Review of the portable USB DACs (Audioquest Dragonfly, Meridian Explorer, Director, iFi iDAC, iDSD, Geek Out, Pulse)

[X-Dan]

The iFi nano iDSD's burn-in is pretty much done, will do a review soon. I also got my hands on the Sony PHA-2, now burning it in, so stay tuned :-D

 

I/we are waiting impatientely that you do the review of your iDSD and youre Sony PHA-2 soon :-)

 

And also thank you for this very clear review on the other products !

 

Best regards

 

X-Dan

[timbo]

I/we are waiting impatientely that you do the review of your iDSD and youre Sony PHA-2 soon :-)

 

 

.. I'm desperate to read this review!! :-) These were two of the DAC/amps on my list and having just sent back a faulty one (not either of thee) I am really keen to decide on my next purchase. I need a DAC/Amp (isn't there a shortcut name for these?) that will work both mobile with my iPad Mini Retina and desktop with my MacBook, and it must be simply wonderful with classical music. :-) Flat response, open, detailed and clean - no grain, no distortion at crescendos (as you can see I've been doing a bit of listening!). I have Arcam rPAC that started me off on this head-fi hobby and a lovely little PA2V2 it's just time now to ramp things up a bit I think..

 

My list so far:

 

Centrance HiFi M8

ADL X1

ALO International

Sony PHA-2

iFi nano iDSD? (can you plug this into your MacBook I really can't tell from the specs?)

[mav52]

I/we are waiting impatientely that you do the review of your iDSD and youre Sony PHA-2 soon :-)

 

 

.. I'm desperate to read this review!! :-) These were two of the DAC/amps on my list and having just sent back a faulty one (not either of thee) I am really keen to decide on my next purchase. I need a DAC/Amp (isn't there a shortcut name for these?) that will work both mobile with my iPad Mini Retina and desktop with my MacBook, and it must be simply wonderful with classical music. :-) Flat response, open, detailed and clean - no grain, no distortion at crescendos (as you can see I've been doing a bit of listening!). I have Arcam rPAC that started me off on this head-fi hobby and a lovely little PA2V2 it's just time now to ramp things up a bit I think..

 

My list so far:

 

Centrance HiFi M8

ADL X1

ALO International

Sony PHA-2

iFi nano iDSD? (can you plug this into your MacBook I really can't tell from the specs?)

 

Don't forget the Resonessence Labs Herus and if you want to spend a chunk the Chord Hugo

[timbo]

Heard the Hugo at Bristol Show - unimpressed - maybe it was just to noisy in the room with all the other stuff?

[hifitubes]

Thanks for the info. Resonessence Labs HERUS does have nice size.

 

Now I am enjoying the iFi iDSD nano (still under review) with its analogue volume control. I have tried digital volume controls on many DACs > US$5000 DAC for my main system (not just 32bit, including 64bit volume control ones: Zodiac Gold), and they all were a let down. On portable gears I sought I might just have to live with it, but with analogue volume control, the sound is so much more musical.

 

Also I am hooked on the battery power supply. The iFi iDSD nano's battery power supply mode (it has two modes, USB power, Battery Power) really made the sound very very sweet.

 

 

Zodiac is not digital volume control, for clarification.

[Blake]

Geek Out measurements compared to the other portable dac/amps mentioned in this thread..... When looking at just the measurements, Geek Out rules them all:

 

Geek Temple :: Topic: Geek Out vs. the Others, 3rd Installment (1/1)

[tj58]

It should be noted that even PSU's need burn in.

[tj58]

Hi all, thought I'd repost my post from another thread here. I just bought an iDSD, along with a dragonfly, idac, and iusb power supply from ifi. DSD isn't a real concern for me, but I'm enjoying a free track now and to be honest it sounds better than many hi-res pcm tracks I have. I guess that makes sense as it's marketed as a DSD device (which has pcm thrown in for good measure). I'll be making my decision shortly what to keep.

