Author's Description:
“The Chinese will wipe us all out…” is probably the phrase I use most often these days while looking at the build quality of the majority of inexpensive Chinese Hi-Fi devices I’ve come across over the past few years.
Some fifteen years ago, when I was actively writing for Hi-Files magazine, things were very different. All Chinese devices — as well as some made in China for mainstream manufacturers — suffered from obvious flaws. There were chassis parts fixed with screws whose threads were already stripped, so the screw would just spin endlessly; poor internal mechanical finishing with miserable paint and surface treatment; large, heavy, metal remote controls that looked solid on the outside but were cheaply assembled inside and glued together with liquid plastic… not to mention cheap Chinese electrolytic capacitors whose lifespan barely exceeded the warranty period. There were also loose parts rattling around inside brand-new devices, and plenty of other unpleasant surprises. And yes — the sound suffered as well.
However, Chinese manufacturers have come a long way since then. Not all of them have matured, of course — considering how many new manufacturers appear on a monthly basis in China, only God knows. Some inevitably disappear, while others manage to secure at least a temporary spot under the Hi-Fi sun. The competition among them is clearly fierce and merciless.
As a result, we now have an intense battle in terms of build quality, design, features and, of course, price. Honestly, I wish I had the opportunity to live in China for a while and see what they are producing for their domestic market.
Some of these companies even have names that are difficult for me to pronounce — and even harder to remember. It seems that the era of names like Sony, Aiwa, Sanyo, and the like is long gone, replaced by brands that are either tongue-twisters or utterly unimaginative.
Aiyima sits somewhere in between — but a name alone doesn’t make a product, so let’s see what the T9 Pro has to offer.
The Aiyima T9 Pro is a small amplifier with an external power supply. One could call it a desktop amplifier, although I’d rather say it’s intended for small to medium-sized rooms, where it should be able to drive speakers successfully.
According to the official website, prices range from USD 156 to 160 (currently around EUR 134–138), depending on whether it comes with a 24 V or 32 V power supply.
It can be found cheaper on AliExpress, but with shipping of around EUR 17, plus customs costs on top. AliExpress also offers a version without a power supply, priced just under EUR 100.
A few months ago, my dear friend Djole decided to sell one of his Hi-Fi experiments — an Aiyima T9 Pro, but fitted with upgraded tubes and a significantly stronger and, I believe, higher-quality power supply compared to the stock option. The power supply itself looks massive, reminiscent of external units used with large monitors or powerful gaming and developer laptops.
I asked Djole to lend me the amplifier for a few days to have a listen — and I ended up buying it. A shame not to have it; it will certainly find its place somewhere 🙂
DESCRIPTION
The Aiyima T9 Pro is a compact amplifier, roughly ten centimeters wide, one among many Chinese amps of similar dimensions. It would look rather low-profile were it not for the two protruding tubes, which add a certain visual charm.
Besides the tubes, two circular elements on the front panel immediately catch the eye. One houses a classic electromechanical VU meter indicating signal level. The other is multifunctional: apart from signal level indicators (small dots on the side) — which cannot be disabled and are, frankly, the only part of the display I found useless except for making the amplifier more colorful — it also shows volume level, selected input, and the sampling frequency of the internal DAC. While the volume can be read from a distance, seeing the input or sampling rate clearly would require binoculars or the eyesight of a hawk.
There are only two buttons, one of which is a rotary encoder, and together they cover all functions.
What I particularly liked was the build quality of the enclosure: a solid, compact metal case, surprisingly heavy for its size; metal rings and an encoder knob fixed with a screw rather than simply pushed onto the shaft. Everything is exactly where it should be — very impressive for the price. Truly unbelievable.
The Aiyima T9 Pro is the successor and upgraded version of the T9. That said, calling it “Pro” is a marketing trick — T9 Mk2 would be a more appropriate name. What matters, however, is that the company didn’t just add a front OLED display and call it a day; the major changes are inside:
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Both versions use a Texas Instruments TPA3250 Class-D output stage, nominally rated at 2 × 100 W according to the manufacturer
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The preamp uses a different tube type compared to the standard T9
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The Bluetooth chip is newer and supports aptX HD
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The DAC section is based on the solid Sabre ES9018K2M — rare in this price range
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A new tone-control IC: the excellent NJW1194
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The original T9 uses an NE5532-based analog preamp, while the Pro employs a dedicated DSP chip
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The PC interface is new: SA9123L
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A new microcontroller manages the entire device
If it weren’t for the identical output stage and the T9 label, I’d assume these were two completely different products — possibly from different manufacturers. I won’t comment on the sound of the original T9, as I’ve never heard it.
