xDuoo TA-26 Review

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Design and Build Quality

Casing

Out of the box, the xDuoo TA-26 looks a lot like its predecessors, with a few tweaks here and there.

The case is made of thick, matte-black, anodized aluminum, with a long main body, topped by three vacuum tubes on its first half, and a massive cubicle on its rear half – hiding the transfo. Unlike the TA-10 and TA-20, which enjoyed a seamless “unibody” case, the TA-26 front and back panels are screwed to the main chassis. Fortunately, this isn’t a visual issue as the brand took extra care to avoid any gap, or misalignment when screwing those panels.

As usual, the finish and build quality are quite impressive. This is an amp you want to touch and feel, especially now that xDuoo replaced the previous clicky volume-knob, for a big and nice analog one. If I miss the screen found within the TA-30 and smaller models, the red potentiometer and shiny handles are visual traits that I wouldn’t have missed, though.

xDuoo TA-26

xDuoo TA-26

Next to my Cayin HA-1AMKII amp, the xDuoo TA-26 doesn’t feel too big anymore, but it keeps that cool vibe of “true” tube amp, thanks to the big Rectification tube and the equally sized transfo block behind. It looks a lot like the TA-30 from afar, but up close, the latter takes the upper hand with a “premium” touch, compared to the TA-26.

Depending on your previous gear, the xDuoo TA-26 can either look massive – especially compared to the XD-05BAL – or compact if you’re more accustomed to A-Class tube amp. The whole device is 25cm long, 11cm wide and 16cm tall, so small enough to fit any desktop if you ask me, and weights just under 3.6kg. Again, if you want to put that in perspective, my Cayin HA1-MKII weights 9.5kg…

Overall, there is a lot to love, so let’s move on and take a look the layout.

xDuoo TA-26

xDuoo TA-26

Layout

New layout, single ended input, new tubes.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: yes, like the TA-30, the xDuoo TA-26 ditched the XLR output, so no more balanced output for you! But in exchange, you get a much bigger screen, buttons to control the amp, and one big twisty analog volume knob.

The good news? Instead of a line-out, the brand put a pre-out, meaning that you could use the TA-26 as a pre-amp in your setup, to feed your power amplifier or powered speaker. I did so with my KEF LS50 Wireless, while the amp was fed by the XD05-BAL, and that worked perfectly well.

xDuoo TA-26

xDuoo TA-26

The front panel comes with :

  • 1x 6.35mm Jack headphone output, to plug in your headphone or in-ear
  • 1x power switch
  • 1x Analog Volume Knob

And if we take a look at the back panel, we have :

  • 1x RCA In, to connect to your DAC or any analog source to your TA-30
  • 1x RCA Out, to bridge the signal through your usual speaker amp

and… that’s it. Again, compared to the TA-10, TA-20 and, even more, TA-30, the TA-26 I/O looks pale in comparison, but, as a true Tube-headphone-amp, this would not be relevant.

xDuoo TA-26

xDuoo TA-26

Regarding the vacuum tubes, xDuoo put two 6N8P tubes (dual triode) for pre-amp and one 6N5P (triode) for buffer. All those tubes can easily be swapped by one of your choice and equivalents are legion on AliExpress, Amazon, or your secondhand shop.

Let’s plug the TA-26 now and see how it goes.

The review continues on Page Three, after the click HERE or by using the jump below.

Page 1: About the brand

Page 3: Comfort & Specifications

Page 4: Sound performances and conclusion

4.3/5 - (80 votes)
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A nerdy guy with a passion for audio and gadgets, he likes to combine his DAC and his swiss knife. Even after more than 10 years of experience, Nanotechnos still collects all gear he gets, even his first MPMAN MP3 player. He likes spreadsheets, technical specs and all this amazing(ly boring) numbers. But most of all, he loves music: electro, classical, dubstep, Debussy : the daily playlist.

2 Comments

  • Reply September 16, 2021

    Gareth

    Are you certain it takes 3 tubes? Because I’m sitting looking at one and it takes a 6sn7 and a 6as7… or are there two versions?

  • Reply September 16, 2021

    StivVid

    The other comment is correct. There are only 2 tubes in this amp– not 3. Also… In one part of the review you seem to suggest that there is a display screen in this unit. Maybe I read it wrong, or maybe some of this review is copied and pasted from the TA-30 review?

    And that square cover behind the tubes doesn’t conceal a capacitor. (It would be a REALLY BIG capacitor if it needed a cover like that.) There’s actually a transformer that lives under there.

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