Eversolo DMP-A6 GEN-2 STREAMING DAC REVIEW

Eversolo DMP-A6 Gen 2 streaming DAC is pretty much what it says on the tin – a one-box streaming DAC costing £799. Janine Elliot takes a listen for HiFi PiG.

My colleague Oscar wrote about the original Eversolo A6 in 2023. The Gen 2 model, just released, asks for another £50 extra above the original model, and whilst the new unit looks just the same at the front, there have been a few changes at the rear and, most importantly, inside.

Eversolo is part of the larger Zidoo Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese technology company that is a leading manufacturer of ARM multi-core architecture for the industrial and consumer community, with a factory in Shenzhen, where most commercial electronics are made in the Far East. 80% of what they make is exported to Europe, America and Southeast Asia. Formed in 2014, the company has produced some amazing gear, from their first 4k UHD Blu-ray player to the Zidoo Neo Alpha audio/visual player, which looks similar but much wider than the Eversolo A6, and the same size as the gorgeous looking brand-new top-end Eversolo DMP-A10. Zidoo concentrates on audio and 4K video home entertainment, with the “Eversolo” division concentrating on the audio side of things.

So, would I be impressed with the Gen 2 model, and would it beat the Cambridge Audio CXN100 that I reviewed recently, coming in at a ton more than the A6’s £799 price point?

SETTING UP

Unpacking was a privilege in several respects; the box it all came in is nicely compact and well protecting the aerospace-grade all-aluminium A6 Gen2 inside. This streamer (like the original Model T Ford it is available in any colour as long as it’s black) looks extremely professional with good connectors at the back and a great appearance with a lovely 6” touch screen at the front, plus a back-lit push-in volume/function knob on the right. Similarly, it was very easy to set up, beating the BluOS controller hands down. Not only was setting up a doddle (as long as you use your phone to type in any necessary user/passwords for music servers, as the A6 screen key-pad hides the chosen digits you’re trying to type-in behind it, so you don’t see if you’ve made a mistake until that keyboard vanishes!) but the operation and features on the Eversolo controller (downloaded via Google Play, App Store or Android APK) would teach many others a lesson or three in terms of design and operation. The ability to adjust from the main player screen the sound and the Gen 2’s LCD screen (including a choice of 7 different VU meters that responded much quicker than that on the recently reviewed NAD M66, plus frequency graphs) just made this all such great fun.

But would the sound be as good?

BUILD AND OPERATION OF THE EVERSOLO DMP-A6 GEN2

The Gen 2 version of the streamer has a few changes to the original 2023 version. As well as fully balanced XLR architecture plus RCA analogue outputs, coax/Toslink ins and outs, USB 3.0 ins/outs, HDMI digital outputs, plus LAN internet input, the new model has done away with the smaller USB-C socket and instead added the newer ARC HDMI socket (but not enhanced eARC) for much better television audio playback. There is also now a 12v trigger socket to save your personal energy when switching on your power station. Also, there is now a conventional USB-B socket to connect up with the music files on your laptop. Not that you’ll need to, as the underside of the unit allows you to install up to 4TB of M.2 NVMe SSD to keep you entertained until the next century, supporting NTFS, EXFAT and FAT32 file systems. All that setting up is shown on the unfolding black “Quick Start Guide” which is written in silver. Not my favourite idea, but it’s very artistic, of course. That said, when you download the more important (and excellently put together) PDF instruction manual, all the important wording is written in grey! Bright white background vs tiny grey print: how is your less-techy owner with bad eyesight going to read that? Luckily, the actual setting up for me was (even in my older years and glasses) really easy! Well-done Eversolo!

The controller, once installed with your favourite Qobuz, Highresaudio, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tunein, Radio Paradise, and other streaming services plus being TIDAL Connect and ROON Ready compatible, is so easy to navigate between these services and the A6 controller on my Android phone, and there are far more options and facilities than on the BluOS system I recently used for another two reviews (however, on BluOS the control panel for the album you are playing is available on your phone’s home-screen without having to log in, which is a very handy time/battery saving facility). Indeed, at the top of the home-screen you can select different LCD visuals such as (quick-moving) VU meters or graphic display (in case you want to see what you’re missing above 10kHz) and change the digital filtering of the music/speech to make it sound correct to your ears/preference. You can even reduce the resolution of the signal from HR to 320Kbps if you feel the urge. More about my settings later. The Gen 2 PDF manual does have a few errors, though, even showing you how to connect your mobile phone to the now non-existent USB-C socket at the back, though I wouldn’t see the point of that, anyway.

