Integrated Amplifiers

'The new BasX TA2 builds on the legacy of our TA-100 [HFN Apr '19] and TA1 [HFN Nov '22]', says Emotiva, but with 'significantly more output power'. It's not kidding – while both the TA-100/TA1 offered 2x63W/8ohm and 2x93W/4ohm, the TA2 pumps out nearly triple this at 2x184W/8ohm and 2x280W/4ohm. This is significantly more generous than Emotiva's own 135W/200W spec. I might add. Also, while the TA1 offered a dynamic output of 87W, 153W, and 234W into 8, 4 and 2ohm loads, respectively, the TA2 goes far further with 245W, 451W and 760W [Graph 1]. And, while the TA1 was protected at 52W/1ohm, the TA2 shuts down at 229W/1ohm (15.1A), so the latter actually delivers more (19.5A) into 2ohm... Gain is unaltered at +41.6dB and the A-wtd S/N ratio is held to a wide 91.5dB (re. 0dBW) despite the larger PSU with its potential for higher hum fields. Distortion, too, holds to within 0.005% from 1W-10W/1kHz and 0.005-0.05% from 10W-100W. The ±1dB response limits are 6Hz-55kHz.

The AD1955-based digital stage achieves a maximum 3.78V output (at 0dBFs) but, as the power amp is still in-circuit, my tests were conducted at a 'safer' 2V/0dBFs output where the TA2 achieves a creditable 107.1dB A-wtd S/N ratio and 0.005%/1kHz distortion (increasing to 0.045%/20kHz). This falls to 0.0004-0.008% at –10dBFs although distortion increases at all levels at LF (0.02%/20Hz/0dBFs) where the TA2's line output impedance increases from 35ohm (midband) to 618ohm/20Hz. AD's standard linear phase digital filter offers a 79dB stopband rejection and response limits of –0.1dB/20kHz (CD/48kHz data), –1.6dB/45kHz and –4.4dB/90kHz (96kHz and 192kHz data). Jitter remains <150psec for all sample rates. PM