These are not the same size of amplifier: Emotiva BasX A1 has roughly 3.3x the power of Emotiva BasX TA1. That is about 5.2dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Emotiva BasX A1 has more power - 200W against 60W into 8 ohms. That is about 5.2dB - a different class of amplifier rather than a bigger version of the same one, and far more than most rooms will ever ask for. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Emotiva BasX TA1 the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and Emotiva BasX A1 for a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (100W and 325W). |
| Noise floor | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 112dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Emotiva BasX TA1 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Emotiva BasX A1 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Emotiva BasX TA1 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Shelf space | depends | Emotiva BasX TA1 takes up about 19% less shelf area (1371cm² against 1700cm²), and it is 76mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 costs less - $499 against $569 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Emotiva BasX A1 is the cheaper watt - about $3 per watt against $8. 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 Emotiva BasX A1
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. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Emotiva BasX A1 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 60 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 140 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Emotiva BasX A1 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason. If you play records, Emotiva BasX TA1 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.