On the inside, the changes from the original model are more dramatic. This fully balanced streamer with – yes, you guess it – ESS ES9038Q2M DAC, two of them, one for each channel just like in the original model, now has an upgraded linear power supply with noise levels that are rated below 40uV, meaning more power and therefore a greater audio S/N ratio, plus being now more stable. This should also lead to a more detailed and accurate sound. The Android A6 Gen 2 still uses a Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A55 processor plus 4GB DDR memory, ensuring quick operation, plus 32GB eMMC storage should you not require that additional 4TB. It also employs their proprietary EOS engine so that music isn’t held back by Android’s own audio restrictions. The BT5.0 module is the same Qualcomm QCC5125 chip, ensuring low latency and support for SBC, AAC, LDAC, aptX HD, apX and apX LL codecs, should you wish to play music from your mobile device. Extraction of audio from home storage is also very easy, with support for NFS, SMB, WebDAV, and UPnP protocols. You can also play or rip your CDs through the USB socket and CD drive (not included), and the WOL (Wake-On-LAN) feature allows you to wake up the A6 via the app without needing to get up off your comfy seat. The EVC engine is algorithmically adjusted so that errors at different volume levels don’t happen, with the signal shape remaining the same at any setting. The Op-amp chip is the respectable Texas Instruments OPA1642, and the audio interface is the very much updated 3rd generation XMOS X316, which allows decoding of up to DSD512 Native, PCM 768kHz@32bit plus MQA formats, with optical/coaxial as expected limited to 192kHz/24bit. This should satisfy all your present-day needs. If you wish to you can tailor the digital conversion to your preferred needs with 7 digital filter options such as slow or fast roll-off, linear or minimum phase filter, apodizing fast roll-off, or brickwall filters. For most of this review, I used the apodizing fast roll-off as it gave more detail though at the expense of a slightly harsher sound, and the other setting I used was the slow roll-off linear phase. I found the App and interface very stable, not crashing as I had heard from the early A6s and previous iterations of the software. Finally, the touch-screen on the A6 Gen 2; this can be changed to various brightness levels, and the layout is very intuitive and straightforward, with help from the volume control if needed.

SOUND QUALITY OF THE EVERSOLO DMP-A6 GEN 2 STREAMING DAC

I have not always been a fan of ESS DACs, though this latest ES9038Q2M is the best I have heard (the brand new £3599 A10 uses the very top ES9039PRO). I remember building a DAC using a Texas Instruments chip in the early days of “external DACs” for my Cambridge Audio CD player and noted that there was a great difference and improvement. I found it quite musical. But, as I began to learn, there is a lot more that is needed in the circuitry than just the DAC chip to make it sound good, hence why so many streamers and DACs that rave about having the same ESS chip can actually sound as different as is the fingerprint on your mobile phone log-in. I have had the pleasure of using, plus reviewing, quite a few DACs over the past few years and all sound different. The fact that the Eversolo gives you a chance to tailor the sound somewhat is a great advantage. Early ESS chips were often quite harsh sounding, but this Eversolo was excellent for the £799 asking price. Whilst the newer A8 (which incidentally uses AKM AK4499EX chips rather than ESS) and now the A10 can offer a more spacious and warmer sound and even more facilities, I still very much enjoyed testing the Gen 2 A6.

The first music I put on was the Peter Gabriel ‘i/o’ album (short for input/output) released in 2023. My immediate response was of great detail, speed and soundstage, but not as much warmth and musicality as the Bluesound Node that I had just reviewed. This qualifies my earlier statement that not all streamers – and even those from the same company – have the same audio signature. The Node lost some of the “top” detail, which affects the placement and detail of instruments, and BluOS doesn’t give you a chance to tailor the sound past an EQ setting. Playing the Gabriel was very relevant to this review. He wrote ‘input/output’ over a period of 20 years, and is a double album, almost Mike Valentine in its educational aim, with two identical “discs” of the same music, but one (the “Bright Side” version) sound engineered by Spike Stent (of Ed Sheeran, Bjork, Madonna fame) and the other (the “Dark Side”) engineered by Tchad Blake (Sheryl Crow, The Black Keys). Comparing each version was not quite as easy as you think unless you have a very detailed and quick streamer and accurate amp/speakers. The easiest track to hear the difference for me was “Road to Joy” with the “Dark Side” version giving a more adventurous and clearer placement across the stage, plus a bolder rhythm from instruments, including stronger horns. The “Bright Side” version was more akin to the sound of his 80’s music. Amazingly, his voice hasn’t changed much over the years. Whatever track I played, each version was as different to the other as chalk and cheese, and the 7 output DAC filter options available to the listener gave even further sound-shaping. The words in opening track “Panopticom” explain the changes in everything as in an infinite choice of data in this world, suggesting we should find out what is going on. Perhaps he should also be reviewing the A6 Gen 2!  The word Panopticom itself describes a prison in a circular layout where everyone can see each other and study each other’s social significance. Including keys from Brian Eno and guitars from Katie May this is a very professionally created (double-ish) album, and whilst the bass extension wasn’t as great or musical as I have heard before on a few other streamers, it was nevertheless still very able and very quick.

