 The Aversolo Master Edition DMP-A6 is a network player and DAC that can function as a digital preamp and even as a NAS. The large LCD screen shows a great looking user interface or a set of modulation meters. Aversolo offers a standard version of the DMP-A6. A review here is the Master Edition, that is an upgraded version with a better clock oscillators and op-amps. It can be identified by the gold shield here. But before we dive in, let's first see where it finds its place in the stereo. To keep things simple, from here on I will call the Master Edition DMP-A6 the Aversolo. By the way, according to the manufacturer the standard version functions identical and differs only in sound quality. Since it is a network player, it needs to be connected to the router in your network over either a network cable or Wi-Fi. This way you can play music from internet radio stations and streaming services like Tidal, Coboos, Amazon Music, Spotify Music and the like. If a computer or NAS is connected to the network too and holds music, that music can be played too. The analog outputs of the Aversolo will normally be connected to an amplifier over either RCA or XLR cables. The amplifier in turn is connected to a pair of loudspeakers. The Aversolo can be operated from the touchscreen on the front or from a tablet or smartphone using the Aversolo app on iOS or Android. Since it can be used as a digital to analog converter and a digital preamp, you can use a power amp instead of an integrated amp or active loudspeakers connected directly. Volume is then controlled on the Aversolo. You can also connect a computer directly over USB-C, connect a CD player over speed-if and a TV over toss link. That way you can use the audio qualities of the Aversolo with these devices too. The cabinet is made of black anodized aluminium and measures 270 by 187 by 90 mm and weighs 2.5 kilos. On the photo here one of the four types of meters, the peak meters, that can be switched on. On the front we see a large volume control that when pressed functions as a standby button. The six inch full color LCD touchscreen shows, depending on the function you are in, the controls, the music playing or the metering shown earlier. The master edition badge shows you it's the upgraded version. The rear is far more crowded with on the left the power switch and the IEC mains inlet, then the network connection and the HDMI audio only output. There are two USB sockets, one for connecting the DAC to for if you want to further upgrade and one for a storage medium or when changing a setting in the software for connecting a computer so you can copy files to the Aversolo directly. Then the digital input for if you want to use the Aversolo as a DAC, optical on toss link, SPDIF on RCA and USB audio class 2 on USB-C. A USB-A to B cable comes with the unit but a USB-A to C cable for this input has to be bought separately. Then the outputs, starting with the digital ones, the optical on toss link and SPDIF on RCA. The analog outputs come as balanced on XLR connectors and single ended on RCA. Finally there are two Wi-Fi antennas and one Bluetooth antenna. On the bottom an M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD up to 4 TB can be added by opening this cover. This way your own music can be stored internally while the Aversolo now can function as a NAS as well. On the left side on the right the power supply is located. First there is the mains filter followed by the switch mode power supply branded Aversolo ultra low noise power supply. The middle section holds the digital electronics. It is physically separated from the power supply circuit board. This part does the digital inputs and outputs plus the FN-Link Wi-Fi module and the Qualcomm Bluetooth 5 module that support SBC, AAC, ATPX, ATPXLL, ATPXHD and LDAC High Definition Transmission Codecs. An audio processor chip does the MQA decoding and rendering while a third generation XMOS XU316 does the USB interfacing. Below this cooling profile I assume this piggyback circuit board holds the streaming engine. It runs on a quad core ARM Cortex A55 processor that works with 4 GB DDR RAM and 32 GB of EMMC system disk. The AccuSilicon femtosecond clock oscillators are one of the upgrades from the standard model. The analog section is on the same circuit board but is galvanically separated from the digital section. This is the circuitry around the two ES9038Q2M DAC chips, one per channel. The balanced outputs are kept balanced using the ultra-low-noise OPA1612 op-amps, another upgrade from the standard model that uses OPA1642s. The balanced signal is sent to the XLRs directly and via another op-amp to the single-ended outputs. In general I am very reluctant to show measurements since they can sometimes show why a design sounds poor but never why it sounds very good. This is the case here too but since the measurements are remarkably good, given the price of the ever solo, I'll show them anyway. Let's start with the total harmonic distortion and noise measurement, that is at least 60 beats lower than I see normally in this class. The other harmonics are dominant but the highest one at 3 kHz still is very low at minus 120 dB under the maximum output of 2.55 volts. Then the linearity. This measures if a given level in the digital domain is produced at the same level on the analog outputs. So if a minus 70 dBFS signal in the digital domain produces a signal 70 dBs below the 2.5 volts output it produces as a maximum. Up till now I normally measured down to minus 130 dBs. For the ever solo I changed that to minus 150 dBs. The green line shows the digital versus analog signal level on the left scale. The red line, the deviation from the optimum on the right scale. If you look up minus 130 dBs on the bottom scale and look at the red line above it, you will see that the deviation is clearly within 1 dB. Since the ES903A DAC chips are low bit converters it means that the jitter at the DAC must be very low. Furthermore it shows that the ever solo has a very clean design with good control of noise and electromagnetic fields. When we look at the intermodulation distortion versus amplitude according to CCIF we see again very good results. Still the ears must decide how well the sound quality is. But let's first see how the ever solo is in use. The ever solo runs on a modified version of Android 11, the operating system normally used for smartphones and tablets. What's seen on the touch screen on the front is a skin running on a basic version of Android. Along the top row it shows a