FiiO EA13
Six tubes, real transformers, Class A operation — and a price that makes old-school hi-fi unexpectedly accessible.
There is something almost defiant about launching a large analogue tube amplifier in 2026. Everything around audio has been shrinking, streaming and disappearing into software. The FiiO EA13 goes in the opposite direction: glowing valves, mechanical VU meters, physical controls and enough mass to remind you that amplification was once an object in its own right.
More importantly, the retro appearance is not hiding a token tube stage. The EA13 uses two NOS Sylvania PCF80 tubes for voltage amplification and four JJ Electronic EL34 power tubes in a Class A push-pull configuration. Output is rated at 28 watts per channel into 8 ohms, with dedicated 4- and 8-ohm speaker connections and custom EI-core output transformers. There are four analogue RCA inputs and a 6.35 mm headphone output.
Then there is the number everyone keeps noticing: around $770 in the US. That is unusually aggressive territory for a full-size valve amplifier built around EL34s and conventional output transformers, components that are normally among the expensive parts of doing tube amplification properly.
It is not a miracle machine. Class A tubes consume significant power, generate substantial heat and do not offer the compact efficiency of modern Class D amplification. Early reviewers have also noted some transformer or tube hum in quiet conditions.
But those disadvantages are almost part of the point. The EA13 does not try to disguise its technology or make it disappear. It turns amplification back into something physical: circuitry that glows, meters that move, transformers that weigh something and an operating principle whose inefficiency is inseparable from its character.
At a time when increasingly sophisticated audio systems are becoming invisible, FiiO has made an object that wants to be seen.
And somehow, it costs less than $800.