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AOpen AX4GE Tube-G

Review by Harry Lam on 03.01.13
Motherboard provided by AOpen

Differences between the AX4B-533 Tube and AX4GE/PE Tube:

The design differences between the AX4B-533 Tube and the AX4GE Tube-G are readily visible in the pictures below. Both are based around a 2 channel amplification design, but there are differences in the components as well as in the circuit itself.


AX4B-533's TubeSound	AX4GE's TubeSound

The daughterboard card for the TubeSound motherboards has changed significantly from the AX4B-533 Tube to the AX4GE Tube-G, with AOpen removing the headphone and SPDIF jacks on the daughterboard.


Bracket on the AX4B-533	Bracket on the AX4GE

Differences between the AX4B-533 and AX4GE/PE Tube (ripped from AOpen's website, and formatted to fit TWL):

	AX4B-533 Tube	AX4GE/PE Tube
Parts Quality
Multicap capacitor	Yes	Yes
WIMA capacitor	No	Yes
Vishay resistor	Yes	No (via 1% precision resistor)
Cardas wire	Yes	Yes
Kimber Kable wire	No	Yes
WBT connector (opt)	Yes	Yes
ELNA capacitor	Yes	No

Function
6.3mm headphone jack	Yes	No


SPDIF in/out	Yes (On bracket)	Yes (Via expansion card)

There is an entire segment on AOpen's R&D team that tweaked their TubeSound Amplification section of the AX4GE/PE TubeSound manual. It made a very interesting read, although it is a bit wordy for the less technically inclined.

This is AOpen's own internal results on the audio differences between the AX4B-533 Tube and the AX4GE/PE Tube. I for the most part agree with these results, although the audio differences weren't as drastic as between the codec outputs and the tube based outputs. Personally, the difference I noticed the most was that the AX4GE/PE did shine a lot more during trance music (which personally is my favorite genre of music) and was a tad bit weaker at classical (but not very significantly).

	AX4B-533 Tube	AX4GE/PE Tube
Audio Characteristics
Music Resolution	Near Excellent (9/10)	Excellent (9.5/10)
Treble	Excellent (warm bright and edgeless)	Excellent (bright and clean)
Mid	Excellent (warm and emotional)	Near Excellent (warm and soft)
Bass	Excellent (round, deep, and well-textured)	Near excellent bounce and well-textured
Sound Stage	Wide (9/10)	Wide (8/10)
Positioning	Excellent (9.5/10)	Near Excellent (8.5/10)

Music Type	Jazz (vocal)	Pop
(best for)	Trio, quartet... septet	Rock
	Small studio presentation	Jazz (General)
	Small chamber presentation	New Age
	Well-recording pop
	Well-recording classical

Music Instruments	String (Guitar, cello, violin, bass, double bass)	String (Guitar Violin)
(best for)	Wind (saxophone, French horn, trumpet)	Wind (saxophone)
	Piano	Piano
		Electronic Synthesizer

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