Country of Origin
Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (i5, 256GB SSD, 40GB RAM, Sonoma 14), 4TB external SSD with Thunderbolt 3, Audirvana Studio, Qobuz Sublime, Singxer SU-6 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Laiv Audio Harmony; Active filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Power amplifiers: Kinki Studio EX-B7 monos & Gold Note monos on subwoofer; Headamp: Enleum AMP-23R; Phones: Raal 1995 Immanis, HifiMan Susvara; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan] Cables: Kinki Studio Earth, Furutech; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra on all source components, Vibex One 11R on amps, Furutech DPS-4.1 between wall and conditioners; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, LessLoss Firewall for loudspeakers, Furutech NCF Signal Boosters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat; Room treatment: 2 x PSI Audio AVAA C214 active bass traps
2nd system: Source: FiiO R7 into Soundaware D300Ref SD transport to Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe; Preamp/filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Amplifier: Kinki Studio EX-M7; Headamp: Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Loudspeakers: MonAcoustic SuperMon Mini + Dynaudio S18 sub; Power delivery: Furutech GTO 2D NCF, Akiko Audio Corelli; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Audioquest Fog Lifters; Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
Desktop system: Source: HP Z230 work station Win10/64; USB bridge: Singxer SU-2; DAC: Sonnet Pasithea; Headamp: Kinki Studio THR-1; Speaker amp: Crayon CFA-1.2; Speakers: Acelec Model One Headphones: Final D-8000 & Sonorous X, Audeze LCD-XC, Raal-Requisite SR1a on Schiit Jotunheim R
Upstairs headfi system: FiiO R7, COS Engineering D1, Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Headphones: Raal 1995 Magna, Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: Zu Soul VI; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: €1'500/pr
From Sing-Sing to Singxer via hifi jail break?
This could capture your sentiment if you hankered after a proper class AB mono amp that charged less than €2K/pr. In class D that's an easy job. Not so much in class AB. There we must dig deeper. Enter the 90-watt SA-90 from Sino brand Singxer which until now was known for their digital kit. As an avid user of their SU-2 and SU-6 USB bridges on my desktop and main system respectively, I'm a fan already.
Their 8kg €749 mono brick properly doubles down to 180 watts into 4Ω, doesn't need a noisy fan¹ and so can boast a S/NR of greater than 140dB A-weighted. That means 23-bit resolution or just 2.3µV of residual noise. Damping factor is 800. The sizeable power toroid is a 300-watt type, Ruby electrolytic capacitance 20'000µF and voltage gain 16dB or 23dB. The lot packs into 21 x 32 x 8cm WxDxH so is considerably deeper than its 'half' width lets on. The company's Tom Chen calls out their "ultra-low negative feedback design" and "pure analog control circuits so no MCU". This includes DC, overload and overheating protection.
When Jos Schelleivs of Dutch Singxer dealership Magna Hifi proved amenable to send me his floor samples, my blind date was set. If you never hooked up with Singxer before, they're from Guangzhou City in China and launched in 2011 to conduct OEM and ODM business. Today the brand slots between China's bigger names and cheerful brands which trade on Ayoshida and Amazon à la Topping & Bros.
Let's call Singxer part of the middle class of the Middle Kingdom. That's probably not far off. It could just be where very high p/p looms. That's not push/pull for a change but price/performance. Of course that's inevitably its very own push/pull. With Singxer it means case work that's solid but utilitarian. Our coin goes to a measurement-centric approach which publishes its own performance graphs. With my two DDC by the brand, I know just how well that can work out. It's why learning about the SA-90 twins had me curious.
Might this be an efficient way to shop the core Cambridge, NAD & Rotel sector while nabbing classic monos with linear power supplies and not an integrated or stereo amplifier? Okay, we get no VU meters. But I find those useless anyway. My ears tell me how loud or not the music goes. I don't need wiggly needles to dance their own tune whilst distracting with their backlight. We also get no silver option. The old black be the new black. I much prefer silver but appreciate that in the endless push/pull of what to spend money on when price to performance is key, certain things fall by the wayside. Wearing my bargain-hunter cap, that's par for the course. It's the only way to crack this egg. It's okay.
