Siblings in Emotiva's BasX range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Emotiva BasX A1 has more power - 200W against 135W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.7dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Emotiva BasX TA2+ the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and Emotiva BasX A1 for a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Emotiva BasX TA2+ holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 250W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Emotiva BasX TA2+ is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 112dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Emotiva BasX TA2+ 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 TA2+ takes more analogue sources - 4 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Emotiva BasX TA2+ has a built-in phono stage (MM and MC, 47k ohm MM, selectable 47 or 100 ohm MC) 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 TA2+ has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Price | B | Emotiva BasX A1 costs less - $569 against $1,299 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Emotiva BasX A1 is the cheaper watt - about $3 per watt against $10. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Emotiva BasX TA2+ 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?
The usual trade-off: Emotiva BasX TA2+ measures better, Emotiva BasX A1 costs about 56% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Emotiva BasX TA2+ is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, Emotiva BasX TA2+ 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.