EverSolo DMP-A10 Network Player & DAC

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It hasn’t been long since Eversolo burst onto the audio scene, shaking things up with the goal of giving music lovers high-end features at prices that won’t break the bank. They’ve really sparked a shift in the world of music streaming, with other brands jumping on board to create streamers that boast big, beautiful screens and top-notch components. The Eversolo A6, A6 Master Edition, and A8 have become super popular, and after checking them out earlier this year, we totally get why—their build quality and performance are seriously impressive for the price. But Eversolo hasn’t stopped there. They’ve been busy behind the scenes crafting something even more powerful that takes things up a notch from the A8. So, let’s dive into the new Eversolo DMP-A10, their flagship streamer, DAC, and preamp that’s set to shake things up once again, but this time, at a higher level. The first thing you'll notice about the A10 is its new design. It’s slightly bigger than the previous A8, coming in around 17 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and 4.6 inches tall. It also steps things up with a finely crafted, CNC-machined aluminum chassis, complete with metal fins on the sides that help with passive cooling. It just feels more solid, too, weighing in at almost 16 pounds compared to the A8’s 11. We personally like the look of the new fins—they give it a cool, modern look. But if you were a fan of the A8's simple black box vibe, this new design might take some getting used to. Now, looking at the front panel, you'll spot some more upgrades. First off, there’s a dedicated power button on the left side now—probably because the new volume knob has been revamped with a built-in screen! You don’t see this feature on other products too often, and Eversolo's version is super cool. The circular screen on the knob can display the volume or even album artwork and can be customized to different themes. Of course, this feature is just for looks and won’t improve your sound, but it definitely makes the A10 easier to use and gives it a sleek, futuristic vibe. Plus, the bright and gorgeous screen has added a half inch and is updated to a 6.5” touchscreen. In our full review of other Eversolo units, we raved about how responsive and detailed the screens are, and the A10 is no exception—it’s super fast and smooth to navigate. You can control everything—your music, streaming services, settings, and more—right from the front touchscreen or through their well-organized and fast app. You can also set favorites, customize the home screen, and tweak how you want album art to appear while your music plays. Eversolo really nailed it with these screens, and we can’t stress that enough. With the large center touchscreen paired with the new screen on the volume knob, you’ll have all the info you need right at a glance! One really unique feature is the ability to cast the screen from your Eversolo to your phone. The screencast feature pulls up a direct screencast of what is on your screen and is completely interactive. What we found the screencast most useful for was the third-party apps. Since the third-party apps are not accessible on the Eversolo phone app, you can easily mirror the screen, open third-party apps, and have complete control of your music that way. It’s a clever workaround that seems to work rather well. The Eversolo app itself is also blazing fast and has all the features you should need. It’s easy to navigate, allows you to sign in and stream your music from your favorite music platform right in the app, and even has a universal music search feature to find songs across all of your streaming services. We used the app almost exclusively when we were testing all the Eversolo units, as it just seemed to be the easiest way to navigate and control everything. However, Eversolo does include a new refined remote that feels and looks pretty nice if you prefer to control it that way instead of always relying on your phone. When you check out the back of the A10, it looks pretty similar to the A8. You still get all the essentials—an ethernet port, balanced XLR inputs, RCA inputs, HDMI ARC, 2 coax inputs, 1 USB-B input, 2 USB-A’s, and 2 toslink inputs. For outputs, you’ve got balanced XLRs, RCAs, 1 coax, 1 Toslink, and 1 USB-A port. You’ll also have trigger in and out ports and a new SFP fiber port, allowing you to connect to your network via fiber when you purchase an additional SFP module. This is typically seen in high-end gear and allows you to have cleaner audio without an electrical connection between the network switch and the device itself. But the upgrade that we were excited to see was the addition of 2 dedicated subwoofer outs! This lets you hook up and fine-tune two subs directly through the A10 interface or app, delivering deep, balanced bass for your stereo or home theater