I waited long time for streamer like this... and it finally arrived - Eversolo DMP-A8 Master Gen2 review

*A lot more images and videos of this product in video review!

So, my first Eversolo review. It's not that I didn't have any chance to listen to the DMP-A6 Gen 2 and DMP-A8 Gen 1. It's that I listened to them much too late, so everyone already did reviews, and I honestly thought that my review would be one too many.

But then Eversolo announced the DMP-A8 Gen 2 Master Edition, with a fully functioning CD player. Me, a huge enthusiast for CD players, with the combined power and versatility of an Eversolo device, that... that is something I have to try and review. So that is exactly what I am doing.

Because the DMP-A8 Gen 2 Master Edition is not simple. It's a streamer, a DAC, a fully balanced preamplifier, a music server, a DSP room correction platform, and, for the first time in the DMP line, a proper CD player and ripper. In one box. For $2,580.

That's either the most complete digital front end money can buy at this price, or a Swiss Army knife with one blade too many. And we are here to find out.

I awarded this devices, as best product of Vienna High End 2026, see why:

https://www.hifidaydreaming.com/post/hifi-daydreaming-award-for-best-product-of-vienna-high-end-2026

Eversolos Experiment to Flagship Feature

But why is there a CD player atop an Eversolo streamer?

Rewind to late 2023. Eversolo, a young brand spun out of Zidoo's media player expertise, drops the original DMP-A8 at $1,980. On paper it read like a typo: AKM's flagship AK4191EQ plus AK4499EX DAC combination, a genuine relay-switched R-2R resistor ladder volume control, a fully balanced analog preamp stage, a toroidal linear power supply for the analog section with a separate switching supply for the digital side, and a touchscreen interface that made every legacy hi-fi brand's control app look like it was designed by the intern's cousin.

The thing sold like crazy. It became the reference point. "Is it better than the A8?" turned into the standard opening question for every streamer launch since. It dragged an entire industry into taking software seriously.

But Eversolo has a habit that cuts both ways: they never let a winner rest. The A10 flagship arrived. The A6 got a Gen 2. The Play brought the platform down to $699. And the original A8, the product that built the brand's reputation? Quietly discontinued. If you bought one eighteen months ago, I feel you. That's the price of following a company that iterates at consumer-electronics speed in an industry used to decade-long product cycles.

And then there was the experiment nobody took seriously enough.

In 2025, Eversolo released the Play CD Edition, a $799 all-in-one streaming amplifier with, of all things, a CD drive built in. Not audiophile jewelry. A Hitachi-LG computer-style CD-ROM mechanism, mounted in a vibration-damped chassis, with error correction algorithms handling scratched discs, able to play CDs directly or rip them to storage.

It looked like a quirky budget feature. In hindsight, it was a public beta test.

Because here's the pattern with this company: they trial an idea in one product, learn from it, then re-engineer it properly for the next tier up. The Play CD Edition proved that people genuinely wanted disc playback inside a streaming ecosystem, that ripping into a unified library was the killer feature rather than a gimmick, and presumably taught Eversolo everything they needed to know about the limitations of off-the-shelf computer drives.

The result of that homework is sitting in front of me. The A8 Gen 2 Master Edition doesn't use a computer drive. Eversolo says the top-loading CD system is a custom mechanism developed specifically for them, designed for audio playback and ripping duty. One thing to add, I do not know: is this a rebadged OEM mech or not...

From a $799 experiment to the centerpiece feature of the new flagship A8. That's the arc. And honestly? It's the most convincing product development story in hi-fi right now.

Ultimate Digital Playground

Build Quality

Is it just me, or did the original A8 always look slightly like a desktop product that wandered into a hi-fi rack?

The Gen 2 fixes that. The chassis has been redrawn wider and lower into a proper component footprint: 388mm wide, 265mm deep, and 98.5mm tall for the Master Edition, which stands about 10mm taller than the standard Gen 2 to make room for the disc mechanism. The case is machined aluminum, which Eversolo's marketing department insists on calling "aerospace-grade." I've yet to see an aircraft built from streamer chassis, but fine, it's thick, it's rigid, and it doubles as shielding.