 

Pardon the long explanation, but here's why I went a bit OCD on this.

 

Step 1) I initially bought the dragonfly 1.2 for my imac to feed my mcintosh 275 amp directly. There was a shit ton of noise, so I tried connecting it to my macbook pro. Perfect. Sounds great for $150, though it lacks a little bass through my speakers (headphones were fine here).

Step 2) Well, shit. I wanted it for my 2011 imac, and it turns out this noise through the usb is very, very common on this particular model. Let me try ifi's iusb power supply. Very near perfect addition. I could still hear a very slight hum through my imac->iusb->dragonfly->amp&speakers path just before and after starting a track. Just enough to bother me. For what it's worth, when running through my macbook pro I didn't hear a great improvement in the sound by adding the iusb power supply, so if I only used the macbook pro I'd probably not spend the $200 there.

Step 3) The iDSD and iDAC arrived a couple of hours ago. They didn't show up straight away, and there was a bit of unplugging and plugging in and crossing fingers... but once they're a go they're pretty consistent. Again, I'm plugging my amp directly into the headphone jack of these units and using the volume control there. The reason I tried the iDSD is because the literature said the power supply was always run from the battery inside the unit, which was charged from the usb. I had hoped this battery might disconnect whatever noise was coming from the iMac, but it hasn't. On the plus side, that little bit of noise right before and after a track with the iusb power supply and dragonfly? Not present at all when replacing the dragonfly with the iDSD or iDac.

Step 4) Sound. The best might just be the iDSD when running DSD from very very early impressions, but I need more tracks to really say. And this would be by a smidge over the iDac running flac files. 320 mp3s also sounded great. I'd say with pcm only the iDac is best, followed by the dragonfly and the iDSD slightly behind that. However, the iDSD will do 192/24 (and more I think) while the dragonfly is stuck at 96. Good enough for me, but a no go if I can't eliminate the imac & dragonfly hum.

 

Step 5) Try to find a cheap way to fix my iMac's hum so I don't need a separate power conditioner and revisit the three dacs. The iDSD is just large enough to be burdensome on the go, with the dragonfly a clear winner there size wise. All sound great for the money, and for the iDSD specifically, if you're more infatuated with DSD I wouldn't hesitate. If PCM only for small home situations, the iDac, and for the road warrior, the dragonfly. Which is still quite good for home use (limited by 96/24).

Additional notes: All that said, for my speaker setup I need a certain volume to really find my foot tapping. So I may end up getting a much better dac / preamp combo which can handle lower volumes better. Also, more and more the iDac is the winner among my shootout, enough so to make up for the iDSD feature set and portability and price difference - for my needs. If you want like DSD, want it portable, compatible with iphone ipad etc, definitely get it.

 

Not bad for a couple hours of burn in?!

[barrows]

So who has their Geek Out now?

[Blake]

So who has their Geek Out now?

 

About 300 units have been shipped thus far. A few professional reviewers have them now, including Part Time Audiophile. If I am following Larry Ho correctly, they are intentionally sending the units out in batches of 300 hundred to start with, and for now it is just the highest powered version of the Geek Out which is the hardest to build, then batches of 300 for the other Geek Out versions. Then the flood gates will open with subsequent batches of 3,000 units and then 6,000 units. All done as a part of a larger quality control scheme.

[DM]

I have pretty much finished auditioning the iDSD nano, will post a review shortly. Thank you Blake for the link, it was very interesting read from the Geek official post. This is the first time in my memory some audio manufacturer go about such comparative advertising so publically, but I guess the time has changed and this is the internet age.

 

In the past, manufacturers due to respect to the others or in fear of FTC go down on them, normally they don’t do something like this. Of course, reviewers (e.g. Stereophile), users, DIYers are the rightful exceptions.

