0:03 Now, this has to be someone's hobby
0:06 project as this has no right to sound
0:08 that good and be less than $100. I'm
0:11 serious. This is not a hook for your
0:15 attention. TPA 5116 is well known by now
0:19 and superseded by TPA 5255. That's very
0:22 popular choice. Uh but it seems someone
0:25 just developed 5116
0:28 or just had a side project with the goal
0:31 of goal of squeezing every ounce of
0:35 performance from twin uh 5116
0:38 like a challenge or a bet. Uh so this is
0:42 SMSL AO10 amplifier. It has a remote. It
0:46 has uh internal power supply. Uh it has
0:49 metal chassis. It has display. It has
0:53 trigger control and it's less than $100.
0:56 It's actually $99. So, that should be
0:59 the real hook for you. Uh, all of those
1:03 things for less than $100. Uh, as this
1:05 price just seems to be some sort of a
1:08 scam. Uh, so let's talk about
1:10 manufacturers data on this amplifier I
1:14 got from our at the end of December.
1:19 Uh this uses internal uh two Texas
1:22 Instruments uh class D amplifiers TPA 5116.
1:24 5116.
1:26 Uh it does have uh Bluetooth
1:31 connectivity. Uh it does support uh 5.3
1:36 version with u SBC and AC uh codecs. So
1:39 no fancy Bluetooth codecs here. Uh it
1:42 does have tone controls. Uh the output
1:45 power is specified as uh 100 watts per
1:49 channel into 2 ohms. Uh that goes down
1:53 to 70 W into 4 ohms per channel and
1:56 probably that would be something like 50
2:00 maybe 55 uh watts per channel into 8
2:04 ohms. Uh but the manufacturer data do
2:06 not specify the output power into 8
2:10 ohms. So I'm just guessing. Uh okay. So,
2:13 uh we do have uh equalizer
2:18 um with uh five presets, I think. Uh we
2:23 have uh THD plus noise less than 0.02
2:28 uh%. So, that's quite nice. Not the best
2:31 um on the market, but quite nice. Uh the
2:33 frequency response is anything between
2:37 20 Hz and 20 kohz. The cross talk is
2:41 very nice. It's more than 103 decibels.
2:44 That's because we are using two separate
2:47 amplifiers, one for each channel. And
2:51 the uh power needed to get this guy
2:55 running is uh 56 watts when it's playing
2:57 music. [clears throat] That's according
2:59 to the specification. When I was
3:02 measuring that with my power strip, that
3:04 was something like 54 watts. But that's
3:08 within a margin of error. Okay. So let's
3:10 talk about the functionality and let's
3:13 talk about the build. Um the first thing
3:17 the manage system and the options. Uh
3:19 and uh the first thing I actually want
3:22 to talk about here uh is the thing that
3:26 uh is not covered by the manual. Uh you
3:29 see you can switch inputs using this
3:32 button on the remote. Yes. And that
3:35 works quite nice. But how do you switch
3:37 the inputs from the front panel? Uh,
3:41 it's nowhere in the menu system.
3:44 Yep, yep, yep. We will talk about that a
3:46 little bit later. So, the answer to the
3:49 riddle is that you need to do a double
3:53 click on the knob. So,
3:58 oh, that was too slow. Let's get back
4:00 from the menu.
4:13 And with a short double pick,
4:16 we can switch inputs. Uh, okay. Now,
4:18 let's talk about the menu systems. I've
4:21 told you it does support bus and uh
4:24 treble control tone controls and it also
4:27 does have some equalizer profiles uh
4:30 preset and those profiles are described
4:36 in the uh manual for this amplifier. So
4:38 uh in order to access the many we need
4:42 to click uh the knob once and uh we can
4:46 choose the equalizer setting. EQ0 means
4:48 direct uh bypassing of the tone
4:52 controls. ET means uh tone controls and
4:57 uh E1 uh through E5. I'm choosing the uh
5:00 pre-programmed equalizer profile. So
5:02 let's leave it at direct. Uh then we
5:06 have actual treble control uh from minus
5:10 7 up to + 7. And this control works only
5:13 if in previous position we chose ET
5:16 meaning equalizer tone control. And the
5:19 same goes for bass. We can control it
5:23 from minus 7 up to + 7 decibels. Let's
5:26 leave it at zero. And uh we can control
5:29 the backlight. Only two settings.