The star of the front panel is the new 8.6-inch touchscreen, up from 6 inches on the original. It runs a completely reworked UI with VU meters, a spectrum analyzer, album art views, and a few ambient display modes that move with the music. Silly? Maybe. But I dare you to put this next to a traditional CD player's dot-matrix display and tell me which one you'd rather live with.

On top, the Master Edition's party trick: a top-loading CD bay. Top-loaders are the right call here. Fewer moving parts than a tray, no slot mechanism to wear out, and let's be honest, there's a little ritual pleasure in placing a disc by hand.

Specs

Let's go through a few important spec things about this new streamer.

Time to open the hood. This section is long because the value argument lives here, so bear with me.

The conversion stage. The Gen 2 keeps the architecture that made the original famous: AKM's AK4191EQ handles digital processing and delta-sigma modulation, physically separated from the AK4499EX that performs the actual conversion.

The preamp. This is the part people underrate. The A8 Gen 2 carries a fully balanced analog preamplifier stage with relay-controlled R-2R resistor ladder volume. Not a digital volume chop, not a cheap potentiometer, but an actual matrix of precision resistors and relays, the kind of volume control you find in dedicated preamps costing serious money.

Power. A dual power architecture separates the analog and digital domains, isolated from the source onward, with Eversolo claiming an ultra-low 20 microvolt noise floor for the linear supply feeding the audio circuitry. This continues the original A8's philosophy of a toroidal linear supply for the analog stages and a dedicated switching supply for the computing side.

The clocks, and this is where the Master Edition earns its name. The Master gets an OCXO, an oven-controlled crystal oscillator that keeps the timing reference at a constant temperature to eliminate thermal drift, refined further by a PLL, plus a femtosecond-grade system clock.

The computer inside. A 64-bit octa-core processor with 8GB of DDR5 and 64GB of eMMC runs the show.

The DSP layer. Eversolo's Aural Engine brings global parametric EQ, room correction, FIR filtering, high-pass filtering, and crossover management. Combined with the sub output, you're looking at system-level bass management that most two-channel gear simply doesn't offer.

Connectivity, honestly, there is everything. I mean everything. XLR in, XLR out, AES/EBU, external clock input, RCA, optical, coaxial, USB in and out, I2S, USB-B, HDMI eARC... there is so much I will stop here. It is just a rich digital playground. I love it.

And it also did not skip a beat regarding software connectivity. Native Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer on the unit itself, with Connect support for Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify, plus DLNA, AirPlay and NAS playback over SMB, NFS and WebDAV. Roon Ready.

The CD system. So what do we actually know about the disc side?

The Master Edition's top-loading mechanism plays Red Book CDs directly and rips them to internal SSD or attached storage, folding your physical collection into the same library as your streams and files, with metadata and artwork handled by the same interface. Eversolo describes it as a high-precision system with advanced error correction, developed in-house rather than pulled from a computer parts catalog.

This is why you pay so much money, and gladly you should. There is so much in terms of quality, hardware and sonics, it is incredible.

Value: What Are You Actually Paying For?

Let's do the math out loud, because "$2,580 for a streamer" sounds steep until you itemize it.

What would it cost to assemble this from Eversolo's own separates? Their T10 streaming transport is $2,180. Their DAC-Z10 is $1,980. That's $4,160, two boxes, one interconnect, and you still don't have a CD player. Even their older T8 plus a mid-tier DAC lands within shouting distance of the Master's price while doing less.

Now try building it from the wider market. A streamer with a service and feature list this complete: figure $1,000 minimum. A DAC with a genuine AK4191 plus AK4499EX implementation and these claimed numbers: $800 to $1,500. A balanced preamp with relay R-2R volume: that alone is a $1,000+ product when sold separately. A CD player that rips to a library: good luck, that category barely exists anymore. Room correction DSP: usually a software subscription or an AV receiver compromise.

The itemized total blows past $4,000 before you've bought a rack wide enough to hold it all.

