Eversolo DMP 8 audition going poorly...

It means…If there’s any upsampling, attenuation, room corrections, etc. not sure what it has if any as far as DSP goes. Disable it. 

I returned my A8 and got a Weiss DAC to run with my Bluesound Vault streaming Tidal And Qobuz.  Much better now.

I own the A8 and my experience with Qobuz is, it is way overhyped cannot wait until the prepaid year is up.My strong suggestion would be to try another streaming service. Qobuz is dull and lifeless in my opinion not the A8. In my experience the service that begins with the letter "A" and is the world largest retailer...offers the best fidelity I’ve gotten from the A8 when streaming. I also have Apple music and Roon both sound much better than Qobuz. Try a free trial of another music service, 8 hours run in time is nothing, my A8 did not start to really impress until after 50 hours and after 100 hours WOW. Truthfully based on your thread title it would appear a dissatisfaction bias (may) have been established for you, be honest with yourself and if so...Box it up while you are in your return window and move on.

All the best!

@balooo2 I had both Tidal HiFi and Qobuz for a year and preferred Qobuz. Like I said, once I turned off all processing the sound livened up a lot.

i also tried the A8 as a streamer with my DAC and thought it sounded pretty good but not good enough to spend $2K on just a streamer.

This exercise was interesting.

I didn’t want to like the A8 because of the many negative reviews and the fact that it is ChFi but the hype made be curious. I do like it. Are there better options for $2K. Maybe.

@macg19:  Dull and lifeless compared to what?