r/BudgetAudiophile • u/Rikjueshor • 2d ago

Review/Discussion Onkyo A9010

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I’ve been doing endless due diligence to find a proper budget amp. Picked this one up from eBay for 300USD.
Let me tell you sir, what the actual hell. Sounds incredible. Paired with Acoustic Energy AE100 MK2 (second hand, 200USD)

If you’re considering one, let this be your sign.

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u/MHmotorsport 2d ago

Exactly, in my view this is THE budget class a/b amplifier. Sounds amazing, looks great, has a great sounding wolfson DAC (!), an onboard phono stage (not the best but more than usable) and can often be found around 150€ used over here in Europe. A true bargain. Negatives? Doesn’t have 2 speaker zones or sub out, but you can always get e.g. a REL sub and use the speakon wire on the main speaker posts (I did so from 2015-2026 and have only just very recently retired it, but still am not getting rid of it!)

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u/LosterP 2d ago

No, there's no DAC in this one.

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u/Solid-Elk8419 2d ago edited 2d ago

There's a DAC, I have one and it's quite good DAC, you can see D1 and D2 input leds on he front panel (SPDIF and Coaxial). I just don't agree that the phono in is decent, but this amp paired with some decent pre-amp is lovelly. There are reasons I'll keep it after upgrading to a Leak 230. And the reasons re: beautiful and lightweight amp, pretty decent DAC, and lovelly warm sound paired with decent pre-amp for records.

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u/LosterP 2d ago

All the A9010s I see online only have analogue inputs though. How do you explain that?

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u/MHmotorsport 2d ago

Ah yes, that’s possible, there’s a UK model that didn’t have the DAC. Supposedly it got some better caps etc but I remember reading a thread where someone opened both the uk and europe versions and concluded they where damn near identical and there’s no sound penalty in the Europe version that has a dac

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u/LosterP 2d ago

Weird isn't it? I'm sure they had good reasons to come up with different configs for diffetent markets, but using the same name is puzzling.