Listening to Dire Straits, I similarly suggested the extreme bass wasn’t as exciting, but London Grammar’s ‘Here Now’ was beautiful, tidy and extended in the bottom area. Hannah Reid’s voice was as exuberantly detailed as I have got accustomed to hearing it. The “musicality” that sometimes colours the actual sound in some highly rated equipment wasn’t allowed to tint the overall meaning here. This is a very accurate and non-concealing player, showing warts and all. Could I listen to it for long periods at high level? Well, I’m not sure, but as a sound engineer, it certainly met my requirements. This unit is designed for plumbing into one playback method at a time, so I couldn’t send the music in two different source-types at the same time [see accompanying photo]. That said, non-balanced RCA/XLR can be played simultaneously, but not balanced XLR output and RCA. As a storage device and Wi-Fi player connected directly to my HiFi it was the most exciting I have yet seen under £1000. The screen is very intuitive and easy to see. Reports I had heard about the app occasionally crashing were not founded in my own experience of the unit – the streamer and player were both faultless. 

Trying to catch the unit out, I played two albums from my past that I know can give headaches or at least musical quandaries. Firstly, Wings’ ‘Band on the Run’ might have been recorded before digits were known as anything other than fingers, but the recording itself – whatever format you play it on – can be a struggle with a gritty sheen to the music, even on LP. Some DACs can numb this with their conversion, but the Eversolo was very truthful in its account of the music, not hiding anything. I did find the graphic EQ display on the screen useful to see just how bad some recordings had been made. I wasn’t sure if the display was post-DAC filter or not, but it was all quite intuitive as well as pretty. Listening with “fast roll-off” did make the music easier to enjoy, though the “tizz” between 8-10kHz was at least visible. I have never been a fan of Tony Visconti’s engineering of David Bowie’s albums, though he was one of the very first to use digital effects in studios, such as the Eventide H910 harmonizer. Bowie’s music is very detailed with tons of effects from instruments and machines, and also in terms of soundstage. He captured everything in his music, whether an intentional or unintentional distortion, echo or even breathing noises (Listen to the start of “ ’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore”), often using tape recorders to record the effect he wanted, rather than just doing that in the studio post-recording. Tony was an artist like Bowie, but as a sound engineer, I often find it perhaps just a bit too artistic. His final “Blackstar” album, released just hours before this star departed this Earth and became one, is not the best in the musical sense. This album is his own epitaph and a very precious album at that. But musically, it is not his best. My favourites are ‘Reality’ and ‘Heathen’, both written long before he became ill. The opening track “Star” is a very detailed performance, with every conceivable effect or instrument in its own space, just like the stars in the sky. The Eversolo really does give the album its best possible start; the drums in “Lazarus” are very quick, and the effects of the bounce-echo in “Girl Loves Me” are clean and help to keep the flow of the music. “Sunday” was full of the intensity that the A6 Gen 2 offers, but it also charmed me with a welcomed warmth and musicality, including the dated synthesizer vocal background “ah”s.

The streamer hides nothing from the music.

Listening to the selections from the complete Karajan “Beethoven Symphonies” from DG was more musical than I perhaps expected from a LAN line. This 1963 version (he recorded the set 4 times for DG whilst conductor for the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra in his 34-year tenure) was clear, exact, and beautifully presented in this the most popular edition, costing over 1.5 million Deutsche Marks to make. Whilst Qobuz are so unhelpful in giving details even as to which of the 9 symphonies each track belongs to – though you can fairly easily work it out yourself – the performance was spot on with great timing, good position of each instrument, and good space forward-to-back. Indeed, the Eversolo gave a good perspective on all types of music I played. It worked well into both tube and solid-state amplifiers, though I felt it better on the former, which effectively toned down some of the slight clinical nature of the beast.

