xDuoo DSD DAC Portable Audio Headphone Amplifier (Black)

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.

Awesome DAC / Amp combo! Takes your audio to an entirely different level! This thing is already a solid performer worth well more than it's cost. You can search online & read that on any audiophile site as well. However, if you make a simple upgrade to it by replacing the Opamp chip with a Burson Audio V5i Dual Opamp (you get them from Burson Audio directly on their website, with shipping it's $54 total they're an Australian company) your $169.99-189.99 (depending on if you get Black or Silver) xDuoo DSD XD-05 turns into a $600-800+ DAC / Amp! If you're not electronically inclined, which I'm not, no need too worry! The upgrade is insanely easy. You take out the (8) hex screws (4 on the rear & 4 on the front) of the xDuoo & pull it out, then you simply pull the existing Opamp chip out (it's in a socket & is NOT soldered in) & replace it with the Burson V5i. That's literally it! There's plenty of how-to with pictures online too help. Regardless of whether you do the upgrade or not (for $54 total & the enormous benefit you gain from it, I highly recommend you do) the xDuoo DSD XD-05 is awesome, highly recommended & an absolute no regret purchase!

So let's get this out of the way... the build quality ***of the device itself*** is fantastic, its a nice weight, feels solid, and I just love the little switches. The only physical issue with it is the screen being slightly crooked, but ehh, whatever. It also sounds really good. Listening on my Audeze EL-8's I can barely tell the difference between this and my Schiit Jotunheim. But there are two reasons it got only three stars. The first issue I had was with the drivers. On both my computers, running windows 10 it didn't work naively. Not a big deal, I'll just download the drivers, nope. Nowhere to be found on xDuoo's site and I had to do quite a bit of digging to get to them (yes I know it comes with a disk, but like much of the world at this point, I have no disk drive). Once I got drivers, everything was great... for a day, until the included male to female USB A cable failed. Fortunately I had another (of what is a pretty obscure cable that most people wouldn't just have laying around) which solved that issue. So by all means, buy it, but maybe also buy another cheep cable just in case, and be prepared to hunt around for drivers if you also live in 2017.

Mis Sehnheiser HD 650 no levantaban bien... solo en mi Fiio K5 Pro, pero me fue recomendado este amplificador. Efectivamente, con él, todo suena mucho mejor.... es compatible con computadora... si hubiera sabido, me ahorro la inversión mencionada.

Tried to install on computer and now usb dac dosen't work at all and audio sucked because there was a missing contact in the dip socket for the OP-amp easy fix for sound and had fixed the sound problem without any problems if I had just kept using my phone I'd be fine the phone even did dsd 256 but I wanted to try Amazon music from my computer because for some reason android witch supports usb dac but Amazon music wont us it on android and wont go full ultra hd on android so anyone wanting to use it on windows 7 please just use optical and avoid the hassle still love it and will get another under replacement