The SMSL AO10 is an exceptionally well-performing and feature-rich amplifier, built around the older TPA 5116 chip, that offers incredible value for its sub-$100 price point, challenging expectations for audio quality at this budget.
Mind Map
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Now, this has to be someone's hobby
project as this has no right to sound
that good and be less than $100. I'm
serious. This is not a hook for your
attention. TPA 5116 is well known by now
and superseded by TPA 5255. That's very
popular choice. Uh but it seems someone
just developed 5116
or just had a side project with the goal
of goal of squeezing every ounce of
performance from twin uh 5116
like a challenge or a bet. Uh so this is
SMSL AO10 amplifier. It has a remote. It
has uh internal power supply. Uh it has
metal chassis. It has display. It has
trigger control and it's less than $100.
It's actually $99. So, that should be
the real hook for you. Uh, all of those
things for less than $100. Uh, as this
price just seems to be some sort of a
scam. Uh, so let's talk about
manufacturers data on this amplifier I
got from our at the end of December.
Uh this uses internal uh two Texas
Instruments uh class D amplifiers TPA 5116.
5116.
Uh it does have uh Bluetooth
connectivity. Uh it does support uh 5.3
version with u SBC and AC uh codecs. So
no fancy Bluetooth codecs here. Uh it
does have tone controls. Uh the output
power is specified as uh 100 watts per
channel into 2 ohms. Uh that goes down
to 70 W into 4 ohms per channel and
probably that would be something like 50
maybe 55 uh watts per channel into 8
ohms. Uh but the manufacturer data do
not specify the output power into 8
ohms. So I'm just guessing. Uh okay. So,
uh we do have uh equalizer
um with uh five presets, I think. Uh we
have uh THD plus noise less than 0.02
uh%. So, that's quite nice. Not the best
um on the market, but quite nice. Uh the
frequency response is anything between
20 Hz and 20 kohz. The cross talk is
very nice. It's more than 103 decibels.
That's because we are using two separate
amplifiers, one for each channel. And
the uh power needed to get this guy
running is uh 56 watts when it's playing
music. [clears throat] That's according
to the specification. When I was
measuring that with my power strip, that
was something like 54 watts. But that's
within a margin of error. Okay. So let's
talk about the functionality and let's
talk about the build. Um the first thing
the manage system and the options. Uh
and uh the first thing I actually want
to talk about here uh is the thing that
uh is not covered by the manual. Uh you
see you can switch inputs using this
button on the remote. Yes. And that
works quite nice. But how do you switch
the inputs from the front panel? Uh,
it's nowhere in the menu system.
Yep, yep, yep. We will talk about that a
little bit later. So, the answer to the
riddle is that you need to do a double
click on the knob. So,
oh, that was too slow. Let's get back
from the menu.
And with a short double pick,
we can switch inputs. Uh, okay. Now,
let's talk about the menu systems. I've
told you it does support bus and uh
treble control tone controls and it also
does have some equalizer profiles uh
preset and those profiles are described
in the uh manual for this amplifier. So
uh in order to access the many we need
to click uh the knob once and uh we can
choose the equalizer setting. EQ0 means
direct uh bypassing of the tone
controls. ET means uh tone controls and
uh E1 uh through E5. I'm choosing the uh
pre-programmed equalizer profile. So
let's leave it at direct. Uh then we
have actual treble control uh from minus
7 up to + 7. And this control works only
if in previous position we chose ET
meaning equalizer tone control. And the
same goes for bass. We can control it
from minus 7 up to + 7 decibels. Let's
leave it at zero. And uh we can control
the backlight. Only two settings.
I think you can see that the backlight
too is uh way brighter. And the last
menu, the last one is pretty important
because this actually controls the
triggers on this amplifier. Uh T0 means
that trigger control is disabled. T1
means that this amplifier will control
the connected devices. Uh but it won't
accept control from anything outside. Uh
T2 means that it will accept control
from external device and it can control
devices connected in the chain down
below. Uh, okay. So, that was all about
the mini system. It's pretty simple
because this is basically just an
amplifier with Bluetooth input. Okay,
let's [clears throat]
disconnect that guy. And in front in in
front we have LCD display with IR
controller. That's somewhere over here.