5:31 I think you can see that the backlight
5:34 too is uh way brighter. And the last
5:36 menu, the last one is pretty important
5:39 because this actually controls the
5:42 triggers on this amplifier. Uh T0 means
5:45 that trigger control is disabled. T1
5:47 means that this amplifier will control
5:50 the connected devices. Uh but it won't
5:54 accept control from anything outside. Uh
5:56 T2 means that it will accept control
6:00 from external device and it can control
6:02 devices connected in the chain down
6:06 below. Uh, okay. So, that was all about
6:08 the mini system. It's pretty simple
6:10 because this is basically just an
6:13 amplifier with Bluetooth input. Okay,
6:15 let's [clears throat]
6:19 disconnect that guy. And in front in in
6:22 front we have LCD display with IR
6:25 controller. That's somewhere over here.
6:28 As you can see, we also have a power
6:32 status LED. And the manual says that uh
6:35 this guy has internal Bluetooth antenna
6:38 that's somewhere behind the display. Uh
6:41 we have the volume control knob that
6:44 doubles as a switch.
6:47 Nothing interesting on the top or on the sides.
6:48 sides.
6:52 Four rubble legs on the bottom. And in
6:55 the back uh we have power socket
6:59 connector. uh one set of speaker outputs
7:02 for the right and for the left channel.
7:04 Those guys will accept bananas and bell
7:08 wire. They will not accept spade
7:10 connectors. As you can see, there is a
7:13 space for the bell wire, but they will
7:16 not accept
7:19 spades. Uh we have one set of RCA
7:21 single-ended inputs for left and right
7:24 channels. And we have two sets of
7:26 trigger control ports. Uh these are
7:30 basically just regular mono 3.5 mm uh
7:34 jacks. Uh and one cable is included with
7:37 the amplifier in the box. Uh so using
7:41 this port you can control AO10
7:43 uh with external device and using this
7:46 port you can control other external
7:50 devices uh that will power on and off
7:53 when you will power on or off your
7:57 amplifier. So, let's take a look inside.
8:01 I've already removed the uh four screws
8:04 at the bottom, and I've removed two of
8:09 the three screws at the top. So, just
8:11 let's just remove the last one. [clears throat]
8:17 And let's take a look inside. We need to
8:21 slide back
8:23 the chassis.
8:27 And we can take a look inside. And what
8:29 do we see here? Let's rotate it like
8:31 that. So you'll be able to read the
8:36 descriptions on the PCB. So we have a
8:39 power section over here that's separated
8:41 from the rest of the board. We have
8:44 cutouts like those here. And we have
8:47 some lines printed on the board. Uh also
8:49 some interesting information. Do not do
8:53 not touch. uh and high voltage warning.
8:57 Uh okay. Uh that guy that guy is glued
9:00 to the PCB and uh unfortunately it's
9:04 done in such a way that I am not able to
9:07 tell you either the manufacturer or the
9:11 capacitor of that uh capacitor. I just
9:15 can't see that. Uh then we have the
9:18 actual amplifier section with a volume
9:21 control chip and with microcontroller
9:24 for the logic of the amplifier.
9:29 The amplifier section uh is uh
9:32 using two TPA uh amplifiers. They are
9:35 using one single headsync but underneath
9:37 that headsync there are actually two
9:40 chips. You may be able to see that right
9:44 now uh by looking at the thermal pads.
9:48 Uh one of them the white line is here
9:51 and the second one is over here. So we
9:55 have two separate amplifiers for two
9:58 channels. Uh the volume control and tone
10:10 I don't know how to pronounce that. Uh
10:13 that guy here. We can also see that we
10:15 have some chips that had been sanded
10:18 down. Uh that's uh where's my pointer?
10:21 That's the one here. And there was a
10:24 second one over here. Uh those guys are
10:28 probably uh operational amplifiers. Uh,
10:30 and usually I would expect them to be
10:34 sended down if they are probably low
10:36 quality operational amplifiers like any 5552.
10:38 5552.