The SA-90 also does away with the machismo of external sharp-edged heatsinks. Vented through the sides, bottom and top slot vents, its finned divider hides beneath the hood for a sleek shoebox aesthetic. You already saw how the RCA/XLR inputs are selectable to insure that one doesn't remain open. Until I learn more about the circuit and its output transistors, that's all the tech talk I have.
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¹ The new Matrix Audio class AB MA-1 amp scales up today's power to 250/450wpc into 8/4Ω or 500/900w bridged. The coin toss becomes €9'950 but includes a fan. I prefer passive cooling and instinctively distrust the true inaudibility of fans so applaud Singxer for shunning them. As we'd expect in turn, the chassis must vent instead to open figurative windows. The only way to be a smooth shoe box without holes is to turn the entire enclosure into a heatsink. And that requires solid far costlier aluminium panelling when thermal dissipation is a function of highly heat-conductive surface area.
In my MA-1 pages, I touched upon something worth reiterating. If you were into hifi back when my dad had his huge Yamaha receiver with big VU meters and Tandberg open-reel tape deck, Japan's Western rep for audio tied to big corporations like Panasonic and Sony. It took many years for Accuphase, Esoteric and Luxman to export more widely then slowly rewrite perceptions and prove that the Land of the Rising Sun produced cutting-edge 'boutique' hifi. Much later we witnessed a boom of early 'ChiFi'. It first focused on cheap cheerful tube gear. Tripath amps followed. Today Ayoshida, Ali Baba and Amazon trade many Chinese brands that concentrate on affordable transistorized kit. Then there are higher-end tube imports from Cayin, Melody, Opera and Shanling. Prima Luna had Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio in the US get behind them in a big way. Red Rose Music sourced Chinese solid-state gear for Mark Levinson the entrepreneur. Alvin Chee launched Vinshine Audio in Singapore. Holo Audio invaded Stereophile's 'Recommended Components Class A'. My product of 2023 was FiiO's €699 R7. Today there are even true UltraFi propositions from Audio Music, Cen.Grand, Kinki Studio and Matrix via classic linear solid-state amps of very high power. So ChinaFi seems to follow the trajectory Japan's hifi made decades earlier. As I see it, we are at the cusp of China gaining certified credibility at even the very high end. How would the SA-90 twins reflect on such shiny sentiments in the seat?
Coincident with this assignment, I was working on putting together a 42kg Matrix MA-1 stereo amplifier review. Their marketing manager was interested but also expressed what many buyers could think. "For us the new M Series is very heavy and very expensive. We're not sure how the market shall react." This doubt isn't in their belief of being able to design at the cutting edge. They wouldn't have invested in the R&D to build that product in the first place. It's about current brand standing. Perception is king, name cachet very real. It takes years to enter the luxury market and become an acknowledged paid-up member. From Prius to Prada in a generation. What to do until then? Make noise. The more you make, the less it can be ignored. Get conversations started, curiosity roused. Be bold. Nobody notices if you keep quiet. Making noise means reviews, shows, dealership events, loaner tours, YouTube promos, factory tours, advertising. Marketing 101. In essence it's about defeating the early ChiFi curse by convincing Western buyers that Sino sound has progressed well past the entry and mid level and is now knocking on Heaven's doors. As someone whose systems are built with products from Apple, Cen.Grand, Denafrips, FiiO, Kinki, Laiv, LHY, Singxer and Soundaware, I sometimes feel like a self-appointed ambassador of the cause. And why not? It's a good cause. Today's proposed jail break should fall nicely in line. To dig a proper tunnel and bribe a guard, I changed the upstairs speakers from my usual Mon Minis augmented by subwoofer to the Acelec Model One usually on the desktop. Those are classic rear-ported 5¼" 2-way monitors in a rubber-bonded aluminium cab. Think poor man's Magico. A premium ScanSpeak 'slashed' Revelator mid/woofer teams with an equally premium Mundorf AMT on staggered 1st-order slopes. In-room response is good to ~40Hz. This struck me as an appropriate speaker stand-in for what prospective SA-90 buyers might use in a smaller room. My usual Kinki EX-M7 stereo amp would be the Singxer comparator. That packs dual 400VA power toroids, lateral Exicon Mosfets and 225/310wpc into 8/4Ω. It retails for $2'798 so close to twice what a pair of SA-90 commands.