As you can see, we also have a power
status LED. And the manual says that uh
this guy has internal Bluetooth antenna
that's somewhere behind the display. Uh
we have the volume control knob that
doubles as a switch.
Nothing interesting on the top or on the sides.
sides.
Four rubble legs on the bottom. And in
the back uh we have power socket
connector. uh one set of speaker outputs
for the right and for the left channel.
Those guys will accept bananas and bell
wire. They will not accept spade
connectors. As you can see, there is a
space for the bell wire, but they will
not accept
spades. Uh we have one set of RCA
single-ended inputs for left and right
channels. And we have two sets of
trigger control ports. Uh these are
basically just regular mono 3.5 mm uh
jacks. Uh and one cable is included with
the amplifier in the box. Uh so using
this port you can control AO10
uh with external device and using this
port you can control other external
devices uh that will power on and off
when you will power on or off your
amplifier. So, let's take a look inside.
I've already removed the uh four screws
at the bottom, and I've removed two of
the three screws at the top. So, just
let's just remove the last one. [clears throat]
And let's take a look inside. We need to
slide back
the chassis.
And we can take a look inside. And what
do we see here? Let's rotate it like
that. So you'll be able to read the
descriptions on the PCB. So we have a
power section over here that's separated
from the rest of the board. We have
cutouts like those here. And we have
some lines printed on the board. Uh also
some interesting information. Do not do
not touch. uh and high voltage warning.
Uh okay. Uh that guy that guy is glued
to the PCB and uh unfortunately it's
done in such a way that I am not able to
tell you either the manufacturer or the
capacitor of that uh capacitor. I just
can't see that. Uh then we have the
actual amplifier section with a volume
control chip and with microcontroller
for the logic of the amplifier.
The amplifier section uh is uh
using two TPA uh amplifiers. They are
using one single headsync but underneath
that headsync there are actually two
chips. You may be able to see that right
now uh by looking at the thermal pads.
Uh one of them the white line is here
and the second one is over here. So we
have two separate amplifiers for two
channels. Uh the volume control and tone
I don't know how to pronounce that. Uh
that guy here. We can also see that we
have some chips that had been sanded
down. Uh that's uh where's my pointer?
That's the one here. And there was a
second one over here. Uh those guys are
probably uh operational amplifiers. Uh,
and usually I would expect them to be
sended down if they are probably low
quality operational amplifiers like any 5552.
5552.
Uh, but in this case, in this particular
case, I refuse to believe so. Uh,
because uh, and that's a spoiler. Uh,
this amplifier sounds uh, too good to be
using uh, 50 uh, 55 52 uh, at the
inputs. Why? Because 52 55 52 uh usually
is used to make the class amplifiers
sound a little bit smoother because it's
veiled and it's a little bit muddy. So
it slows them down. Uh but it also uh
causes loss of the resolution of such an
amplifier and this amplifier is
excellent when it comes to the
resolution. Uh okay, what else? Uh we do
have uh microcontroller here that's
controlling the whole logic of this uh
amplifier. We also do have uh NTC that
works as a uh fuse that black guy over
here. And I can feel for the guys that
will need to replace that after some
kind of power source because it's not
very easy to access. Uh and what else? I
think that's all. You can see that the
board board is marked by SMS AO10.
Uh yeah. Ah, what else? Uh one one one
thing more. Uh I'm not sure what kind of
uh voltage this uh power section is
producing. Although the caps are
specified for up to 25 volts. Uh those
guys are for 55 volts. And you can see
control points for the voltage for the
plus 10 and minus 10 volts here. So I
would guess that's something like 20
volts which is not a standard uh value.
Uh not it's not 24, it's not 56, it's
not 48 volts. Uh and that may be uh
interesting because the voltage and the
amperage of the power uh supply here uh
translates directly into the power
output. Uh, and this guy has quite nice
power output when you're looking at the
two on figures. Uh, but it's just 50
maybe 55 watts per channel uh into 8
ohms. So that would uh correspond with
uh those guys here uh specifying uh
minus 10 and + 10. Uh also we have a
quite a nice set of control points on
the board. Uh all of them are described
nicely. So, if you'd like to uh play
with your oscilloscope,
there's your playground. Okay. So, give
me a second. I will close that guy and I
will tell you about the sound quality.
Just a second.
