ASR also confirms measurements made by others that the A90 is (in objective terms) fantastic:
-Perfectly flat frequency response
-Inaudible distortion & noise
-Less than 1ohm output impedance,
-220 milliwatts at 300ohm and 2 watts at 32ohms in single ended.
-Up to 5 watts using balanced headphones.
-Even beats the RME-ADI 2 for SNR for very sensitive IEMs.
All wrapped up in a sexy aluminum case, ready to stack with the D90 (also measured as best in class).
Really hoping that this is one of those products that can balance the measurements with sound, hopefully it can preform where the thx failed, on the actual listening front lol
Haha, right. Thatâs why my post was so filled with qualifications, lol. âIn Objective terms, measured bestâ
M0n, there are other headphone amps that measure very well that you have liked, though. Gishelli comes to mind.
Yes, I really enjoy the atom, heresy, archel, etch. Itâs a balancing act, I have no issues with something being a measurement champ, but that can easily go to far and end up in numbers over sound territory like thx
Well the measurements boys are sure to hop on this amp now itâs down to the question does it sound good. Both the hype boys and measurement boys are on it now itâs just up to the subjectivists and reasonable audiophiles. To get theirs and weigh in so far so good though for the a90.
Going to keep this very simple, some quick thoughts, had this for a few days now. I think that if you are after numbers but still want decent sound, this is a good pick depending on future pricing. I do think this is above thx in terms of sound and doesnât exhibit some of the factors that made me really dislike those amps as a whole, but at the same time still shares some of the same traits of a ânumbers over soundâ amp. It did handle whatever reasonable headphone and iem I threw at it just fine, but at the same time, I question if this is worth the price tag due to other options in the same price range. I had the same thoughts with the d90, as imo it was good, but not really worth the ask when other options exist in the market in that price range that are much substantial upgrades than just marginal upgrades the d90 provided, but imo the a90 is a bit better in that regard.
I would personally rate this higher than than the thx amps easily and some of the entry level measurement benchmarks like the o2 and heresy, but not as high as some of the things in the price range like the liquid plat, lake people g111, rnhp, gilmore lite mk2, etc. With more entry to midrange headphones imo this performed well and I didnât really have any real gripes, but there were some cases where I preferred stuff like the asgard 3 or el amp ii a fair bit more in the case of like the dt880 (well these are recabled to balanced but I used single ended for this to be fair), hd600, but for the most part stuff sounded solid. There was a quality drop going to single ended, but it wasnât horrible, but I wouldnât buy this for only single ended headphones. Going with higher end cans though, you start to look past itâs initial forwardnes of detail and find out that itâs actually not as detailed as you thought, I think low level detail getâs masked too much for my liking. Itâs got plenty of punch so no issues there, timbre is decent but not great, spatial recreation is fine, but also not on the same tier as the other options in the price range, it doesnât sound that organic overall though, I think with existing competition itâs a harder sell then you would think. Dac pairing was easy and it sounded as expected with most of the reasonable dacs you would pair with it, but going past like an ares ii or dac1421 with my higher end dacs, the amp was clearly the bottleneck here as it couldnât convey the aspects of the higher end dacs as well as the other amps in the price range could imo.
I can go into it more later on if needed, but personally I think unless you want something top tier in measurements and specs but average in sound, I would pass on this one unless the price drops to around 200 where it would have less tough competition imo and possibly be more compelling if you have harder to drive balanced headphones and wanted something neutral and clean. This is one of those things that doesnât impress me but isnât awful. If I didnât know about the other options in the 500 range I donât think I would dislike this amp (I dislike thx in any regard in comparison lol), just having experienced whatâs out there kinda makes me feel like this amp is lacking for the price and not super worthwhile to pick up.
Will continue to update if anything changes
The asr guys will swear this is better than all violectric, rnhp, gilmore, etc⌠all day long. I appreciate, trust, and tend to agree with your takes. The asr guys are measurement queens and I also appreciate their dedication to a standardized approach which is a data point to benchmark against.
I would be interested in 2-3 years in picking one of these up under < 50% MSRP. I expect there will be continued downward pressure on price with the continued refinement of amp technology. We do appear to be in an era of progress in tech on Amps & Dacs that will benefit us all.