So what you're paying for is not any single component. It's integration. One power cord, one interface, one app, zero interconnect debates, and a company that keeps shipping firmware instead of abandoning it the day after launch. The irony worth naming here: that same interface is the device's weakest link, as I laid out in the specs. You're buying an unbeatable feature set delivered through software you'll occasionally want to throw across the room. That is the value proposition, warts and all.

One big Flaw

But before I go to sonics, I need to discuss the elephant in the room. The software. As you can see, at a hardware level Eversolo is insane, it really is worth all the money you pour into it. And soon you will hear about sonics, but spoilers, it is great. But there is one issue that is just crazy to me, how it irritates me while using this device. And it irritates me more than usual, as it is such a phenomenal device, and ease of use is so poor.

There is no sugarcoating this, Eversolo's software is bad. Period. It has insane versatility with DSP, EQs, a bunch of applications, room correction. But using those is not an example of great user experience.

First off, the most basic thing: the Eversolo application sometimes works, sometimes does not. And when it works, it lags badly. I worked to fix this, I spent a whole day with Claude trying to fix these. Giving it a static IP and MAC address from my router to Eversolo, trying to have as few handshakes as possible. And nothing worked.

Good thing there is Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz direct, which saved me when I was reviewing these. But it is so strange that Eversolo, who sold so many units, who is very famous, still has these issues. Also, I feel the tremendous flexibility of the Android system never goes in favour of the listener, because sometimes it requires a decent amount of steps to perform an action.

I would always prefer what Bluesound and Matrix are doing, creating a custom operating system, even if it does not have tremendous bells and whistles, but everything works perfectly. I have a huge issue with Android systems, and not only with Eversolo, but with FiiO, Shanling etc.

They should do like they do in mobile phones, use Android as a base, and completely reskin it, and modify it. Like how Huawei and Xiaomi are doing it. That would be awesome.

And the problem is that a lot of functions, to work greatly, need to go through applications. Starting with CD playing. So when you play a CD, it starts playing the album. But if you want to jump to, I don't know, the 7th song, there is no easy way to do it. Maybe the easiest is to use the remote and just click forward until you reach the 7th song. I would really hope in future, maybe for an Eversolo A10 Gen 2 Master Edition, they will, specifically for that model, redesign the remote to have numbers, like a remote from a CD player would. It would fix everything. As that would make my CD players obsolete, honestly. But who knows, that might just happen.

Also, when you are playing a song, it is expected for you to use the application to go see home, or whatever, and unless I rise from my chair and go and click the home button on the Eversolo, it is just a difficult process. A tiny thing also would be that I would love to see a clock, even if I play music, and when I am not. As for a long time now streamers have replaced the clocks around my house, and I look at them to know the time. And there are some smaller UI issues, but nothing big to talk about here.

Potentional Fix

But there could be a fix: introducing the Eversolo remote. Amazing looking, amazingly built, it is heavy with an aluminium back. And it works great, except the layout of buttons is all wrong. It seems that there is a miscommunication between the hardware and software team.

Why do we have two buttons for visualisations on the remote, something you set and change rarely? Or a list cycle button. But you do not have a back button, something you would use pretty often. Also a home button. I could see this remote, if it was designed well, could help so much with the poor software.

I personally would not mind if I had on this remote a back button, a home button, and a joystick or arrows up, left, right, down. With that I could manipulate the whole UI on the Eversolo, and with that screen it would be beautiful. I could browse through applications, settings, turn things on and off, go through folders and menus. The only thing I would not be able to do is search, and type usernames and passwords. But I could live with that, as I have Tidal Connect and others.

This would make the Eversolo a superior device, superior hardware and superior software. It would be mighty difficult to defeat Eversolo on the market. But for now there is a great duality between the software and hardware of these devices.

Sonic Quality

And now with a clear conscience I can go into sonics. And to not keep anyone waiting, the sound is amazing. When something is this well built, with these great specs, and such great hardware, how can it not be? And if someone comes and tells you all streamers sound the same, just play them this streamer and make their silence the defining answer.

