamp are really meant for more permanent alterations than rapid-fire fine-tuning, tweaking is so easy on the DMP-A8 that the temptation is hard to resist...

A device like this also has a part to play in revitalising an older integrated amplifier. Case in point, I connected the streamer to the USB port of a Hegel Röst [HFN Jul ’17], sending digital audio to the latter’s internal DAC, which is limited to 96kHz. It says a lot about the flexibility of the Eversolo unit that I didn’t need to change settings – I just connected the USB cable and switched over to the correct output to hear the music continuing to play. Such flexibility is useful for anyone who likes to audition various DACs.

Stress-free
When streaming Katia Guerreiro’s ‘Mentiras’ and ‘9 amores’ from her 2014 release Até Ao Fim [UAA #004; 96kHz/24-bit], the DMP-A8 impressed with a natural, stress-free portrayal of her warm vocals and the nimble 12-stringed Portuguese guitar in the background. Out of curiosity, I wanted to compare the older AKM DAC in Hegel’s Röst to that in Eversolo’s unit, so I connected the DMP-A8 via XLR – bypassing its volume control and the Röst’s digital stage. This resulted in a noticeable sonic upgrade, with an increased feeling of space and a higher sense of definition, translating into a greater ‘live’ sensation.

All-action DAC
My experiment also highlighted something about the DMP-A8 which is easy to forget when faced by so many ways to stream and manipulate music: the DAC stage in this unit performs admirably, marrying an organic, wholesome presentation with lots of detail.

laying ‘Yasuke In Roppongi’ from the recent I Too Am A Stranger album [ATA033; 48kHz/24-bit] by Leeds’ funk-jazz formation The Sorcerers, I was convincingly catapulted into a 1970s action flick. The funky drum licks and fat brass sounded lifelike, making it easy to get into the groove. Moreover, when the gnarly-sounding sax solo arrived, just past the three-minute mark, I was immersed in a superbly high quality performance that’s truly rare at the Eversolo DMP-A8’s price point. A job well done, indeed!

Hi-Fi News Verdict
Not everyone will need the huge versatility this streamer/DAC/ preamplifier offers. However, with its superb DAC, far-reaching connectivity, an interface replete with streaming/tuning options, storage and app expandability, powerful DSP modes, and good usability (although the complexity might be off-putting to some), it’s a genre-defining product that – happily – does not put functionality before sound quality.

Sound Quality: 88%