I would expect nothing less, and this is the perfect product for them, and itâs the target market. Their designer is on the forum, and while informative, clearly has his priorities, so there wonât really be any helpful feedback on there besides a circlejerk. Again I appreciate using measurements to complement experience and subjective listening, but measurements should not be used to supplement experience or actual listening, you want to find a balance of objectivity and subjectivity.
That would be a more attractive price imo. Also right now the new geshelli erish might deliver similar performance as this objectively and subjectively so I do want to try that later on for sure.
So I do wish that the measurement race would end and people put more care into the actual sound of their amps, but I do think that budget headphones are the best they have ever been, and midrange stuff is still great
Yes what getâs missed in the SINAD race is that you have to compromise other aspects of an amplifier to improve SINAD.
You typically have to compromise the entire sound of the amp with all the types of measurements they aim for, they are going for high measurements on all fronts
This makes logical sense that itâs both and art and a science audio is. One crowd takes the science route and the other takes the art route. I will say that my brain is structured the follow the scientists far more than artists. I can look at a frequency response chart or a sinad chart and draw a logical conclusion. What I canât stand is the typical hifi sales speak where they start using prose and poetry to describe the 1000% overpriced peace of hifi gear. That is where zeos mon and this forum come into the equation and cut through the bull shit.
I mean I get that, itâs really in human nature to look towards something objective as a representation of performance, and especially from an engineering perspective itâs really hard to break that habit. Intangibles are always hard to process, imo a good way to about designing audio would be as a black box, create the design and get a result, but you donât have to know exactly know why that result occurs, measurements donât fully explain what is experienced, but continue to do what you feel sounds the best instead of worrying about how something measures (to an extent). It really is just a balance here, I think anyone leaning too much towards one side (objective or subjective) is going to end up going the wrong way in the end. But thatâs my opinion lol
Itâs not science vs anything, the issue is weâre not measuring the right things to objectively measure the actual quality of an amplifier. Most reasonable subjectivists look at the measurements, go yes not broken and then just listen.
SiNAD matters to a point, but anything better than about 80dBâs is good enough. THD better than 0.5% is probably fine, and in some cases depending on the characteristics of the noise worse than that is fine. Why even care if an amp has 0.001% THD if the headphones your listening through are >1% THD?
The issue is most objectivistâs focus on a few measurements usually based on frequency sweeps as the holy grail.
Being able to reproduce a single tone at much higher than normal listening levels with minimal noise is hardly indicative of everything an amplifier or DAC or transducer has to do when playing music.
Where are the time domain measurements?
What a good scientist would do is look at the observations and come up with hypothesis and experiments to prove/disprove them (not just say placebo for anything that contradicts their position), I for example currently think that the real difference between an entry level system and a TOTL system is largely about the latterâs ability to reproduce very low input signals better while there is also significant signal playing across a selection of other frequencies.
Just for âcalibrationâ purposes how does this compare to commonly avaliable amps like the Atom or the Gishelli Archel?
I think the a90 is more detailed, preforms better with iems, a fair bit more punch and power on tap, but they are more similar than not, they have comparable spatial recreation (perhaps a tad better on the a90), timbre is slightly worse on the a90
âŚfor hundreds more.
Yeah, thatâs kinda a harder thing about it imo, I think if they dropped the price by like 200 it would make more sense (still tho), but now also the new geshelli balanced amp, I wonder how that is in comparison and thatâs less than 200
How would you compare the A90 to the LP?
I think the a90 is cleaner and more neutral (you most likely saw this one coming), the a90 is more forward overall compared to the more relaxed liquid plat, the a90 does extend more into the treble than the plat does, but I think the plat has better low level detail than the a90, the plat has a fair bit better timbre than the a90, the plat has a noticeable step up in spatial recreation in pretty much all ways, and the plat also tends to have a more natural sounding presentation. The single ended out of the a90 is better sounding than the liquid plat single ended out (judging on their performance balanced vs balanced). I think the a90 is a bit less dac sensitive than the liquid plat. Impact they are on a similar level but the a90 is more speedy but also less true to life in the time domain than the plat imo. Overall though the plat feels like a higher tier amp
Very detailed as usual! Thanks. 
I am always curious. I can see many people treating the LP as end game. If I was smart, I would have. 