10:41 Uh, but in this case, in this particular
10:43 case, I refuse to believe so. Uh,
10:46 because uh, and that's a spoiler. Uh,
10:50 this amplifier sounds uh, too good to be
10:54 using uh, 50 uh, 55 52 uh, at the
10:59 inputs. Why? Because 52 55 52 uh usually
11:02 is used to make the class amplifiers
11:06 sound a little bit smoother because it's
11:08 veiled and it's a little bit muddy. So
11:11 it slows them down. Uh but it also uh
11:14 causes loss of the resolution of such an
11:17 amplifier and this amplifier is
11:18 excellent when it comes to the
11:22 resolution. Uh okay, what else? Uh we do
11:25 have uh microcontroller here that's
11:29 controlling the whole logic of this uh
11:33 amplifier. We also do have uh NTC that
11:37 works as a uh fuse that black guy over
11:41 here. And I can feel for the guys that
11:43 will need to replace that after some
11:45 kind of power source because it's not
11:50 very easy to access. Uh and what else? I
11:53 think that's all. You can see that the
11:57 board board is marked by SMS AO10.
12:01 Uh yeah. Ah, what else? Uh one one one
12:06 thing more. Uh I'm not sure what kind of
12:09 uh voltage this uh power section is
12:11 producing. Although the caps are
12:16 specified for up to 25 volts. Uh those
12:18 guys are for 55 volts. And you can see
12:21 control points for the voltage for the
12:24 plus 10 and minus 10 volts here. So I
12:26 would guess that's something like 20
12:30 volts which is not a standard uh value.
12:33 Uh not it's not 24, it's not 56, it's
12:37 not 48 volts. Uh and that may be uh
12:39 interesting because the voltage and the
12:43 amperage of the power uh supply here uh
12:45 translates directly into the power
12:48 output. Uh, and this guy has quite nice
12:50 power output when you're looking at the
12:54 two on figures. Uh, but it's just 50
12:57 maybe 55 watts per channel uh into 8
13:00 ohms. So that would uh correspond with
13:04 uh those guys here uh specifying uh
13:08 minus 10 and + 10. Uh also we have a
13:11 quite a nice set of control points on
13:14 the board. Uh all of them are described
13:18 nicely. So, if you'd like to uh play
13:21 with your oscilloscope,
13:23 there's your playground. Okay. So, give
13:26 me a second. I will close that guy and I
13:30 will tell you about the sound quality.
13:32 Just a second.
13:36 Okay. So, we're back and let's talk
13:39 about the sound quality uh of this guy.
13:42 As usual, let's start with the bass. Uh
13:45 there are two types of class D base. The
13:47 first one is fast. It's precise, but
13:50 sometimes it does lag bother and may
13:52 seem hollow. Uh the other one, and
13:55 that's the one uh we have here, that's
13:58 uh the one that's the one that's good,
14:00 uh is both fast and precise, but it also
14:03 sounds full with a lot of meat on the
14:06 bones. And that's what we get here. Uh
14:08 the bass has great extension. It really
14:10 goes very low and it has a powerful
14:14 rumble which is quite surprising given
14:17 the output power of this amplifier.
14:22 Uh and uh it was able to control uh to
14:24 properly control my Martin Logan
14:26 electrostats which is an amazing feat
14:29 because those guys dropped down to 1.2
14:32 ohms in the tribal region and this guy
14:34 was perfectly fine with that. The
14:37 official specification says it's good up
14:40 to 2 ohms load. So, I guess 1.2 ohm
14:44 doesn't make a big difference for AO10.
14:46 Uh, okay, let's get back to the base.
14:49 Uh, it has a powerful rumble and there
14:52 is just right amount of beat maze. Uh,
14:54 it's very well controlled and it has a
14:57 very good texture. It sounds rich and if
15:00 I wouldn't have known I would say this
15:03 is a quite nice class AB amplifier not
15:06 class D and that's a very big compliment
15:09 here. Uh as I've said uh there are two
15:13 types of bass. Uh one should could be
15:15 hollow sometimes. This is not the case
15:17 here. We have a really nice bass control
15:20 here. Uh even though this amplifier is
15:22 not super powerful. Uh now the
15:25 mid-range. The mid-range is uh very
15:28 clean and detailed, but it does exhibit
15:31 some degree of dryness in some to be
15:35 fair very few tracks that I'm using for
15:38 my test purposes. Uh one of those is
15:42 Sylvia Hotel by Chel Wheeler. Uh and uh
15:45 she starts singing with uh this is a
15:50 lonely life and sess in this is uh here
15:53 very pronounced as they should be but
15:57 they lack that tiny bit tiny bit of
16:02 smoothness. Uh those few first uh words
16:05 those few first sounds uh are a very
16:08 good way to test uh if the amplifier uh
16:12 is sibilent or not. and this guy is not.