 

When I looked at Geek’s test results, the first thing came up to me was those were quite different from the Stereophile ones as I remember. I recall that the Dragonfly and Explorer did measure quite well from Stereophile and that's one of the reasons I got them in the first place. Here is a comparison of Geek’s measurements vs. Stereophile ones (don’t we all like comparisons :-D).

 

Dragonfly Output Voltage:

Stereophile: 1.86V vs. Geek: 2.077V

 

Dragonfly Distortion:

Stereophile: 0.041% vs. Geek: >5%

 

And finally the 0dBFS FFTs, the following is what Stereophile has measured and compare to Geek’s measurements:

Nice and clean decay from Stereophile.

 

Horror show from Geek.

 

Again, the measurements are so different, may be the Dragonfly unit the Geek had was a broken one? Or Stereophile's Dragonfly was a specially built unit just for Stereophile's testing purpose? Or it was just a series of human measurement errors? Or the Geek measurement environment was very adversary to the Dragonfly? Or the Geek unit has been tempered with? (I am sure Geek wouldn’t have knowingly and willingly carried out the last two possibilities).

 

With such huge discrepancies, I don't know what has happened with Geek's setup and measurements. Did similar discrepancies exist for Geek's tests on the iFi iDSD nano and Meridian Explorer? Or Stereophile's John Atkinson can no longer be trusted?

[DM]

iFi nano iDSD? (can you plug this into your MacBook I really can't tell from the specs?)

 

Yes, it can. If you have the latest MacBook with only USB3.0 port, then you will need a firmware upgrade from iFi, which they say will be available in a few weeks time ... But if you have a macbook with both USB2.0 and USB3.0 port, then just plug the iDSD nano directly into the macbook and it will just work.

[DM]

I/we are waiting impatientely that you do the review of your iDSD and youre Sony PHA-2 soon :-)

 

And also thank you for this very clear review on the other products !

 

Best regards

 

X-Dan

 

I am writing the review at the moment, both the iDSD nano and Sony PHA-2. Just a preview :-D both are excellent machines, you can’t go wrong with neither, but one of them have a clear advantage ...

[Miska]

Again, the measurements are so different, may be the Dragonfly unit the Geek had was a broken one? Or Stereophile's Dragonfly was a specially built unit just for Stereophile's testing purpose?

 

If you read the Stereophile measurement report, I think you kind of find the answer:

With the first sample of the DragonFly, a full-scale 24-bit signal actually clipped the bottom halves of the waveform with the computer's volume control set to its maximum, giving a THD+noise level of 3.8%. Backing off the control by one click (–0.17dB) reduced the THD to 2.14%, by a second click (–0.34dB) to 0.627%, and by a third click (–0.51dB) to 0.054%, below which the THD+N percentage plateaued. The second sample didn't clip with a 0dBFS signal at maximum volume, and the THD+N was 0.041% rather than 3.8%.

 

These measurements tend to be done with volume set to 0 dB...

[DM]

If you read the Stereophile measurement report, I think you kind of find the answer:

With the first sample of the DragonFly, a full-scale 24-bit signal actually clipped the bottom halves of the waveform with the computer's volume control set to its maximum, giving a THD+noise level of 3.8%. Backing off the control by one click (–0.17dB) reduced the THD to 2.14%, by a second click (–0.34dB) to 0.627%, and by a third click (–0.51dB) to 0.054%, below which the THD+N percentage plateaued. The second sample didn't clip with a 0dBFS signal at maximum volume, and the THD+N was 0.041% rather than 3.8%.

 

These measurements tend to be done with volume set to 0 dB...

 

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand. So the Geek team got this older model DragonFly which has this minor clipping issue and used it to compare with their latest DAC...

 

I am sure the Geek team didn't know that the DragonFly was clipping, otherwise they wouldn't go ahead with the measurements ...

[Blake]

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand. So the Geek team got this older model DragonFly which has this minor clipping issue and used it to compare with their latest DAC...

 

I am sure the Geek team didn't know that the DragonFly was clipping, otherwise they wouldn't go ahead with the measurements ...