Okay. So, we're back and let's talk
about the sound quality uh of this guy.
As usual, let's start with the bass. Uh
there are two types of class D base. The
first one is fast. It's precise, but
sometimes it does lag bother and may
seem hollow. Uh the other one, and
that's the one uh we have here, that's
uh the one that's the one that's good,
uh is both fast and precise, but it also
sounds full with a lot of meat on the
bones. And that's what we get here. Uh
the bass has great extension. It really
goes very low and it has a powerful
rumble which is quite surprising given
the output power of this amplifier.
Uh and uh it was able to control uh to
properly control my Martin Logan
electrostats which is an amazing feat
because those guys dropped down to 1.2
ohms in the tribal region and this guy
was perfectly fine with that. The
official specification says it's good up
to 2 ohms load. So, I guess 1.2 ohm
doesn't make a big difference for AO10.
Uh, okay, let's get back to the base.
Uh, it has a powerful rumble and there
is just right amount of beat maze. Uh,
it's very well controlled and it has a
very good texture. It sounds rich and if
I wouldn't have known I would say this
is a quite nice class AB amplifier not
class D and that's a very big compliment
here. Uh as I've said uh there are two
types of bass. Uh one should could be
hollow sometimes. This is not the case
here. We have a really nice bass control
here. Uh even though this amplifier is
not super powerful. Uh now the
mid-range. The mid-range is uh very
clean and detailed, but it does exhibit
some degree of dryness in some to be
fair very few tracks that I'm using for
my test purposes. Uh one of those is
Sylvia Hotel by Chel Wheeler. Uh and uh
she starts singing with uh this is a
lonely life and sess in this is uh here
very pronounced as they should be but
they lack that tiny bit tiny bit of
smoothness. Uh those few first uh words
those few first sounds uh are a very
good way to test uh if the amplifier uh
is sibilent or not. and this guy is not.
And at the same time uh if the amplifier
can give you a smooth uh s sound or not
and this amplifier usually does that
correctly but in this particular case
it's on a verge of getting it to into
dry territory. Uh okay so here those
sounds are not cibiland so AO10 does not
cross that fine line. Uh, all in all, I
really like the vocals here uh for the
clarity and neutrality. And as usual
with class D, adding a tube
pre-amplifier gave extremely good
mid-range. Uh, I loved as and so it goes
by Jennifer Wars uh with this small guy.
Uh, moving on to treble. Uh, and that's
a highlight. I really like the treble
that AO10 delivers. Uh, it's exactly my
type of treble. It's extended, it's
airy, it's super clean, and it's super
detailed, but not in an analytical way.
Treble here has the clarity that many
way more expensive amps amps struggle to
deliver. So, this is a real highlight.
Uh, another highlight is resolution. Uh,
the resolution this guy is able to
provide really stands out. Uh, I've
started my serious listening sessions
when I'm taking notes with Keon Go.
That's classic. uh and I was totally
surprised by the amount of the things
from the audience, the ambient sounds
that I was able to hear. And uh the same
was uh happening for the strings for the
guitar strings in this uh song. Uh their
vibrating sounds uh were separate if you
know what I mean, not blending into one
single sound. So that area is really
really good and that's quite surprising
because TPA 5116
uh is uh it may be not exactly old but
it does have a few years right now and
that's why I started my review saying
that this seems to be someone's side
project. Someone really had to love that
chip uh and tried to squeeze everything
that's possible from this Texas
Instruments integrated class D
amplifier. Now sound stage and imaging.
The stage is quite wide and you quickly
lose the position of the speakers. There
is some depth information. There is some
layering and some things get projected
in front of the speaker line and some of
them are projected behind the speaker
line. Uh but all in all it's a typical
class D sound stage. It is precise but
it's not super deep. Everything is
happening very close one layer to another.
another.
uh the interestingly the images have
quite precise location but they have
slightly fuzzy boundaries. So if you
have a singer in the front in the center
of the stage, if you have a guitar, if
you have a percussion on the on the
sides, uh you will be able to pinpoint
the locations of those instruments and
the vocal. But uh if you try to look for
the uh boundaries of those uh sound
sources uh you realize that they are
slightly fuzzy that you cannot exactly
pinpoint uh where let's say the vocalist
ends and starts. So there's that. Uh
they are not etched like with some other
class D amplifiers and uh I actually
like that uh I would like them to be a
little bit more precise but not edged
like a single sharp line. Uh now
uh before I get to the summary uh a
couple of uh things. Uh the first one,
the volume control. Let's turn this guy
on. The volume control [snorts] seems to
be linear. Uh this means that in order
to achieve quite a large volume change,
we need to wait for quite a long time.
