Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Audiophile Sound On A Budget – TA-10R Headphone Amp”.
What’S up tech fans, if you’re someone who just really isn’t happy with their onboard sound on their computer or you’re, just looking for a great external, sound card or you’re somebody who has just a lot of audio equipment you’d like a great headphone amp? Well then, that’s the product we’re going to be looking at today, the ta10r. Now this is an x-mas usb tube headphone amp deck everything all in one. It has a lot of features. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using like entry-level gaming, headphones all the way up to audiophile headphones. This sucker will support it. It supports headphones all the way from eight up to 600 ohms, and it can be connected to just about anything the fact that it can be usb and be hooked up to any computer, whether it be a mac or a pc, makes it a great thing for Not only a headphone app but for an external sound card as well. So let’s jump right in and let’s check out what exactly is the ta 10r? Are you building a new computer or just upgrading an old one? If so, then chances are, you need a new windows, 10 key and cd key sales.
They’Ve got you covered. Buying has never been easier and prices for windows keys are under 20 dollars and there’s even additional discounts. All you need to do is go search for the software that you’re looking for. Add that software, to your cart, create an account and when you go to checkout, enter the code tt 18 to get an additional 20 off. Now, let’s frag, some all codes are guaranteed and you’ll be up and gaming in no time so, as soon as i received the package, it was completely well packed. Everything was in there very, very well padded, so that, no matter what kind of rugged shipping it got coming from here, you know coming to here from asia absolutely no way the product would get destroyed unless somebody dropped a truck on it.
It is absolutely very well built um, you don’t need drivers or anything like that. If you’re going to use it as a usb connection, it simply plugs in, but inside the box you get the unit, you get the power cable, you get the user’s manual, you get. The warranty card you get a little cover that covers up the tube that way in case the tube gets really hot. You don’t burn your hand on it and that’s pretty much it um.
This thing has a whole lot of features and some of the units that feature these same type of features are actually hundreds of dollars. More, like i said before, the ta10r is a very versatile piece of audio equipment and, although it’s touted as a headphone amplifier, it can be used for additional purposes, including your new awesome sounding external sound card. The feature set is also quite nice here as well, boasting an xmos xu 208 receiver chip. The ta10r supports up to pcm 32-bit 384 kilohertz via the usb connection and 16 24 bit 192 kilohertz to the coaxial or optical inputs.
The signal-to-noise ratio is 118 db and the total harmonic distortion is zero. 0.01 percent. The power output is up to 200 mil watts, and this is with the 32 ohm load. The internal dac chip is a high-end ak-4493 eq from akm akm is a very popular chip maker in the audio field and they’re, also in many audio products.
Globally, the ta10r utilizes the double active low noise crystal oscillator to achieve accurate digital to conversion across different sampling rates using cpld for data reshaping. This helps realize accurate clock, synchronization and reduced jitter. The capacitors on the ta10r are also very high end using japanese elna silmak2 capacitors known to produce a clean natural audio signal, as well as the famous nichikon fw capacitors, as the main filter caps for a smooth and warm sound. Now one thing that you’re going to notice that’s a little bit different about this particular product is like many of the guitar effects, pedals and processing pedals that are used in you know the musical world. This thing actually has a tube in it as well. So that’s right! So not only do you get the other components that are all in this unit that are high-end and meant, for you know audio file reproduction.
You also get a nice tube in it as well, now the tube. What it does is it’s like having like an old school like am so like many of the vocal processors that i use in the studio all have a little tube, almost exactly the same as as that, and that’s to warm up my vocals in the studio. So this tube acts in the exact same function on this particular unit. It actually warms up the sound and just gives it a more natural. You know people throw around the word warm natural, i guess you know warm and natural to me means that it actually sounds real.
It doesn’t sound tinny, it doesn’t sound mechanical. You can hear everything in the spectrum of the audio. You can hear the bass. You can hear the treble, you can hear the mid-range, and this can all be done without having to require you know you using another equalizer to equalize everything else to make the sound. Now, before i go any further, i tested this particular unit with a few different headsets. I tested it with the ultra zones i tested with my audio technicas. I borrowed a pair of bayer dynamics. Those actually are expensive, but they sounded the best because they have the highest ohms, and i also tested some sonys that i have that i use in my recording studio. Now.
All of these headphones sounded really really nice. The bayer dynamics, however they’re a super duper high. Ohm headphone and the clarity on those is nice. Only thing is, i don’t have you know eleven hundred dollars lying around right at the bibles, instead of headphones all the headphones that i particularly tried were all in the sub 500 category now operating the unit is very simple from the front.