 

Actually, the Geek team tested the original Dragonfly, as well as the newer 1.2 version, both with similar results. In response to a question from a forum member asking which version of the Dragonfly was used, Larry Ho responded as follows..

 

"We got both testing samples, and similar results. I think the key reason of that performance should related to that weak headphone output IC. That IC clips in -0dBFS."

 

 

 

[magnum innominandum]

Hi,

 

If you read the Stereophile measurement report, I think you kind of find the answer:<br>

<em>With the first sample of the DragonFly, a full-scale 24-bit signal actually clipped the bottom halves of the waveform with the computer's volume control set to its maximum, giving a THD+noise level of 3.8%. Backing off the control by one click (–0.17dB) reduced the THD to 2.14%, by a second click (–0.34dB) to 0.627%, and by a third click (–0.51dB) to 0.054%, below which the THD+N percentage plateaued. The second sample didn't clip with a 0dBFS signal at maximum volume, and the THD+N was 0.041% rather than 3.8%.</em>

 

These measurements tend to be done with volume set to 0 dB...

 

So, let me get this right. What you are saying is that the people at geek set the volume on the DAC to max and let rip?

 

If I do that on my Amplifier I am rewarded with severely distorted sound and shortly afterwards blown tweeters, shortly after that blown woofers. An expensive repair that is.

 

If so, why on earth would anyone do something like that?

 

 

Worse, they referenced the Stereophile measurements of the Dragonfly themselves part 1, so they know what independent (and presumably uninterested) third party measurements look like.

 

If one's own measurements disagree, does one try find what one did wrong or does one trumpet to the world "look I found 5% distortion" (even if you only found 5% because you turned up the volume too much when you could have had 0.05% by turning down a few clicks)?

 

Actually, the Geek team tested the original Dragonfly, as well as the newer 1.2 version, both with similar results. In response to a question from a forum member asking which version of the Dragonfly was used, Larry Ho responded as follows..<br>

<br>

<font color="#080808"><span style="font-family: equiplight">"We got both testing samples, and similar results. I think the key reason of that performance should related to that weak headphone output IC. That IC clips in -0dBFS."</span></font>

 

Not to sound like a spoil sport, but if you overdrive an amplifier, should you complain it distorts?<br>

<br>

Now, I have not measured a clipping amplifier on an Audio Precision set (it was an AP1) since those days in Texas with that big Semiconductor maker nearly two decades ago, but I'll eat my beret (without condiments) if what we see in the measurements for the dragonfly is not a clipping amplifier. <br>

<br>

On one side John Atkinson at Stereophile measures 0.05% Distortion with the Dragonfly Volume control set to avoid clipping by adjusting the volume downwards a whopping half decibel. Now that Cat (JA) measures gear for a living and he probably gets to measure more stuff in a month than most of us get to hear seriously in a lifetime.<br>

<br>

On the other side some Guy by the name of Fish (or so it seems) measures 5% Distortion, AFTER he read JA's measurements. <br>

<br>

Ain't that a ground for pulling the reins and saying, "Hey, if that Cat got 0.05% and I get 5%, maybe I am doing something wrong?" rather than going with galloping horses and tell anyone - "Look I got 5% THD testing the Dragonfly?". <br>

<br>

Now do tell, does that seem a bit, pardon the pun, fishy? Perish the thought...<br>

<br>

One does hope that the Gentlemen over at LH-Labs (presuming they are Gentlemen, not Knaves) will have another look at what they published and what they measured and perhaps take the occasional second to click down the volume of products by OTHERS that they measure and publish, to make sure they get it right. <br>

<br>

BTW I would NEVER, EVER buy a DAC with an ESS Sabre Chip (them flying the maple leaf not withstanding) be it a Geek, the Dragonfly or that clunky ugly iFi thing, no matter how hard they try to goad me into it. But I do think they owe it to their customers, who made them so successful already before ever getting to hear their products, to be honest when dealing publicly.<br>

<br>

[Andrew Allen Ballew]

I would disagree with you about your impression that the iDSD is behind the Dragonfly with PCM. The same qualities that sound great with DSD, namely, tone, weight and smoothness, carry over to PCM. In all these areas the iDSD is better than the Dragonfly regardless of format. Don't get me wrong, I love my dragonfly. It brings a certain excitement to the game. But it is clearly outclassed by the iDSD.