16:15 And at the same time uh if the amplifier
16:19 can give you a smooth uh s sound or not
16:22 and this amplifier usually does that
16:24 correctly but in this particular case
16:28 it's on a verge of getting it to into
16:33 dry territory. Uh okay so here those
16:37 sounds are not cibiland so AO10 does not
16:40 cross that fine line. Uh, all in all, I
16:42 really like the vocals here uh for the
16:46 clarity and neutrality. And as usual
16:48 with class D, adding a tube
16:50 pre-amplifier gave extremely good
16:54 mid-range. Uh, I loved as and so it goes
16:58 by Jennifer Wars uh with this small guy.
17:00 Uh, moving on to treble. Uh, and that's
17:02 a highlight. I really like the treble
17:05 that AO10 delivers. Uh, it's exactly my
17:08 type of treble. It's extended, it's
17:10 airy, it's super clean, and it's super
17:14 detailed, but not in an analytical way.
17:16 Treble here has the clarity that many
17:19 way more expensive amps amps struggle to
17:21 deliver. So, this is a real highlight.
17:24 Uh, another highlight is resolution. Uh,
17:26 the resolution this guy is able to
17:29 provide really stands out. Uh, I've
17:31 started my serious listening sessions
17:34 when I'm taking notes with Keon Go.
17:36 That's classic. uh and I was totally
17:38 surprised by the amount of the things
17:40 from the audience, the ambient sounds
17:44 that I was able to hear. And uh the same
17:47 was uh happening for the strings for the
17:50 guitar strings in this uh song. Uh their
17:52 vibrating sounds uh were separate if you
17:55 know what I mean, not blending into one
17:58 single sound. So that area is really
18:00 really good and that's quite surprising
18:03 because TPA 5116
18:07 uh is uh it may be not exactly old but
18:10 it does have a few years right now and
18:13 that's why I started my review saying
18:16 that this seems to be someone's side
18:18 project. Someone really had to love that
18:22 chip uh and tried to squeeze everything
18:23 that's possible from this Texas
18:25 Instruments integrated class D
18:28 amplifier. Now sound stage and imaging.
18:31 The stage is quite wide and you quickly
18:34 lose the position of the speakers. There
18:36 is some depth information. There is some
18:38 layering and some things get projected
18:41 in front of the speaker line and some of
18:43 them are projected behind the speaker
18:46 line. Uh but all in all it's a typical
18:49 class D sound stage. It is precise but
18:52 it's not super deep. Everything is
18:55 happening very close one layer to another.
18:56 another.
18:59 uh the interestingly the images have
19:02 quite precise location but they have
19:05 slightly fuzzy boundaries. So if you
19:07 have a singer in the front in the center
19:10 of the stage, if you have a guitar, if
19:13 you have a percussion on the on the
19:16 sides, uh you will be able to pinpoint
19:19 the locations of those instruments and
19:24 the vocal. But uh if you try to look for
19:28 the uh boundaries of those uh sound
19:31 sources uh you realize that they are
19:34 slightly fuzzy that you cannot exactly
19:38 pinpoint uh where let's say the vocalist
19:43 ends and starts. So there's that. Uh
19:45 they are not etched like with some other
19:49 class D amplifiers and uh I actually
19:53 like that uh I would like them to be a
19:56 little bit more precise but not edged
20:01 like a single sharp line. Uh now
20:04 uh before I get to the summary uh a
20:08 couple of uh things. Uh the first one,
20:11 the volume control. Let's turn this guy
20:14 on. The volume control [snorts] seems to
20:19 be linear. Uh this means that in order
20:23 to achieve quite a large volume change,
20:26 we need to wait for quite a long time.
20:28 And also another thing connected with
20:31 the volume control is that it just takes
20:34 time. Usually, if you want to quickly
20:37 raise or lower the volume, you will just
20:39 uh keep the volume uh control button
20:43 pressed, right? So, let's try that here.
20:46 Let's press the button.
20:48 And it's not super fast. I can actually
20:52 do that faster by clicking uh on the
20:54 button myself. And let's lower that
20:58 down. Uh and uh there's two things. Uh
21:00 the first one that see it seems to be
21:03 linear and the second one that uh it uh
21:07 the clicks are so slow uh it just takes
21:11 quite a lot of time to raise or lower
21:14 the volume. Uh on the positive side it's
21:16 also allowing you to precisely set the
21:20 volume. But then again, uh more often uh
21:24 I was uh wanting to lower the volume uh
21:26 in a very quick way when someone from
21:28 the house was shouting to me something
21:30 and I wanted to hear what's all that
21:35 about. Okay, so uh A10 reminded me
21:40 reminded me why I liked so much TPA 3116
21:42 based amplifiers back a few years ago.