Power reality check
Now, let me take a minute of your time to discuss some T9 Pro power ratings…
My T9 Pro came with a 24 V power supply, while the maximum allowed input voltage is 32 V — so there’s still headroom.
Looking at the power-vs-supply-voltage graph for the TPA3250, at 1% THD the output power is roughly:
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8 ohms: about 35 W per channel
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4 ohms: about 67 W per channel
These figures are perfectly adequate for everyday listening with sensitive and moderately sensitive speakers. At a more realistic 0.1% THD, power would be slightly lower — around 29–30 W into 8 ohms and about 55–56 W into 4 ohms.
Enough for daily listening, though not for extreme volume levels.
Idemo dalje:
Connectivity
The rear panel is fairly crowded: speaker terminals, Bluetooth antenna, and a pre-out for an external power amp. Digital inputs include coaxial, optical, and USB-B (primarily for computer connection). There’s also a single pair of analog RCA inputs. Connector quality is average, commercial-grade; speaker terminals accept bare wire, spades, and bananas — perfectly sufficient.
Djole replaced the stock JAN 5725 tubes with JAN 5654W units, which are said to sound warmer and smoother. I decided to keep them and not test the amp with the original tubes.
Since the T9 Pro can be bought without a power supply, Djole added a 24 V / 160 W Mean Well unit — a well-respected brand, also used in medical equipment.
One thing that genuinely delighted me, as someone who follows Hi-Fi history, was an honest YouTube video published by Aiyima, showing virtually all stages of production of this little amplifier. Well worth watching.
The remote control is visually very similar to those bundled with SMSL DACs — well made, logically laid out, easy to use. No complaints here; in fact, I’ve seen far more expensive devices with laughably bad remotes.
SOUND
Taking into account the device specifications, which state that the tone controls are based on a DSP (Digital Sound Processing) chip, I concluded that the sound processing is performed at least partially in the digital domain. In the “regular” T9 version, this role is handled by an NE5532 operational amplifier, which likely indicates an analog signal path.
The mentioned DSP suggests that the analog input is most likely converted to digital immediately, and later converted back to analog, probably before the tubes. From a sound-processing standpoint, this is a more difficult case, as it involves two conversions: A/D and D/A.
For that very reason, I initially used the analog RCA inputs, to which I connected my good old Sony HAP-Z1ES hard disk audio player.
The amplifier had already been run-in by the previous owner, so I waited briefly (around 5 minutes) and began listening to it through my faithful ELAC FS210A speakers. The first 30 minutes were, to put it mildly, disappointing: the positive side was vocal reproduction, which was correct and soft, tonally accurate, but with a thin veil in front of the singer. The soundstage was positioned between the speakers and had a certain, though not great, depth. However, the extremes killed any desire for listening: the highs were almost sufficiently detailed but somehow artificial in character, while the mid-bass was miserable, almost completely lacking control — it was sad to listen to the amplifier struggling.
The bass itself, in terms of drum impact, sounded more like someone using a plastic bucket for washing floors instead of a drum membrane. Just… horrible. “Maybe I’m too picky,” I told myself, “what do you expect from a little amplifier costing around a hundred euros — Accuphase-level sound?”
My wife buried the T9 Pro completely by saying that it sounded cheap. The end.
Or not?
We continued listening to selected tracks we know well and enjoying (as much as possible) our self-proclaimed concert evening.
And… after about half an hour, the sound started to change. After an hour, the T9 Pro was a muuuch different amplifier compared to the one at the beginning of this description.