 

Looking forward to the OP's review of the iDSD!! (Based on my own listening, I would be surprised if he doesn't like it )

 

 

 

Hi all, thought I'd repost my post from another thread here. I just bought an iDSD, along with a dragonfly, idac, and iusb power supply from ifi. DSD isn't a real concern for me, but I'm enjoying a free track now and to be honest it sounds better than many hi-res pcm tracks I have. I guess that makes sense as it's marketed as a DSD device (which has pcm thrown in for good measure). I'll be making my decision shortly what to keep.

 

Pardon the long explanation, but here's why I went a bit OCD on this.

 

Step 1) I initially bought the dragonfly 1.2 for my imac to feed my mcintosh 275 amp directly. There was a shit ton of noise, so I tried connecting it to my macbook pro. Perfect. Sounds great for $150, though it lacks a little bass through my speakers (headphones were fine here).

Step 2) Well, shit. I wanted it for my 2011 imac, and it turns out this noise through the usb is very, very common on this particular model. Let me try ifi's iusb power supply. Very near perfect addition. I could still hear a very slight hum through my imac->iusb->dragonfly->amp&speakers path just before and after starting a track. Just enough to bother me. For what it's worth, when running through my macbook pro I didn't hear a great improvement in the sound by adding the iusb power supply, so if I only used the macbook pro I'd probably not spend the $200 there.

Step 3) The iDSD and iDAC arrived a couple of hours ago. They didn't show up straight away, and there was a bit of unplugging and plugging in and crossing fingers... but once they're a go they're pretty consistent. Again, I'm plugging my amp directly into the headphone jack of these units and using the volume control there. The reason I tried the iDSD is because the literature said the power supply was always run from the battery inside the unit, which was charged from the usb. I had hoped this battery might disconnect whatever noise was coming from the iMac, but it hasn't. On the plus side, that little bit of noise right before and after a track with the iusb power supply and dragonfly? Not present at all when replacing the dragonfly with the iDSD or iDac.

Step 4) Sound. The best might just be the iDSD when running DSD from very very early impressions, but I need more tracks to really say. And this would be by a smidge over the iDac running flac files. 320 mp3s also sounded great. I'd say with pcm only the iDac is best, followed by the dragonfly and the iDSD slightly behind that. However, the iDSD will do 192/24 (and more I think) while the dragonfly is stuck at 96. Good enough for me, but a no go if I can't eliminate the imac & dragonfly hum.

 

Step 5) Try to find a cheap way to fix my iMac's hum so I don't need a separate power conditioner and revisit the three dacs. The iDSD is just large enough to be burdensome on the go, with the dragonfly a clear winner there size wise. All sound great for the money, and for the iDSD specifically, if you're more infatuated with DSD I wouldn't hesitate. If PCM only for small home situations, the iDac, and for the road warrior, the dragonfly. Which is still quite good for home use (limited by 96/24).

Additional notes: All that said, for my speaker setup I need a certain volume to really find my foot tapping. So I may end up getting a much better dac / preamp combo which can handle lower volumes better. Also, more and more the iDac is the winner among my shootout, enough so to make up for the iDSD feature set and portability and price difference - for my needs. If you want like DSD, want it portable, compatible with iphone ipad etc, definitely get it.

[Porky]

while waiting for DM's review of Sony's PHA-2 and iFi's iDSD nano, I will chip in my two cents worth.

 

I am currently using Shure's SE535Ltd with Sony's PHA-1. And source is an iP5S with apple loseless.

