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 | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 60W against 60W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 100W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Emotiva BasX TA1 is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 99dB. 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 | Yamaha A-S301 takes more analogue sources - 6 against 3. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | Emotiva BasX TA1 takes up about 19% less shelf area (1371cm² against 1701cm²), and it is 74mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Yamaha A-S301 costs less - $350 against $499 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Yamaha A-S301 is the cheaper watt - about $6 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 Yamaha A-S301
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?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Emotiva BasX TA1 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Think about the whole system: the roughly $149 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.