setup. You have the ability to set sub level, crossover frequency and polarity for the subs which applies to both of them. However, you can then choose whether you want Stereo mode where it will crossover one sub with your left speaker and one with your right. You’ll see many two channel purists do this when they have their subs right next to their left and right speakers. If you have one sub or two subs that are in the corners of your room or other locations, you will instead choose Mixer mode which will mix the right and left to give you the same feed to both subs. We tested this in our system with two KEF subs and it worked flawlessly. In addition to the dual sub capability, the A10 also comes with its own room correction. Almost any room will have frequency peaks due to its shape and how the sound waves interact, which can really affect how your music sounds. That’s why we love systems that come with automated room correction. You usually see this in high-performance home theater gear, but Eversolo has brought Room Correction Technology to the A10, allowing it to automatically adjust the sound to reduce unwanted peaks and nulls created by the room. Using the included mic (or your own), you can easily run the correction, and it’ll do all the work for you. We tested it and found it definitely improved the sound in less than perfect rooms. Using a phone, you can get a pretty good correction curve, but using a dedicated mic gets you even better results. It is not as powerful as something like Dirac Live with Bass Control that you see on higher-end steamer units like the NAD M66, but it works well and can easily be turned on and off. There are some tweaks you can do to the automated correction that we cover in our Tips and Tricks. For those who want to fine-tune things manually instead of relying on auto adjustments, the A10 still gives you full control with a parametric EQ. You can target specific frequencies, like 37Hz or 121Hz, and adjust how steep or wide the correction is. Plus, you get access to FIR filters, high-pass and low-pass filters, bass boost, a compressor, and delay control—so you can geek out as much as you want! The HDMI arc connection allows you to connect this right to your TV system too! We want to note here that there is no HDMI I2S like there was on the A8 and no HDMI DSD/Audio output port. However, Eversolo concluded that for the vast majority of folks, these would have been unused features that would add to the cost of the device. Inside the A10, the impressive features continue. First off, Eversolo has designed the interior to separate noise and interference from different boards and has even added shielding on the front panel to ensure the audio signal remains pure and undisturbed. Plus, it has dual independent linear power supplies. This configuration consists of a toroidal transformer and a low-noise linear power supply to separate the digital system from the analog audio circuits, which helps eliminate interference and distortion. Anyone who’s into audio knows that a good power supply can make a huge difference—better ones generate less noise and give stronger support to all the components. The DAC inside is the extremely powerful ES9039PRO instead of the two AKM DACs found in the A8. We were big fans of that “velvet sound” that came from the A8, so we were a little surprised to see them change it up. However, when you look up the raw parts cost, the new ESS Sabre DAC comes in at almost twice the price. But what really matters is how it sounds, which we will get to shortly. And keep in mind that if you already have a better DAC without streaming capabilities, you can still attach the A10 with any of it’s digital outs. In fact, they’ve even incorporated an advanced electrical isolation circuit to reduce interference from high-noise power sources and grounding loop issues when you connect up an external DAC or USB device. The iCoupler technology inside transmits the clock signal and data to the isolated side in the correct time order and then resynchronizes them to maintain consistency. This may sound a bit technical, but all you really need to know is that any USB connection will be high quality with reduced jitter and maintain great signal accuracy. The A10 supports high-res audio up to 32-bit PCM at 768 kHz and DSD512. Plus, it supports nearly all the file formats you should need and gives you access to popular streaming platforms like Qobuz, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music, and Apple Music. You can also use Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect, and it will soon be Roon Ready. It also runs on Eversolo's patented EOS operating system (Eversolo Original Sampling-rate Audio Engine) that bypasses Android’s SRC limitations to ensure the original sample rate output from any of the music apps for perfectly accurate playback. The A10 is also capable of Bluetooth 5.0, can rip and play CDs using