 

I have been enjoying my current setup for more than a year while not perfect, it is very musical and enjoyable. the PHA-1 rolls off the highs a bit and the bass is a bit slow and bloated and the bass extension could be better.

 

With that in mind, I went to try out both the PHA-2 and iDSD nano. Keep in mind all listening is with standard 16bit 44.1kHz materials. The listening was for about 30mins each and with 15 mins of each other to keep memories fresh. Listening was done with Shure SE535Ltd and I brought along my PHA-1 for comparison as well.

 

1) iDSD is very similar in sound signature with the output from a iP5S, a much brighter sound compared to PHA-1. Bass was a tag less that PHA-1 but faster. prominent highs with good separation. Overall the sound was quite analytical. Biggest complain is the the sound sounded quite "flat", the tracks with big dynamic ranges suffered. It does not seem as "dark" as PHA-1 on quite passage. Also, the volume control has very noticeable clicks that can be heard. Big turn off for me. But the price is a no brainer.. So I feel is may be more suited as a DAC. The amp was a big disappointment for me.

 

2) The PHA-2 sound can be best described as an improvement on PHA-1. Both share a warmish signature. But the highs are now much better, not rolled off and well extended. Bass was not as fast a iDSD but much better than the bloated PHA-1 and extension is improved as well. It still has the "dark" dead quiet character that I really like in PHA-1. So this is definitely a significant improvement over PHA-1 and imho it sounded better to me compared to iDSD nano for the SE535ltd and my taste in sound.

In the last 5-10mins of testing, i plugged in the SE535ltd directly into the line out of PHA-2 (toggled switch from headphone out to line out) and surprise surprise... it works perfectly and at the volume that I listen to. The volume control does not work in this setup and I believe the headphone amp section is switch off as well. In this mode, the PHA-2 seems more transparent with less character of it's own. The bass was FAST and but slightly less than from the headphone amp. I will need another extended listening to verify this.

The major downside... the PHA-2 is ridiculous priced here in Singapore (SGD999=790USD).

 

End of 2 cents....

[Andrew Allen Ballew]

Oh come on, you are being way too impartial It. Isn't just stereophiles measurements that done jive with the Geeks. Rather the Geeks stand alone as the best impartial authority that so happen to have the best tools and brains to interpret. Yeah, sure.

 

I think it is pretty obvious what is going on here. Besides it isn't just the measurements that are suspect. Fundamental technological implementations are misrepresented. No measurements needed to know that.

 

 

I have pretty much finished auditioning the iDSD nano, will post a review shortly. Thank you Blake for the link, it was very interesting read from the Geek official post. This is the first time in my memory some audio manufacturer go about such comparative advertising so publically, but I guess the time has changed and this is the internet age.

 

In the past, manufacturers due to respect to the others or in fear of FTC go down on them, normally they don’t do something like this. Of course, reviewers (e.g. Stereophile), users, DIYers are the rightful exceptions.

 

When I looked at Geek’s test results, the first thing came up to me was those were quite different from the Stereophile ones as I remember. I recall that the Dragonfly and Explorer did measure quite well from Stereophile and that's one of the reasons I got them in the first place. Here is a comparison of Geek’s measurements vs. Stereophile ones (don’t we all like comparisons :-D).

 

Dragonfly Output Voltage:

Stereophile: 1.86V vs. Geek: 2.077V

 

Dragonfly Distortion:

Stereophile: 0.041% vs. Geek: >5%

 

And finally the 0dBFS FFTs, the following is what Stereophile has measured and compare to Geek’s measurements:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]11356[/ATTACH]

Nice and clean decay from Stereophile.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]11357[/ATTACH]

Horror show from Geek.

 

Again, the measurements are so different, may be the Dragonfly unit the Geek had was a broken one? Or Stereophile's Dragonfly was a specially built unit just for Stereophile's testing purpose? Or it was just a series of human measurement errors? Or the Geek measurement environment was very adversary to the Dragonfly? Or the Geek unit has been tempered with? (I am sure Geek wouldn’t have knowingly and willingly carried out the last two possibilities).