status bar. Here input output connections, network status, storage device, volume and currently playing song are shown. The icons in the center of the screen show several functions while on the right transport buttons, a home button and a return button are situated. Along the right side of the screen we see the volume slider. The music player lets you select music. You can browse on tracks, artists, albums, genres and go to playlists. Let's go for artists. If you want you can go for list view for faster scrolling. Searching for the artist is even faster. Let's do Pink Floyd. As you can see the keyboard doesn't disappear after search, we have to tap the return key right of it to get it off the screen. Let's select the wall and you can see it's a 96 kHz 24 bit flag file. If you like you can select the on-screen metering here. There is a selection of four different ones but the purist in me has to protest against the name VU meter. None of the four have ballistics of a VU meter, they all behave as peak meters. Above that the so called VU meters have next to VU also DB as unit of measure and that's incorrect too. It should be VU only. Nitpicking I agree and of course of no consequence to you. The relevance of the meters in this device can only be of entertainment value but nevertheless. Back to the review. The music you have seen up till now was on the external SSD drive, a 2 TB Samsung T7. But you could alternatively mount an M.2 SSD in the bottom of the ever solo and it then works even faster. The M.2 SSDs are available up to 4 TB and cost around €200. Don't buy the fastest one, the slowest one is already fast enough. Let's go back to the main menu. The streaming menu gives access to the streaming services. Tidal, Corbus and Hi-Res audio show up first but others show up when scrolling down, including apps for internet radio. Further down we see music cloud drivers and at the bottom instructions on how to connect to several services. Files let you access storage on the ever solo, external storage and network storage. Let's see how to access music on my Synology server. It's simply tapping on SMB since I used the Samba protocol, tap the SYN8 to select the NAS, then the music volume and select music to play. In the DSD folder I select 10cc, select the album and tap on I'm not in love. It starts playing right away while showing file details. Source is used to select input and output. Along the top row the inputs, below it the outputs. Remarkable is that only one output can be used at the same time with the exception of the analogue outputs that can be used simultaneously. Not really a problem but worth noting. Options open a menu where you can add, delete or reset apps. For instance if you don't choose Apple Music you can easily remove it by holding it instead of tapping. If you tap you open the app. The settings menu in the option Audio XLR RCA output you can choose from 7 different reconstruction filters. The differences in sound quality are minute although on the scope they look drastically different. For the listening test I chose slow roll-off linear but more for a theoretical argument or short ringing than for sound reasons. Pun intended. In the same menu you can also set the start-up volume for when you have a power amp or active speakers connected. Also the volume steps can be set between 0.5 to 3 dBs. I skip the display and network menus for they are obvious. In general you can set the language and the options are fast. There are even multiple English versions like Canadian, Australian, Indian, US, XC whatever that may be and English English. Many other world languages are present, even Dutch, Netherlands in Dutch. The other settings are self-explanatory. For reasons I don't understand you can leave this user interface or skin if you like and use a simpler one as seen here. It gives the same options in every menu for as far as I can see. This option is not available in the user interface on the touch screen. Cast brings you to the normal user interface. The FSolo supports all current file formats up to PCM76832 bit, MQA768 and DSD256 as a streamer and over USB. Soslink and SPDIF are by standard limited to 192 kHz 24 bit. Over the network it supports DLLA, SMB, NSF and is Roon Ready. Apps are available for Android and iOS. The FSolo was listened to in my setup 2A where it was connected to my network over the Optone Audio Ether-Region switch with Optone Audio UltraCaps 1.2 power supply. From there a fiber connection to Netgear ProSafe GS104 TPP switch on the 3rd floor. See about my reference setups May 2023 for more information. Links at the usual places. The analog outputs are connected to the Miran's PMKI Perl light amplifier over Siltek London RCA cables. It drives the acoustic energy radiance 1 loudspeaker connected over Kimber 4PR loudspeaker cable and supported by the REL T5 subwoofer that is connected to the loudspeaker terminals on the Miran's using the cable that came with the sub. An iPad Pro running the FSolo and Roon apps was used to control the FSolo. This is a very good sounding network player and DAC. Taking its price in consideration there is a wide and deep stereo image. Resolution in the mids and highs are rather good. The lows stay slightly behind but are typical for this class. Sibilance is rather well controlled. The sound character is towards the bright side without being sharp or nasty. Perhaps that is why we saw odd harmonics being dominant in the THD plus end measurement. I connected the Denafrips Aries 2 DAC to the SPDIF output and compared it to the DAC and the FSolo. The Aries is less bright and less open in the mids and highs and has slightly better defined lows. Overall, although having a different sound character, I judge him as equal. The user interface has a very short learning curve. In the app you might be confused by the two versions of UI but as soon as you ignore the lower level one, it's all very easy. Use the setup wizard and all the setup quickly. It's quite a looker with its nice 6 inch touchscreen. But most of all it's very good sounding given its price. About the same as the Denafrips, meaning that the 1299 euro streamer DAC and preamp sounds about the same as the 1115 euro DAC only that was my reference in this price category up till now. This brings me to the end of this video. As usual there will be a new video next Friday at 5pm central european time. If you don't have missed that, subscribe to my channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. 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