an external CD drive, play music from a USB drive, and has 64GB of internal storage. You can easily rip CDs and store them directly on the unit, and if you wish to have more storage, you can install SSDs underneath the unit to have up to 4TB of total storage. You can also use this unit as a server to access all your files and play anywhere in your home. The A10 also gets a cool upgrade in the clock department with custom-developed temperature control technology for the OCXO clock system. OCXO stands for Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator, and it keeps the temperature constant and stable regardless of external temperature changes. It’s considered the best-performing quartz crystal oscillator out there. Having a stable temperature helps eliminate any frequency fluctuations for less noise and low jitter. This is a step up from the clocks in their previous products, and these ones even undergo a rigorous testing process from Eversolo to be sure they perform to their standards. But why does this even matter? Because even the smallest drift in a clock signal can cause tiny timing errors between samples, which impacts the audio quality. The more accurate the timing, the more alive and true-to-life your music sounds, as if you’re right there at the live performance. In addition, just like the A8, the level adjustment is R2R-based. The fully balanced preamp in the A10 is well-made with precision resistors and relays to ensure precise volume control, allowing you to use it as a true analog preamp in your system. Okay, so we’ve gone over most of the major features and technology of the new A10. Now, let’s talk about performance. We tested the A10 with Parasound JC1 plus monoblock amps with KEF Reference 1 Meta bookshelves and KEF R11 Meta towers. This setup is extremely revealing and previously had an expensive streamer connected to it. So, it allowed us to evaluate the A10 sonically, particularly compared to a more expensive streamer solution. From a pure specification standpoint, you’d expect the A10 to shine, and it sure does. We set it up, ran room calibration, and then tweaked it until we felt it was really dialed in. Then, we ran a host of listening tests. We have to say, this A10 is incredible. Listening to tracks from different genres of music, like The Birth of a Band by Quincy Jones and Starboy by The Weeknd, proved that the A10 has some serious chops. No matter what we played, the A10 just sounded phenomenal and proved that the ESS Dac inside was musical and enjoyable to listen to all day long. We could go on and on, but in short, the A10 rocks. If you have the budget and are looking for a streamer/preamp, you will not be disappointed. For fun, we also tested the A10 with a pair of nice powered bookshelf speakers to simulate a situation where you have a limited budget and want to put the vast majority into this great streamer/preamp and look to upgrade to better amps and speakers later. As you might expect, the A10 made these speakers come alive in a way we had not previously heard. So we believe the A10 could turn out to be not only a great steamer upgrade for people but also the start of a much better system over time. But if you want a deeper dive, you can check out our article at the link in the description. Plus, if you want to pair up a matching amp, the Amp-F10 will be coming very soon, which will be the perfect match aesthetically. This is a completely redesigned amp from their previous Amp-F2, which was built from the ground up by Eversolo themselves. It will feature 200W per channel and up to 650 watts in bridged mode. We will have one in very soon for a review to put it to the test and let you know how it performs, so make sure you’re subscribed and have the notification bell turned on so you don’t miss that video when it drops. Many Eversolo fans are already sold on Eversolo and likely want to know how we feel the A10 stacks up against the A6, A6 Master, and A8. First of all, if you are using it as a streamer only without leveraging the DAC and pre-amp, it's likely not worth the upgrade. However, if you are really into great sound and have the budget, we do believe this is a worthy upgrade. You get upgraded clocks, power supply, dual subs, and room correction, along with overall sonic improvement. We’re here to help! If you have further questions, contact our experts via chat, phone, or email. Or simply visit one of our world-class showrooms to experience speakers, projectors, TVs, and everything in between for yourself before you make a purchase! If you’re planning your home theater or media room, check out our Home Theater Design page, where we have everything Home Theater related, including our FREE Home Theater Design Tool. When you buy from Audio Advice, you’re buying from a trusted seller since 1978. We offer Free Shipping, Lifetime Expert Support, and our Price Guarantee. We look forward to serving you! Show more