List Price: $449.99
Sale Price: $399.99
Today's Bonus: 11% Off
Final update, 18 months after purchase: I just gotta pop back in and say, this amp is an amazing deal now. They slapped an off-the-shelf class-D amp module into a plastic box, along with presumably compotent but mediocre components, and deliver audiophile sound on a beer budget. The price seems to have stabilized, at least for the silver unit, at way under four hundred bucks (I paid much more when it first came out).I've recently auditioned some really amazing speakers with it, and the Teac did the speakers proud.
One issue much discussed with Class-D amps is the potential for under-powering speakers, which could theoretically burn them out by delivering clipped square waves from the little amp if pushed too far. In real-life, it's not an issue unless you enjoy shaking the floor/windows. The Teac's 22wpc into 8 ohms seems small, but I put a sound pressure level meter on myself and it turns out my comfortable cranked-up listening level, about 10 feet from the speakers, is about 80-82dB. Doing all the math, FWIW, that translates on my speakers to less than 2 watts of juice, plus more than enough dynamic headroom to very safely avoid clipping. The manual says speakers should be 87dB or higher, which I agree with in that you can get to pretty extreme loudness (93 dB or so) 10 feet from the speakers in a typically-furnished room without potentially clipping the amp: lower the volume to a level where you can talk over it to someone right beside you without raising your voice, and even below-average sensitivity speakers will be far from pushing the envelope.
For a medium-sized room, 87dB (e.g., average) sensitivity speakers provides loudness that's enough to bring out the recording's definition and scare your significant other and animals out of the room, the Teac gives you what you need without any eye candy or audiophile snake oil. Bel Canto used to put the same amp module into a fifteen-hundred-dollar amp. ----
Original review:
The Teac A-H01 is a very good piece of consumer (borderline audiophile) electronics. It will shock and delight anyone accustomed to all-in-one receivers, and will satisfy the T-amp crowd. Its chips are all top-tier, from what I can gather on the InterPoop, as described below.
Amplification: B&O Icepower 50aSX2 (their "ground floor" unit), which compares favorably with Tripath chips. Various reviews suggest that this module is bassier than the Tripath and supposedly a little less detailed. But my ears hear a more pronounced mid-range (it seemed almost "in your face" at first, actually) and, as a result, perhaps slightly more imaging and mid-range detail. My point of comparison is a Virtue One.2 from Virtue Audio. The Teac's B&O chip delivers 43wpc/22wpc (4ohms/8ohms), rms power (60/30 peak power). This is ample power for driving my 88dB sensitivity Boston Acoustics A40s from 1986 as well as my Axiom M2v2s (90dB sensitivity). For the speakers listed above, I've never turned the volume dial beyond 11:00 for room-filling joyful noise (usually 9:00ish, in fact). No need to talk about "desktop amp" etc. The King Rex T20U (a tripath-based amp equivalent to most of the Topping amps) struggled with my speakers by comparison. The power output is double or more that of the Nuforce Icon, AudioEngine N22, or King Rex T20U. While this does not translate into "twice as loud" (twice as loud=+10dB subjectively, while twice the power=+3dB), you might expect 3:00 to become 11:00 on the dial if you're running one of the lower-power amps mentioned. I found that this made a difference for me: on the Tripath amps, I have the volume way over to 3:00 sometimes and begin to worry about clipping the amp/under-powering the speakers. I've definitely pegged the volume knob watching movies on a 15wpc amp (7.5wpc into 8 ohms, remember), which can't be good. Teac=no worries.
USB: Tenor 8802, a 24/192 chip that was also used in the Firestone ILTW DAC (little info available on other units that may use it, but the forums like this chip). Note that because this is a Class-2 audio device, it requires special Windows drivers...because Microsoft won't take the time to build in native support even though Linux and Mac OS do. After half an hour fruitlessly searching for a non-existent USB cable or driver disc in the box, plus getting nowhere on all the Teac English-language Web sites, I finally RTFM'ed a while and found on p. 12 the Japan site for downloading the driver. It's a third-party authored driver, so don't expect a lot of support. But it installed without a hitch, is simply a driver (no silly control panels, etc.), and seems stable so far. Sometimes, I've had to power-cycle the amp, though, if I start and stop playback rapidly several times. Also, WASAPI is very unstable and I don't use it as a result. I have no special comments on the USB section, except that it seems fine and doesn't compromise the music. My point of comparison is the 24/192 AKM chip in the E-MU 0404USB, and it seems to perform just as well. The Teac now functions happily on my powered USB hub with other devices not in use simultaneously. Finally, for a brief time, I had problems with USB stuttering and blamed the driver. However, I found that I had to adjust my somewhat old laptop's power plan so that the CPU runs at 100% for problem-free USB playback (Atom-based netbooks, etc., are a no-go, while my I5 1.8GHz laptop laughs at the idea of upping its clockspeed just for this).
A note on MP3s: My new music is all lossless, but high-quality MP3s seem to sound particularly well-defined on this amp. I'm pretty sure it's because the output is being upsampled, which gives a sort of illusion of more space around instruments--a flashy effect, but not a big deal after long-term listening. If you have questioned whether you can hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 versus FLAC, though, the difference in the soundstage will be immediately apparent to you. MP3s sound good, but lossless is a significant step up and what makes the investment worthwhile.