Of course, just a disclaimer, I test this with the internal DAC, straight into the amp. So all the conversation about sound will be from how Eversolo truly sounds. And if you ever had a chance to listen to the velvet sound of the AKM 4191, which is now in many streamers, you pretty much can already guess what you are getting here.

It is an incredible DAC, providing insight, but also colouring the lower bottom to be more forceful, attacky and just full.

But as the isolation of digital and analog works amazingly here, and the oven crystal oscillator clock does wonders. This is super clean, and with this AKM DAC, even if it is a touch warm, it is also clean and transparent and detailed. This is absolutely using 100% from your AKM. And in that sense it sounds amazing.

It will always be how you synergise and pair this streamer for the final outcome to be the real sonic quality you will get in the end. But this will push your system to show its absolute best.

Bass

Let's start how I love to do it, bottom up. And I am so glad I do it that way. As even with the small JadeAudio Level 1, the bass had significant thump. And let's start with Marcus Miller's Renaissance. If you know this album, you know how important it is to have a bass that has impact, but also is not muddy, so you can track instrumentation and its details. So you will enjoy this jazz record. And that bass is just so full of life, and detail. And it is not slow, oh my decibels, it is not slow. It has good decay and attack, so that electric bass is not muddy, it just works so well to hear every note's beginning and end. It just, even though it has definition, it has great clarity to it.

But if you go to electronic music, and I go with a basic pick here, Massive Attack Mezzanine. But it is a great indicator of sub bass control, that is why I use this to test this. And there is tight, tuneful, articulate bass rather than wall-shaking weight. It's honest down low, not indulgent. It feels like it has spread without having overly long decay or bloaty bass. Just nice defined and enhanced lower end.

Midsection

But the biggest praise comes from the mid section. This is where all the AKM, clocks, and quality of the streaming unit give clean, neutral, sweet, a seductive smoothness that makes vocals emotional and catchy, paired with real space and air, and instruments carrying organic body and natural weight.

And yet it is clear enough on the soundstage to track and look, without clutter and messiness. Maybe a good example is Nina Simone's Little Girl Blue. You know this is a soft piano ballad, driven by the powerful voice of Nina Simone. As dynamically rich as it is, her voice is smooth and present. Not in the background, not super forward, but enough to make it present while being separated on the soundstage from information. The timbre of her voice was palpable, beautiful and emotional. This is what AKM does when it is paired with great counterparts.

But to truly test this streamer. And to me streamers live and die by how they organise and shape information on the soundstage. Is to test something with a wild dynamic swing. Like classical music. Some Beethoven or Mahler is great here. But I choose Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Especially when Augurs of Spring starts, all the way to Dance of the Adolescents. It is wild acts of oncoming thunders and forces of nature done via contrabass, violins, brass work... It is chaos, and it needs a streamer that is calm in these moments to organise this information before it becomes congested or messy. And it does it great, it will never be perfect, but I was able to hear so much detail, so many instruments, their place, their playing their parts with ease on the soundstage. Mids are just amazing on Eversolo.

Just a short thing, I loved how it separated the drum work and percussion on Tool's Lateralus, which I listened to via CD and stream both.

Treble

And in albums by Steely Dan, Aja, and Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms, which are mixed and produced brightly. Sometimes there is unnecessary harshness there and over detail. And as you can expect by listening to this section by now, I think you can guess what is happening in the treble. Sound is math, there is not everything everywhere. If you have it too much in one place, it will have things less in others. And that is with treble, it is rolled off. Which I like, but some might not. Do not expect the utmost presentation of details up top, do not expect amazing levels of texture here, or just definition.

For example, that buffing shows up most in the treble, and it's the most useful thing to understand about this DAC. On a bright, steely-edged recording like Nils Lofgren's Keith Don't Go the A8 sweetened the track, softened the incisive edge of the guitar strings, and gave the vocal more chest and body.

Soundstage, Dynamics and Quality through CDs

Regarding the soundstage. Eversolo is going to help, AKM is a great DAC to spread that soundstage both vertically and horizontally. But this is where your other gear plays a far bigger role than the streamer. Your amp and especially speakers need to have talent in throwing soundstage dispersion. And with that, the A8 will help tremendously to not just throw a big airy soundstage but also a greatly organised and big one.

