No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 has more power - 60W against 45W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Noise floor | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 105dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Denon PMA-600NE takes more analogue sources - 4 against 3. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 is the cheaper watt - about $8 per watt against $11. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Emotiva BasX TA1 B Denon PMA-600NE
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Emotiva BasX TA1 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.