Eversolo T10

Elsewhere on Sound Advice you’ll find a review of Eversolo’s DAC-Z10 - and if you haven’t already read it, this might be a perfect time to do so. It emphasises the fact that the DAC-Z10 does a lot of things and, moreover, does all of them exceptionally well. The T10 is designed to partner the DAC-Z10, so you might assume it will be another blizzard of functionality. In fact, the reality is rather different.

The T10 does in fact do one (ONE) thing. It is designed to be your streaming interface and send that signal via its selection of digital outputs to a matching input on the DAC-Z10 - or, indeed, anything else with the appropriate connections. If this sounds a trifle limited, the thoroughness with which the T10 goes about its business might be enough to bring you around. 

The T10 is fastidiously laid out. The sections concerned with processing, clocking and power supply are all separated by internal bulkheads and placed in a chassis that is designed, quite literally, from the ground up in order to control resonance and vibration. With this achieved, the components positioned within these partitions are top notch: a custom ‘O’-type toroidal transformer (a shape that results in the lowest amount of electrical flux but that is very labour-intensive to make) provides the power to a main board with a 64bit octacore processor and 8GB of processing RAM with 64GB of storage for the operating software and additional apps. If you want to store your music on the T10, an internal drive bay allows for up to 16 terabytes of storage to be added. 

To be clear, the T10 is only getting started. A very high-quality internal clock is fitted, but you also have the option to use the Eversolo with an external master clock- a very rare feature that is shared with the DAC-Z10 (and for which Eversolo will be releasing a master clock of its own). Owners have the choice of wireless and wired connections for networking - but, as well as ethernet, the T10 supports SFP fibre optic network connection, a rarer option but one that supposedly offers lower noise and interference than conventional LAN cables. 

The control interface is a version of Eversolo’s Android-based platform and includes support for all major streaming services, an excellent internet radio implementation, AirPlay and Bluetooth (but no Chromecast). It also gives you the option to upsample the output and apply room correction to it - this is something that makes a huge amount of sense, as you can apply correction before any decoding takes place. 

The result of this fastidious signal management is made available to a selection of digital outputs. The coaxial, optical and USB outputs are normal enough, but you also have the choice of a balanced AES output and an i2S connection. This uses an HDMI connection - but it’s not the same as the one you’ll find on a TV. It breaks the digital signal into separate sections and clock-locks it. The DAC-Z10 has a matching input, but the output of the T10 can be configured in no less than eight different ways so it can talk to almost anything with an i2S input. 

What you don’t get is any form of additional input. When you consider what the DAC-Z10 is fitted with, that’s perhaps not too surprising - but it does mean the Eversolo won’t add anything other than streaming to the system you use it in.

Sound Quality 

This singlemindedness does pay off though. To be absolutely clear on what you can expect from a T10 in sonic terms, we’re in ‘polishing the cannonball’, territory adding the last smidge of seasoning to a well-cooked plate of food or adding an extra layer of wax to an already clean car. It will never be the device to rescue a sub-par system… but it can help an already good system get a little better. 

In the simplest terms, what the Eversolo does is deliver a signal that is functionally perfect - so all the sophisticated error-correction software that DACs often have to deploy can stay dormant. The result is something that sounds fundamentally right because it was right first time. It’s never a night and day difference… but you will notice it when it’s not there. 

It also has the means to play a more overt role in what you hear if you want it to - engage the upsampling and the effects of the T10 become a little less subtle. I find some of the multiples it offers - turning a 44.1kHz signal into one that is no less than 705.6kHz - sound a bit forced and ‘hyperreal’, but running a less pronounced ‘2 x’ setting yields some useful benefits to fine detail and soundstage. 

There is also the ‘Evotune’ room correction software. Compared to heavy hitters like Dirac, this is a fairly simple thing - but it is good enough to tweak the low end of my test speakers against a bass peak in the room and smooth the response out a little. For something that’s included in the price, ‘Evotune’ is a useful bit of extra functionality that can help you get the best from your listening space. 

Living with the Eversolo T10

If the ‘sound quality’ section of this review didn’t sound especially effusive, there are other aspects to the performance of the T10 that warrant mention and are of considerable worth. The Eversolo interface, for instance, is an absolute pleasure to use. The screen-mirror function built into the app puts the display of the T10 on your phone screen and allows you to adjust the menus from there - it’s one of the cleverest and most underrated ideas doing the rounds in streamers, and it feeds into the perception of software designed by people who do a huge amount of listening themselves. Browsing a large music library on the T10 is a genuine pleasure.

It's also incredibly stable. At no stage during intensive and heavy-handed use does the Eversolo so much as stutter. I hotplug it, move between the dedicated app, ‘Connect’ functions, Spotify and Roon at will, and across multiple control points, and generally behave in a wholly unsympathetic way - it doesn’t miss a beat. This might not be the sort of thing that gets the pulse racing when choosing between products at a dealership, but I promise you it’s something you appreciate in the long term. 

The Eversolo also manages to look and feel special, even when judged by its chunky asking price, and it’s also superbly bolted together. I love the huge and vivid display, and the responsiveness of the touchscreen together with the useful remote control (and that excellent app) means you can use the T10 in the way you want to rather than in a way it dictates. Often devices as specialised as this can be quirky and demanding, but this one is utterly painless to live with. 

Conclusion 

This is a niche bit of kit - but if you have a high-quality digital input going begging, the T10 is one of the most comprehensive, user-friendly and exactingly engineered ways of getting a signal to it. Eversolo has built something very accomplished indeed here.

Listening notes 

Johnny Blue Skies Mutiny After Midnight
One of the many aliases of alt-country legend Sturgill Simpson, this ‘apocalyptic disco’ album lets the Eversolo show its effortless ability to resolve and make sense of even congested and dense recordings, and extract the musical greatness from them.

‍Peter Gabriel In the Big Room (Live)
Unlike most Peter Gabriel live albums, this one was recorded indoors and on a relatively small scale. What the T10 does superbly is give a sense of this live space and convincingly encase these gorgeous live performances in it. 

‍Hayden Thorpe Ness
A very odd but very lovely album, which benefits from the Eversolo’s upsampling being used to give Thorpe’s gorgeous vocals a little more life, detail and energy. Nothing is drastically changed… it’s just resolved that little bit better.

As well as partnering with DACs, a wide selection of integrated amplifiers have a high resolution-capable USB input. This means the T10 is the perfect way of adding a superb streaming interface without doubling up on any decoding.

Obviously, the DAC-Z10 is the perfect partner for the T10 but the chunky McIntosh MA8950 and MA7200 would be perfect candidates too- even the gorgeous Rega Mercury and Solis would be a capable partner for the Eversolo.