Conclusions
Factor in the physical unit and this unit would be a solid 6 out of 10 for me. Not perfect, but no deal breakers either. At the end of the day, this DAC has all the features I need for work, and it has competent playback audio quality.
Pros
- Feature rich with tons of input/output options
- Decent volume control
- Portable, lightweight and durable
- Battery life can last a whole day
Cons
- Do not like a different cable for charging
- You don’t want to let this DAC run out of batteries - keeps ‘popping’ the headphones
- Very easy to touch the 3 side buttons as I moved the DAC. This is getting annoying but it’s more a user problem
Overall, for under AUD $215 - the xDuoo XD-05 is excellent value for money. I’d recommend this to people who don’t want to spend extra money on more expensive products - e.g. iFi. Sure you can spend more for something better, and yet you can spend more and get something far worse (I’m looking at you again Teac!). And honestly I feel uncomfortable spending thousands on gear and then leave them at work. Who knows what’s going to happen? Even when you trust your colleagues to do the responsible thing (I certainly do), in the office environment there are other pests (rats, cockroaches and other unmentionable vermin abound). And then there’s the daily pack/unpack routine. There are places when you should embrace high end snobbery gear, and there’re cases when something like the xDuoo XD-05 is the perfect solution.
hey, u still have this thing?
i think what happen is that the opamp chip needs change. Consider LME49720 if u dont fancy to do any soldering, or just buy the Burson V5i if u have budget, easier.
I crossed this text when i roll the opamp, and i think my opa1612 is bad, and got this text.
Cheers