Are all the controls and there’s really not much to it? You have a volume knob, you have your headphone out jack and you have a balanced out jack. Now the balanced out jack can either go into different types of headphones or it could go into like audio equipment. Like say, you know, if you were like you know, at band practice or something, and you wanted to run the unit in and play some some music through your equipment. You could use that as well now, on the rear of the unit, it’s pretty fleshed out.
You have the power and the power on button. Obviously you have optical in you have spidifen, you have optical out, you have usb in, and you also have rca in and out so pretty much any type of equipment that you’re going to have at your house for audio equipment should be able to hook up into This and like i said, if you’re using it, you know with your computer and you’re a person who streams a lot of music. You should probably get a really high-end music service if you want to take full advantage of this obviously, but that will actually give you the best transfer rates of all now me personally, i’m not using it that way, i’m using it with my cambridge audio with my Transport and i’m just running my transport in through the spitif, cable and everything sounds really really nice. It’S a very well balanced out. Sound! That’S coming through the price on this is sub 400. There’S a lot of different audio products that are out there. The things in particular to probably really look at with this, though, are the internal components and the two um akm they’re known for their velvet sound. This is actually what came in the last audio equipment that that i reviewed – and this has a very similar chip, so it saved these words again, but it’s supposed to be one of the most natural.
You know ways to recreate your sound spectrum. It’S not going to sound metally, it’s not going to sound phony, it’s going to be trying to sound as live and as accurate as it possibly can. I personally think that for the price range you get quite a lot here and it’s very very well made. I still have it sitting here at my feet right here, but i mean this thing i mean i hate to you know, beat up a a crazy word, but it’s built like a freaking tank, and this is the thing i was talking about. This right here pulls out. This is right here.
You can also change this out. So if you’re somebody who you know you have some vintage old tube that you really would like to use um, you can use it, but you don’t want to use a really hot tube inside of here. You definitely don’t want to use. You know some of the hotter you know ones that they use on like guitar and stuff, like that.
It just won’t. Have that good of sound you want to, you know, use one, that’s a little lower powered so that it you know it isn’t so brusque. That’S the best way to put it this right here, just pops in right here and then you know you’re not going to get anything hurt. I mean i like the unit, i mean it’s simple, like i said here, the control you just got a simple push in button right here, which changes, two different functions and a scroll knob.
You know you’ve got your standard, headphone, jack and uh. If you your headphones, that you have do not have the quarter inch jack, it actually came in the box with an adapter it’ll plug right back into there or if you’re somebody like i said you know, you’ve got really super duper high headphones or want to hook. It up directly to your audio equipment. You can use that as well and i mean come on. I really don’t think there’s nothing on this uh back panel. That’S not covered everything’s covered.
The only other connection that it could have possibly had you know would have been. If it had nice xlr connections, but that would have pushed the price up and made it a lot bigger, it fits on the desk. It um it actually doesn’t get hot at all either and um. It does get really loud if you turn it up to full blast.
It is latin plus it’ll, go all the way from zero all the way up to a hundred from zero to a hundred yeah not like superman, though, like you know, 20 seconds, but you guys turn the top, but at the end of the day i have to Say that i’ve tried a lot of different audio equipment over the years, i’ve tried a lot of different headphone amps as well. I’Ve tried a lot of different ones. This is a very warm sounding unit and also when i did my testing, i did it a couple.
Different ways so on my desk i have a few different audio units. I also have my apollo, so what i did is through my tascam. I would listen to the headphones directly out of my tascam.
Then i would listen to it out of my main apollo and then i would listen to it out of this. Now to me, the apollo overall has like the biggest broadest soundscape of all. It just sounds really big, but compared to directly out of the tascam cd player it’s night and day using the ta10r. So if you’re a person out there you’re looking for something that can be, you know this thing is very easy to travel like i said it doesn’t need any driver, you just plug it in plug what you got to go in and you’re going. You could literally be on top of a mountain if you have a power source, hey you’re good, to go, and it sounds great. So if you’re looking for something under 400 can be an external sound card can be your dac, can be your headphone amp, very versatile.
Nice equipment i’ll have a link down below you guys, can check out more specs or check out more reviews around the web. This particular company, i know they’re kind of a newer company, but that’s the way a lot of the companies out there are like that. They oem stuff, like you wouldn’t even know this company can actually be making something for some giant company out there who you do know a lot of these companies that are over in china and taiwan, japan they all oem stuff out. So you know all that really matters is what’s inside how it’s built and, like i said it’s built very well, i’m eric you guys been watching tekka tomorrow.
I thank you guys for watching peace out. We’Ll see you guys back here on the channel. If you want to support the channel, hey, try amazon, prime for free, i have a link down below or if you’re looking for a new windows key make sure you use tt18 at checkout and save yourself some additional cash. All those codes are always guaranteed and no one’s ever had a problem. So we’ll see you guys back here for more tech on techa tomorrow, .