 

With such huge discrepancies, I don't know what has happened with Geek's setup and measurements. Did similar discrepancies exist for Geek's tests on the iFi iDSD nano and Meridian Explorer? Or Stereophile's John Atkinson can no longer be trusted?

[James1776]

DM, you are missing a pretty basic capability if you are not using those DAC's with an android phone. Try this...

 

1. Go to the Google play store and download USB Audio Player Pro. It is a bare bones player that outputs a digital signal to an outboard DAC and lets you control the volume from the App.

 

2. Turn off the App

 

3. Load some High Rez files to the phone

 

4. Connect the DAC to the phone (important...On my phone the connection will not work unless the phone is On first. Connecting the DAC before the phone is powered up results in a host of error messages.)

 

5. Turn on the App, check the box that tells the app to use the outboard DAC, load the music and play.

 

I am running a Sony Xperia Z with an Audioquest Dragonfly (the phone easily powers the DAC) and then either a powered set of speakers or Earbuds. I get over 8 hours of play to a battery charge. I have a few 24/192 files on the phone and the DAC plays them fine (down sampled to 24/96)

[Larry Ho]

About 300 units have been shipped thus far. A few professional reviewers have them now, including Part Time Audiophile. If I am following Larry Ho correctly, they are intentionally sending the units out in batches of 300 hundred to start with, and for now it is just the highest powered version of the Geek Out which is the hardest to build, then batches of 300 for the other Geek Out versions. Then the flood gates will open with subsequent batches of 3,000 units and then 6,000 units. All done as a part of a larger quality control scheme.

 

Yes. You got it right.

 

And don't want to beat the dead horse again. We have successfully duplicate the same test results with Stereophile on Dragonfly.

From the feedback, we learn that there are many different versions. 1.0, 1.0C and 1.2...

 

When we set the loading from 100K to 300Ohm, and decrease the bandwidth from 90K Hz to 20K Hz. We got the exact same THD number like JA: 3.8%... And when we reduce the output to -10dB, the clipping issue was gone. There is no right or wrong on different testing parameters setting. And absolute value here is not for reference. But when we using the same machine, same parameter to cross test the different products, the result is fair and revealing.

 

Cheers,

 

Larry

[Savage]

So who has their Geek Out now?

 

I've had mine about a week. Worth the wait..yep. No one is going to be disappointed, even the critical critics.

 

If there is one stand-out it's how clean and articulate the sound is. It seems very jitter free, from memory it's besting the entry and mid-level USB converters I've tried. It does not beat my Berkeley USB/Metrum combo over-all but it does in certain areas and I didn't expect something the size of a matchbox and running off USB power to even come close.

 

It is a must audition before you spend money elsewhere.

[magnum innominandum]

Dear Mr. Ho,

 

We have successfully duplicate the same test results with Stereophile on Dragonfly.

 

That is great news.

 

I take it you will update your comparison now to show the correct output level (1.86V instead of 2.076V) and correct THD & N (0.041% instead of > 5%), show the correct FFT (see above) posts and correct all the other incorrect measurements?

 

Maybe you should re-test the other products you compared as well and see if you need to correct more details?

 

Looking forward to you posting the corrections.

[shaolin95]

First post here!

Has anyone tested these against the FiiO E17 or E18 (current one that I own)?

I do not really have a problem with the E18 but you know...we are always looking to improve and since portability is not an issue as I only use it at work so i can just leave it there, I am wondering if I can do better.

Bass boost is a must for me and is one of the reasons I like the ICan as it has several settings for it as well as 3D sound.

 

In any case my source is the Xperia Z Ultra phone thus I cannot use the full size idac sadly but the nano instead. There are so many things outthere is hard to decided...liek that Geek Out one, Schitt etc.

My main headphones are V-Moda M-100.

Thanks!