XQ-25 Portable Bluetooth Headphone Audio Amplifier, USB DAC Amp with NFC Enabled and Built-in Microphone

I have owned a variety of products (DACs & Portable Amps) in and around this price range/ criteria. Fiio E7, Fiio E17k, Fiio K5, Teac HA-P50-R, Cayin C5. To my opinion, none of these matched the fidelity in build, features, and sound of the XD-05.Build:The XD-05 is a large portable Dac/amp. I would say it is two Oppo HA-2's placed on top of each other. It is an all metal chassis with a lovely feeling potentiometer..It really is an amazing feeling. The potentiometer is not recessed or blocked by an extruding protecting arm like many other portable's. I like this because of it's ease of access. The input, bass and gain switches all have good satisfying click when moved. I never feel as if I am going to break the unit. However, if dropped you will see some chipping on the corners. Nothing detrimental to the build though.Features:The XD-05 offers one of the most versatile feature sets in this price range. Low, Med, High gain that is able to handle low and high sensitivity headphones up to 300ohm ( stated by manufacturer ). This means you could power your Senn. HD-600's and 650's easily. High gain is pretty deafening as well and you should not have to use it. The XD-05 also offers DSD256, PCM, and DXD. However, I do not buy into the audiable enhancements DSD can provide. It is snake oil to my ears.Now onto the quirks of the features. OTG worked wonderful paired to my Galaxy S7 edge. However, it was a quirky decision to make the input on the device a male USB recessed into the chassis. Now I had to buy a micro-usb to female-usb extender with OTG capability. its a large terminal and isn't as portable friendly as a micro to micro-usb OTG. This is a small problem though. You've already taken in the size of the device for portability.. you can forgive this aspect. The other quirk of this device is that it cannot be charged by your computer while being used as a desktop Dac. You have to have both the usb input connect plus a charger ( into the micro usb for charging on the back of device ). Again, this is a small inconvenience. The battery has lasted be about 8 hours while using the Dac. I'm sure you can get better hours using optical. The last quirk is the process of installing drivers for window's based sytems. Unlike Mac or Linux, you have to install the drivers using the disk in the box. Its a small hassle, but worked flawlessly for me after.In all, the feature set is still one of the best in its class.Sound:Now this is the fun part. Well built Dac/amps will more or less sound similar. This is how you want your's to sound. Fiio is very known for having a 'house sound' that is more south of neutral and warmer in tone. I have found that more recent Fiio devices have become more neutral, but are lacking in fidelity. As if it is missing the ability to provide detail in certain mid and high frequencies. The XD-05 is much more comparable to the Oppo HA-2 in providing an accurate sound from the Dac. It is not quite as "wow" sounding, but still very good. Comparing it to my Schiit Magni 2, I prefer the XD-05 more. The Schiit is a little too bright in my ears, and Fiio is too warm. This is right in the middle.Overall, I am very pleased with my XD-05. I have never owned a product from this company, but am now a fan of their products. I would give this a better rating, but my device came shipped with some small chips on the edge of the device. I bought it new and expect better... but its not the end of the world. I've been enjoying this portable Dac/ amp with my Fostex Th-610's, Master & Dynamic MH-40 Alcantara's, Hifiman HE-400i's and Audioquest Nighthawks.

To start off, it looks like there has been a revision to the TA-01, there no longer is a gain switch located inside the case. I have looked at other pictures of it online and the two jumpers located on the PCM that were used for the low and high gain for each channel are no longer there; I assume this is due to the fact that others in forums have stated that they contacted xDuoo and even the company said they worked better on high gain, which they came set by default. I am using the Audeze LCD-2F with them so I wanted them set on high anyway because I need the full 2.1 watts of power.I replaced the stock Chinese tube with a Russian Golden Lion tube, wow I instantly noticed a huge difference, it sounded so much better. I noticed even more detail in the music and on some songs where I was hearing this kind of harsh compressed signature was completely gone. It’s definitely worth spending extra and going with the Golden Lion. Now keep in mind some people will say they hear no difference when they swap out the stock tube in amps, if your using cheap headphones than you might not hear a difference; when your using thousand dollar headphones, I can tell you there is a very big difference.As for the DAC in the xDuoo, I can’t say much about it since I don’t use it, I tried it for a little while but found it doesn’t sound as good as the DAC in my Marantz HD-DAC1, so I use the Marantz for the DAC and have RCA’s going from the Marantz’s variable output to the line in RCA’s on the xDuoo TA-01 and I use the volume knob on the Marantz. When it comes down to the Marantz is an $800 DAC-AMP so it’s much higher quality, but it just didn’t have enough power for my Audeze LCD-2F’s, it’s 800 mW (32ohm load) vs the xDuoo TA-01’s 2100mW (32ohm load). I was looking for a cheap amp that can power them for now and eventually I probably end up getting a Deckard.Overall, the xDuoo TA-01 doesn’t disappoint, for the price you’re not going to find anything more powerful, not even close, I looked around quite a bit before I bought it. It makes a great budget amp for the LCD-2F if you were like me a dropped a grand on them and didn’t feel like spending another $700+ for an amp at the same time. It’s of a sturdy build quality, easy to take off the top of the case with four screws, which you must do to replace the tube; there is no light illuminating the tube, kind of wish there was, maybe I will try and add one later on.I’m giving it a 4/5 because of the lack of a gain switch even though it’s still advertised as having one, and because the original that had the gain switch had it on the inside as a jumper instead of as an external switch which made it very unpractical. Overall though, listening to music with the LCD-2F’s on this amp is truly a magical experience, it’s like listening to the music for the first time again.