D/A conversion: Bur-Brown 5102, a well-regarded 32/192 chip, though not the theoretical best out there. SP/DIF signals are all upsampled to 32/192 before D/A conversion. The up-sampling, like the asynchronous mode that handles digital signal timing onboard the USB chip rather than letting the computer do it, may be a strategy for controlling jitter. If I understand the technology correctly, the USB chip also delivers its output to the 5102 for upsampling. Opinions on the sonic merits of both upsampling and asynchronous USB vary, and some say it's just innovation for the sake of marketing (I'm beginning to agree with this). Finally, the digital inputs are obviously fine, too: cabling matters here, esp. with optical, and mine are mediocre (USB sounds both louder and more spatious in my case than optical from the PC).
Headphone amp: Very musical, but not the most sharply detailed I've ever heard. I'm listening through Grado SR-225i (32 ohm). That's not a bad thing, because my point of comparison here is pro gear that can sound clinical. The headphone amp on the Teac sounds a bit "analog," but has great imaging: depth, layering, width, everything else good. Wonderfully revealing. I definitely don't feel like I'm missing anything in the recording. One note is that I was surprised to need to turn the volume dial up to 11:00 to get a good volume on a recording that only required 9:00 through the speakers. AKG or Senheizer fans may need a headphone amp, but--and this is a real shortcoming--there's no pre-out other than the subwoofer. On a very quietly-mastered recording, I've actually turned the volume knob all the way up on headphones, despite my Grados being very easy to drive. So this could have been done a bit better.
Listening experiences: I'm only commenting here on using the USB as source and playing through the Axiom M2 bookshelf speakers plus Klipsch Reference 8" sub. The sound is sharp, involving, weighty, with a good stereo image. It destroys the King Rex amp and is neck-and-neck with the beloved Virtue One.2, with the Teac delivering more upper mids. The Teac handles transients remarkably well and loves acoustic instruments and vocals, which can often sound cold on solid state amps and digital sources. Although both my A40s and M2v2s won plenty of awards for their price class, they're "budget audiophile" speakers and in some ways I feel that they're a bottle neck. Within the limits of my speakers, then, I find the Teac to be plenty detailed on audiophile jazz/orchestral/rock recordings, including lots of MFSL discs, 24-bit commercial releases, and 24-bit needle drops of some 180G vinyl, which sounded splendid despite surface noise and tape hiss being accentuated by the pronounced high end frequencies. Frankly, after a few hours of totally-enthralled listening I felt like I'd installed a window, not a component, which is precisely as it should be. I would never call this amp "laid back" as reviewers often label the Tripath-based class-D amps. The Icepower module has a solid-state sound, but not brittle or cold. Still, I have a hunch that someone who has really invested in speakers might encounter its limitations, if shortcuts in the build quality noted below indicate similar treatment inside the box in terms of capacitors or other components [update: nope. Connected thousand-dollar speakers and...wow. Stunning. But hey, amps amplify: they aren't the parts that really color the sound if they're compotent, which this one is]. Another possible outcome will be that discerning listeners will hear the upper frequencies as over-pronounced, much as I reported in headphone listening; the Axioms likewise have a lot in the mid-range, but it's warm and smooth and might be coordinating well with the Teac. I look forward to hearing other reviews on this point [update: several critics of the Icepower amps do indeed point to this as a shortcoming, but not me].
Build quality: Here's where mass-market production is apparent. Aside from the light-weight side panels and front aluminum panel, which has holes etched in it where the buttons and headphone jack poke through, the Teac is a good-quality plastic box vented on top. Solid, but I've grown accustomed to the over-built thick metal chassis of my other class-D amplifiers. The binding posts are fine but likewise plasticky on the outside. On the other hand, the buttons have a nice amount of travel and a solid "snick" when pressed. The power supply is integrated into the unit, so it comes with a standard 3-prong power cord (No power supply tweaking, then). I would have preferred the power supply to be away from the chips.
The front panel gives you power on/off, a source roter button, LED light, and volume knob. The volume knob operates smoothly and without introducing noise (it is motorized, so the remote control physically turns the volume knob). Note that there is no cross-over control for the subwoofer, so both your speakers and sub will operate at their full range.
The remote is plastic but surprisingly solid, with little membrane buttons very similar to the Bose WaveRadio's remote. Most of the buttons are geared toward other components in the H01 series (CD player, I-dock, media streamer) which I suspect we'll never see in the U.S. Teac's Reference Series has historically had limited distribution here, and it's hard to see consumers springing for the other H01 components when so many less-expensive options are available.
FM issue: T-amp fans may have experience with their amps obliterating FM radio signals within several feet of the amps. Happily, the B&O chip, or at least this implementation of it, doesn't have the issue, so you can connect a tuner to it. The manual does warn of potential EMI on your TV screen, but this is probably just the typical electronic device disclaimer.
In short, it's a solid little amp that belies its price point and has great flexibility. Competitors worth careful scrutiny include PeachTree, Emotiva, AudioEngine, Cambridge, Topping, and a few others (Qinpu A-6000 for tubes, definitely, and the new Nuforce DDA-100), but the Teac still seems unique for the feature set and price combination, as well as having what I consider the better-than-Tripath Icepower amp module.
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