21:44 uh they deliver tons of clarity
21:47 resolution in a very transparent and
21:50 open way. I actually didn't like the
21:54 first TPA 5255 uh amplifiers. The first
21:58 well-known was A07 from Aima that got
22:02 glowing reviews especially on ISR and I
22:04 got one uh I read the review. I've read
22:07 the measurements. I got one and I've
22:09 realized uh that even after changing the
22:11 operational amplifiers, it was quite
22:14 muddy and it was quite slow. So I got
22:19 back to uh Breeze DPA 5116based
22:22 amplifier. And that guy brings all of
22:25 those good memories back because it has
22:27 very good resolution, very good
22:30 transparency and clarity.
22:32 So [clears throat] getting back to my
22:37 summary, uh amplifiers based on TPA 5116
22:39 are not as popular right now, but they
22:41 are still a great choice when it comes
22:43 to performance. They sound really good.
22:47 I would even dare to say that I like
22:51 5116 more than TPA 5255
22:56 and that uh they are more affordable the
22:59 amplifiers based on uh the older chip.
23:02 uh but they are not as powerful. Uh
23:04 that's uh one single biggest difference.
23:07 Uh TPA 5255
23:10 uh is able to deliver staggering amounts
23:13 of power when powered properly and
23:15 that's why uh usually have those
23:18 separate power bricks uh that are 48
23:22 volts uh 36 volts uh some of them are
23:25 able to deliver 10 ampers. So those are
23:28 monsters. And uh one more thing that I
23:29 probably should mention when I was
23:32 talking about the price uh if you look
23:35 on AliExpress for um power supplies like
23:39 that, you'll realize that the 48 volts
23:43 and 10 ampers uh power supply can be
23:46 actually more expensive than this
23:49 amplifier as it is including the
23:52 internal power supply. So that's an
23:54 interesting comparison. Uh for the price
23:57 of the power supply alone, you can get a
23:59 complete power, you can get a complete
24:02 amplifier with power supply with remote
24:05 control, etc., etc. So uh three things
24:08 that I liked about this amplifier and
24:10 three things that I disliked. Uh the
24:12 three things I like. The first one, the
24:15 base, it's fabulous. It's clean and it's
24:18 fitting easily the whole room. And the
24:21 second one, the resolution. A10 AO10
24:24 went with flying colors for all of my
24:25 test tracks. When it comes to the
24:28 resolution and the third one, clarity
24:31 and transparency. Uh these are not that
24:35 common even with priceive amplifiers.
24:37 It's not easy to get that sense of of
24:40 effortless presentation.
24:43 And uh three things actually two of them
24:47 uh that I would wish uh were better. The
24:51 first one, uh, volume remote control is
24:53 just too slow. I think I don't have to
24:56 dwell on that. You just, uh, need to
24:59 experience that on your own. Uh, the
25:01 second thing, depth of the sound stage.
25:04 I wish the stage would be deeper, but I
25:06 realized that this area is very hard to
25:09 get right, even with amplifiers that are
25:12 many times the price. And uh Dclass had
25:15 always struggle struggled sorry
25:18 struggled with the depth of the sound
25:22 stage and this guy is not a different
25:26 beast. Uh so that's what you're getting
25:30 for the money. Uh and as I've said no
25:32 third point on the list I was trying but
25:34 I really couldn't think of anything
25:36 else. Uh with that in mind, I really do
25:39 like this amplifier and it will stay a
25:42 part of my collection. Uh for the sheer
25:46 value it provides, uh it's just $99 and
25:48 that's the base price. Uh any kind of
25:50 sale, any kind of sale coupons will
25:54 lower that. Uh and uh I think I would
25:58 need to spend twice as much uh to get
26:00 something that sounds significantly
26:03 better. So, this guy gets my honest
26:05 recommendation. And thanks for watching,
26:07 guys. And have a great day. If you have
26:09 any questions, give me a shout in the
26:12 comments. All of the necessary links in
26:14 the comments. All of my test system
26:18 setup details in the video description.