Now the CD player section is where I get the most joy, and testing the same tracks between CD and streaming, I could say, even though it could be a placebo, is that CD sounded a bit more dynamic, richer. Not something big, or drastic, or something that will tell you, ok, one over other. But it was more composed and just more telling when I listened via CD.

It was only via SSD, and USB listening through 24-bit tracks and DSD, that the favour a bit switched to digital files through the streamer. But I am happy to say that CD works amazing, and uses the same topology of Eversolo to produce music.

vs. Competitiors (hint there is realy none)

Normally this is where I line up three rivals and start a fight.

But the Master Edition's strongest selling point might be the emptiest section of this review: there is no direct competitor. Nothing else combines a streamer this feature-complete, a flagship-chip DAC, a genuinely balanced R-2R preamp, room correction DSP, and an integrated CD player with ripping, at this price or anywhere near it. Note that I said feature-complete, not best-in-class software. The rivals below occasionally win on polish. None of them wins on the sheer breadth of what this box does.

vs. Matrix Audio TS-1

You can read teh full review here:

https://www.hifidaydreaming.com/post/when-china-builds-like-switzerland-amazing-value-with-matrix-audio-ts-1-vs-eversolo-dmp-a8-review

The closest philosophical rival is Matrix Audio, the other Chinese all-in-one specialist with a serious app. And this time the price lines up, which the Element X2 never did. The Matrix TS-1 lands at $2,499, a hair under the A8 Master, or a touch over once you convert the European price, which hovers around €2,599 to €2,699. So on paper, this is the one genuine like-for-like money match in the whole review.

I've spent real time with the TS-1, you can watch my review and the link will be in the description of this video, and it's a lovely thing. Precision-machined chassis, that excellent MA Player app, a crisp front touchscreen, dual ES9038Q2M conversion, and a properly good balanced headphone output on 4.4mm and 6.3mm that the Eversolo simply doesn't have. If your listening life runs through headphones or active monitors, the TS-1 is arguably the smarter buy at this price, full stop.

But notice how quickly the overlap breaks down once you step off the desktop. The TS-1 is fundamentally a desktop streaming DAC with a headphone amp bolted to its heart. The A8 Master is a full-width component built to anchor a passive two-channel system: it has the relay R-2R balanced preamp, the CD transport and ripper, the OCXO with external clock input, room correction DSP, and a subwoofer output with a real crossover. The TS-1 has none of those, and tops out at 24-bit/192kHz on its coaxial and optical inputs where the Eversolo runs to 768kHz across the board. Meanwhile the Eversolo has no headphone jack at all.

So the only reason I would now recommend the TS-1 is that you need a headphone jack, and decent power to drive headphones. And you get that custom, far more stable OS. But everything else, the A8 just overdelivers far more.

So they cost the same and share a philosophy, but they're aimed at two different rooms. Want the best desktop headphone-and-active-speaker hub at this price? The TS-1 is a serious, possibly winning answer, and I said as much when I reviewed it. Want the brain of a full living-room hi-fi that also spins and rips your discs? The TS-1 isn't really trying to be that, which loops us right back to the same conclusion: even the closest-priced rival isn't a true alternative. It's a different tool wearing similar clothes.

Beyond the TS-1, Matrix's own flagship Element X2 costs nearly double, sits on an older platform, and still doesn't play a disc.

Some other Competitiros

HiFi Rose builds gorgeous streaming DACs with huge screens, and nothing in their range spins a CD internally either. Their optional external transport bolts on for extra cost and extra clutter, which rather proves Eversolo's point.

The disc-plus-streaming one-box concept does exist elsewhere, and this is where honest comparison matters. Technics' SL-G700M2 at $3,499 is a superb streaming SACD and CD player with a proper DAC, from a brand with genuine transport pedigree. Marantz's SACD 30n around $3,000 pairs reference disc playback with HEOS streaming. Both play SACD, which the Eversolo cannot, and both come from companies whose service networks and track records span decades, which a brand founded this decade simply cannot match yet.