The midrange and vocals remained approximately the same, but the extremes changed — dynamics increased, the top end was no longer constrained, and detail improved, not drastically, but audibly. This is not the pinnacle of reproduction, but it is quite respectable. The real change, however, was in the bass and mid-bass: control became quite good — not perfect, but light-years away from the miserable lack of control at the beginning — and the drum impact gained authority, power, and a proper sound. Excellent!
That thin veil which was felt from the start, wavering in front of the vocalist, remained. Switching to the Bluetooth connection made it… disappear, and the amplifier started sounding cleaner — we both noticed it. When I told Djole this, he said, “Well, why were you listening via the RCA Aux input — that one is the worst…” “I know,” I replied, “I did it intentionally to hear how bad it can sound.”
What surprised me was how well the Aiyima T9 Pro sounds when using the Bluetooth connection. I expected misery — compressed and lifeless music — but got anything but that. Technology is clearly advancing. However, some interference noises were clearly audible entering the signal. This is most noticeable when there is no input signal, and changing the amplifier’s position did not help. This likely originates from one of the internal circuits and I did not like it.
I should note that my ELAC speakers are hungry for power to give their best, but they are not inherently difficult to drive. Still, they are 4-ohm speakers, which can be problematic for Class D amplifiers. I drove the Aiyima T9 Pro almost to its maximum, to a volume level of 90 out of a possible 99, and there was no collapse of the soundstage or drastic changes in sound, which speaks in favor of the quality and consistency of the sound, as well as the power supply and output stage.
After a few days, it was time for the USB and optical inputs, when I had the opportunity to experiment again.
I listened to the amplifier at fairly high levels — between 70 and 80 on a 99-step scale — using the USB input with a very ordinary printer cable. Switching to a “proper” USB cable would likely yield better sound, but the higher-quality cable I own was not of suitable length, so I didn’t use it for now. As a transport, I kept the Sony HAP-Z1ES instead of a PC, as I know it is an excellent device which, in this case, recognizes the T9 Pro DAC section flawlessly, i.e., without the need for additional drivers. Plug and play, simply put, haha.
The sound was somewhat better than during the previous initial listening — bass tighter — but the highs again started out sharp, quite detailed, sometimes even jumping out of the sound image. What irritated me were the sibilants in human voices — “If I Were a Boy” was reproduced in such a way that Beyoncé’s voice sounded as if she were singing into a cheap or poorly adjusted microphone. Some other voices, with lyrics containing fewer sibilants, were better, as was acoustic music, which perhaps suits this amplifier best right from the start.
Again, I had to wait half an hour for the amplifier to begin changing its sound, and a full hour for it to stabilize. Therefore, my recommendation is not to listen to it critically during the first hour, as you will be disappointed. The difference afterward is like having a small child who sings nicely — great for their age, but still needing a lot of time to mature. After an hour, the Aiyima T9 Pro turns into a more mature teenager who now knows what they want and can do, eventually ending up as a young singer — still not top-tier, but good. That is literally how I would describe how this amplifier sounds.
If I focus on the period after warm-up, I cannot say with certainty at this moment whether this behavior will change in the future and whether the need for a certain operating time before the amplifier “opens up” will remain — whether this is related to the tubes or the entire electronics of the device. What matters, however, is the sonic result: very good vocals with almost no remaining sibilance issues, highs that have calmed down and are not even a fraction as sharp as they were initially, and improved bass control. Everything has, as audiophiles would say, “fallen into place.” The complete cohesion of the sound image is there, without any sections jumping out, and the previously mentioned veil in front of the performers is gone — although it was not present at the beginning when using the USB input either.
Interestingly, the mid-bass is quite strong and, on my analytical and relatively neutral speakers, delivered an unexpectedly powerful result — so much so that I reduced the bass from position 0 to -1 and even -2 (the maximum reduction is -9). The soundstage itself is solid, but remains between the speakers and has a certain depth, though nothing spectacular.
Conclusion
Paired with speakers that don’t exaggerate bass — good bookshelf models or floorstanders with tighter low end — the T9 Pro can sound excellent. Its slightly boosted mid-bass can make speakers sound bigger and fuller than they really are.
Considering the price, the T9 Pro offers phenomenal value, great features, a modern design, and a surprisingly good remote.
What more could one ask for at this price? For beginners, desktop systems, or secondary setups — highly recommended.
