I'm building up a budget HiFi setup and I've spent a fair bit of effort trying to find the best budget integrated amps on the market right now. I was a complete noob one week ago and while this subreddit has been amazing, I'm still a bit lost in all the info. As far as I can tell, the main budget Chinese amps with competitive audiophile sound quality (for the price) are: Loxjie A30, Topping MX3, SMSL AD18, and SMSL SA300. The Loxjie D30 arrives in a standard cardboard box with foam inserts to protect the contents from damage during storage and transport. Once you've mounted the BT antenna, the remaining set-up is easy-peasy. My other devices occupy all the existing connections, RCA analogue (CD Player by Brennan), and Toslink (LG BR Player and Wiim Mini streamer, so I'm using a Toslink splitter).

The DA-9 seems to get distorted at 50 watts... maybe the graphic is for 8 ohms? Certainly it would have quite a bit more room to "breathe" Your speakers are the voice or instrument, an amplifier is a relatively dumb device in that it only has one task which is to Amplify the input signal. Speakers are obviously going to make a huge difference because they are what is actually making the sound. edited) my focusrite usb interface seems to have a decent amount of hiss, so it overtakes the amp hiss at a volume of 31 (of 70), but this is still plenty. With an option for Bluetooth connection, the A30 makes for a comprehensive solution as an integrated amplifier.The volume goes up to 70, which starts to hiss at 61+ or so, but even running it at "37" on 4 ohms speakers at a distance of ~3 meters already filled the living room with unconfortably loud sound (while hissing already disappearing between a distance of 20-25 cm - so no problem just controlling the volume on the computer) the Loxjie A30 reconciles with the idea of ​​an all-in-one device and surely establishes itself as the reference in this price range and may even overcome some higher-end competitors as its services are homogeneous and straight to the point. Having a full-color IPS display on the front fascia of the device allows the D30 to display most of the pertinent information while the DAC is on. The default display shows the input, output, volume, file type, and sampling rate currently being decoded by the DAC.

A 20 year old amplifier is a totally different design from modern amplifiers that are Class-D. They have capacitors. One of the worlds most famous higher quality electrolytic capacitors state that all of their electrolytics have a lifespan of 10 years since the date of production. They break-down chemically over time. These days, I’ve come to associate the Loxjie brand with products that have plenty of features at a very competitive price point. Recently, we’ve had the privilege to take a closer look at their D30, which we found to be a versatile compact desktop DAC/Amp with sensible features that make it a great desktop control center. The first pair of speakers I'll be test-hearing are the Nubox 383, but I'd be happy about speaker suggestions around 350-500€ (max 600 if they are a real "killer" value).... Dynaudio Emir M10 (570€) ?

Subwoofer output

Built as an integrated amplifier, the A30 has speaker outputs at the rear. Despite having 5-way binding posts, the more crowded arrangement of the speaker terminals will make using bare wires very difficult. So I suggest having at least spades or banana plugs to make termination less cumbersome. Convenient, the Loxjie A30 allows you to receive your audio files remotely, in Bluetooth, directly from your smartphone. The Bluetooth 5.0 standard combined with the aptX protocol allows for a stable and high quality transmission. EQ Mode When it comes to creating a soundstage, the internal DAC creates a generally expansive soundscape. However, when it comes to creating layers within the soundstage, the layers end up a bit more compressed particularly when compared to stand-alone DACs such as the A30’s stablemate the Loxjie D30. Bluetooth Performance