CONCLUSION

This is a stunning machine in several respects, particularly the excellent app to operate it from your settee. With an excellent screen and user features, you can tailor the sound of the A6 Gen 2 to match your requirement, with a good 10-band graphic and parametric EQ, should you ever want to tackle that.

£799 it puts it into the territory of a good number of excellent players, though with its features and looks, it certainly makes it into my top-list. Although not quite making it as the very best in terms of musicality, I would certainly recommend a listen, as thankfully we all have different ears. And, if you’d like to go a stage higher, the A6 Master Edition (£1259) offers a more advanced audio clock and better op-amps. 

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality: 

Very good looking and very solidly built

Sound Quality:

Worked well across all genres, a player that doesn’t hide errors in the music

Value For Money:

As I have said many times before, there is a lot of competition at this price point now, but the £799 gives you lots of facilities and a truly excellent mobile app

We Loved:

Excellent interface and app

Ability to tailor the best sound to your needs, such as the 7 output DAC filters

Focus and imagery

Speed and clarity of the music

The quick-responding meters and frequency graphs!

We Didn’t Love So Much:

A little light on musicality at times

For a new generation product, it would have been good to allow e-ARC connectivity and more recent BT

Only available in Black

Elevator Pitch Review: This is the 2^nd incarnation of a very respectable streamer. Would it be better than the original from 2 years ago? Certainly architecturally it has improved, and I found it great fun listening to an endless selection of music now available to us from the comfort of our armchair. Would it get me interested past all the lovely screen confectionery, though? Being more an analogue fan, I was very relieved that setting up the Eversolo was very easy, and it gave me a very enjoyable musical offering, too, so I just played and played. I must be converting.

Price: £799

Janine Elliot

SUPPLIED BY AUDIO EMOTION

System used:

Eversolo A6 Gen 2 streamer (using Qobuz, Deezer and FLAC/DSD sources from Samsung phone and A&K SE180 DAP, USB from laptop); Music First Audio Baby Reference preamp, Synthesis Roma 98DC KT88 tube and Krell KAV250a SS (amplification); Graham Audio LS5/9 plus Townshend Super-tweeter (speakers); Tellurium Ultra Silver 2 and Townshend F1 (cables); Coppice Audio stand and Townshend rack.

SUPPLIED SPECIFICATIONS

Screen	Touch screen LCD 6″
Internal memory	4Go GDDR4 + 32go eMMC
DAC chips	2x ESS ES9038Q2M
USB interface	XMOS XU316
OPA	OPA1645
SSD slot	M.2 NVME 3.0 2280, supports up to 4TB (SSD sold separately)
USB ports	2x USB-A 3.0
Ethernet	RJ45 (10/100/1000Mbps)
Wireless network	WiFi 2.4G+5G dual band
Supported sampling rates	PCM up to 32bit 768kHz Native DSD up to DSD512 MQA
Supported streaming services	Deezer, Apple Music, TIDAL, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Presto Music, HIGHRESAUDIO, IDAGIO, Calm Radio, Radios internet, TuneIn, Radio Paradise…
Supported network protocols	DLNA, TIDAL Connect, Roon Ready…
Control methods & Integration	Mobile app Touchscreen Trigger output Wake On LAN (WoL)

Audio inputs & outputs
Bluetooth audio input	Bluetooth 5.0, SBC/AAC support
USB-A audio input	Compatibility: Windows 10/11, Mac, Android, iOS Support DSD512, PCM 32bit 768kHz, MQA
Coaxial / Optical audio input	Support PCM 24bit 192kHz, DoP64, MQA
HDMI ARC input	Support PCM up to 24bit 192kHz
USB audio output	Support PCM  768kHz@32bit, DSD512, MQA
HDMI audio output	Support PCM 192kHz, multichannel up to 5.1 / Native DSD64 multichannel
Optical / coaxial output	Support PCM up to 24bit 192kHz, DoP64, MQA
Analog audio outputs	Balanced XLR Single-ended RCA

Supply voltage	110-240V AC 50/60Hz Max 0.35A
Consumption	13W
Dimensions (WxDxH)	270 x 187 x 90mm
Color	Black