And also another thing connected with
the volume control is that it just takes
time. Usually, if you want to quickly
raise or lower the volume, you will just
uh keep the volume uh control button
pressed, right? So, let's try that here.
Let's press the button.
And it's not super fast. I can actually
do that faster by clicking uh on the
button myself. And let's lower that
down. Uh and uh there's two things. Uh
the first one that see it seems to be
linear and the second one that uh it uh
the clicks are so slow uh it just takes
quite a lot of time to raise or lower
the volume. Uh on the positive side it's
also allowing you to precisely set the
volume. But then again, uh more often uh
I was uh wanting to lower the volume uh
in a very quick way when someone from
the house was shouting to me something
and I wanted to hear what's all that
about. Okay, so uh A10 reminded me
reminded me why I liked so much TPA 3116
based amplifiers back a few years ago.
uh they deliver tons of clarity
resolution in a very transparent and
open way. I actually didn't like the
first TPA 5255 uh amplifiers. The first
well-known was A07 from Aima that got
glowing reviews especially on ISR and I
got one uh I read the review. I've read
the measurements. I got one and I've
realized uh that even after changing the
operational amplifiers, it was quite
muddy and it was quite slow. So I got
back to uh Breeze DPA 5116based
amplifier. And that guy brings all of
those good memories back because it has
very good resolution, very good
transparency and clarity.
So [clears throat] getting back to my
summary, uh amplifiers based on TPA 5116
are not as popular right now, but they
are still a great choice when it comes
to performance. They sound really good.
I would even dare to say that I like
5116 more than TPA 5255
and that uh they are more affordable the
amplifiers based on uh the older chip.
uh but they are not as powerful. Uh
that's uh one single biggest difference.
Uh TPA 5255
uh is able to deliver staggering amounts
of power when powered properly and
that's why uh usually have those
separate power bricks uh that are 48
volts uh 36 volts uh some of them are
able to deliver 10 ampers. So those are
monsters. And uh one more thing that I
probably should mention when I was
talking about the price uh if you look
on AliExpress for um power supplies like
that, you'll realize that the 48 volts
and 10 ampers uh power supply can be
actually more expensive than this
amplifier as it is including the
internal power supply. So that's an
interesting comparison. Uh for the price
of the power supply alone, you can get a
complete power, you can get a complete
amplifier with power supply with remote
control, etc., etc. So uh three things
that I liked about this amplifier and
three things that I disliked. Uh the
three things I like. The first one, the
base, it's fabulous. It's clean and it's
fitting easily the whole room. And the
second one, the resolution. A10 AO10
went with flying colors for all of my
test tracks. When it comes to the
resolution and the third one, clarity
and transparency. Uh these are not that
common even with priceive amplifiers.
It's not easy to get that sense of of
effortless presentation.
And uh three things actually two of them
uh that I would wish uh were better. The
first one, uh, volume remote control is
just too slow. I think I don't have to
dwell on that. You just, uh, need to
experience that on your own. Uh, the
second thing, depth of the sound stage.
I wish the stage would be deeper, but I
realized that this area is very hard to
get right, even with amplifiers that are
many times the price. And uh Dclass had
always struggle struggled sorry
struggled with the depth of the sound
stage and this guy is not a different
beast. Uh so that's what you're getting
for the money. Uh and as I've said no
third point on the list I was trying but
I really couldn't think of anything
else. Uh with that in mind, I really do
like this amplifier and it will stay a
part of my collection. Uh for the sheer
value it provides, uh it's just $99 and
that's the base price. Uh any kind of
sale, any kind of sale coupons will
lower that. Uh and uh I think I would
need to spend twice as much uh to get
something that sounds significantly
better. So, this guy gets my honest
recommendation. And thanks for watching,
guys. And have a great day. If you have
any questions, give me a shout in the
comments. All of the necessary links in
the comments. All of my test system
setup details in the video description.
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