But neither rips discs. Neither has a preamp stage like this. Neither has an interface within a generation of Eversolo's. Both cost more. And their streaming experiences, let's be diplomatic, feel like features added under duress.

So the market splits cleanly. Want SACD and legacy-brand assurance? Pay more for the Japanese boxes and accept clunkier streaming. Want the most complete modern digital front end that also happens to eat your CD collection? There's exactly one product on that shelf.

That's not me being generous. That's just what the shelf looks like in 2026.

Conclusion

With knowing that, it is time to bring this review to an end. There is no doubt in my mind that the Eversolo DMP-A8 Gen 2 Master Edition is an ultimate digital playground. It just allows everything, with a sparkle of awesome build and sonics, and lackluster software.

The DMP-A8 Gen 2 Master Edition is the most complete single-box digital front end I've encountered at this price, and it isn't a close race. The architecture is legitimate, the feature density is absurd, the value math embarrasses the separates route, and the CD integration answers a question a surprising number of us never stopped asking.

If you have this money, there is nothing I can recommend you different rather than just buy this. It is that good. You will have to learn to live with its software, but every day it gets better, and if you use Tidal, Spotify or Qobuz direct, that connection could be well enough. If you love AKM sound, this will polish it to the max. This is not your romantic velvety sound of regular AKMs in other DACs. This is a clearer, focused and detailed version of that, giving you the best of all worlds, but still retaining some of its romanticism with great rendition of vocals and midsection. Unless you expect absolute precision and abundance of detail and resolving, there is nothing at fault here.

This is truly a digital playground marvel, if you have money to buy, there is no alternative. If you want streaming of this quality and CD, don't wait, go buy it. I love it so much, and it is a heavy recommendation from my side. And how does this device fit in the overall chain of Eversolo devices? Well, stay tuned, as there is an additional video coming called Eversolo vs Eversolo where I am going to go through the A6, A8 and A10 lineup and compare it and try to find a golden value among them.

Keep daydreaming and see you on the next video, bye.

Learn more about Eversolo DMP-A8 Master Gen2 here:

https://www.eversolo.com/en/products/dmp-a8gen2master

Pros

• The most complete single-box front end at the price: streamer, flagship DAC, balanced preamp, CD player and ripper, music server, and room correction in one chassis

• Genuine flagship AKM AK4191EQ plus AK4499EX DAC, delivered clean, transparent and detailed rather than just warm

• Fully balanced analog preamp with relay-controlled R-2R ladder volume, the kind of control usually found in dedicated preamps

• Master-grade clocking: OCXO plus PLL plus femtosecond system clock, with external clock input

• Serious power design: dual analog/digital domains, toroidal linear supply, 20µV noise floor

• Custom top-loading CD mechanism that both plays and rips discs into one unified library

• Big, beautiful 8.6-inch touchscreen with VU meters, spectrum analyzer and ambient modes

• Just about every connection you could want, plus 768kHz across the board

• Deep streaming support: native Tidal, Qobuz, Apple, Amazon, Deezer, Connect options, DLNA, AirPlay, NAS and Roon Ready

• Powerful DSP suite with parametric EQ, room correction, crossover and sub output for real system bass management

• Outstanding value: replicating it from separates blows past $4,000

• Sound: full, textured, well-defined bass, emotional and organic mids, composed under heavy dynamic swings

• CD playback sounds a touch more dynamic and composed than streaming

• Ongoing firmware support instead of abandonment

• Effectively no direct competitor at the price

Cons

• The software is the big flaw: the app lags, is sometimes unreliable, and buries basic actions behind too many steps

• Android base trades stability and simplicity for flexibility you rarely need

• Clunky CD navigation, with no easy way to jump to a specific track

• Remote layout is wrong: two visualisation buttons but no back or home button and no navigation control

• No headphone output at all

• No SACD playback, unlike the Technics and Marantz alternatives

• Treble is rolled off, so less air, texture and top-end resolution (a plus if you like it, a minus if you chase detail)

• Not the last word in absolute precision, resolution or blackest backgrounds, even thou it does a great job here