I bought a new ASUS laptop and it had a crappy Realtek on-board audio for the headphone port and I was so pissed off at the crappy audio quality. It was very cringeworthy. I never had any problems with my old laptop, or my iPhone's audio quality. But my Note 4 has a crappy on-board Snapdragon DAC and my ASUS laptop with it's crappy Realtek which I hate with a burning passion, I decided to buy this. I never considered myself an audiophile, but when I hear bad quality I can't stand it. I bought this and WOW, I don't regret it one bit, worthy EVERY penny. I REFUSE to use anything but this for listening to music on, I connect it to my phone, laptop, everything! I tried today to connect my headphones to my iPhone directly and listen, I couldn't take it, within minutes brought the DAC out.
When I first received this, I listened to music ALL night and my jaw dropped all night. You can ask any of my friends, I raved about it for the first few months I had it. It still shocks me till this day with new songs I discover. The audio quality, umm, how to explain it, studio grade. I was fine with my old laptops audio quality (IDT) but this goes above and beyond your 'acceptable quality'. This sounds like something I'd be listening on at a recording studio for some top artist. Everything sound so clean and real. Vocals sounds like the person is talking right into my ears, like they have their microphone plugged straight into my headphones. Instruments you hear a big difference, they sound so clean and real, and FLAC makes it even more better. I get shivers down my spin with this quality. For $70 it far exceeds it's price tag imo. If I can get this quality at $70 I can't imagine what I can get with their $500 DAC, which I plan to buy later.
Build quality is VERY nice, the whole thing is metal and the headphone port is gold plated and looks very high-end. The volume knob is nice, even though I prefer digital up/down buttons. Just the build quality alone should tell you this is going to be a good product. The battery lasts I'd say 6 hours, it's not bad, and you can charge it while listening with no notice in degraded audio quality.
The amplifier is not as powerful as I'd like, but for my small on-ear headphones having the gain on High and at vol. level 6 it's plenty loud. But if you have big headphones that are say over-ear this may not drive them very loud if at all. I think this DAC/amp is designed more to be portable and for in-ear headphones and small on-ear headphones.
People say this DAC won't work for your Android phone, that's incorrect. I have Note 4 and on 5.1.1 and 6.0.1 the DAC has worked, however with complications but it does work. Every time I want to use it on my Note 4 I have to restart my phone and very shortly after it's done booting plug the DAC in. Play audio RIGHT away, if it sounds robotic, re-plug the DAC in and keep trying, sometimes a few times then it'll work. It does this very often, but I've had the DAC work everytime. The drivers for this on android are a bit flaky as you can see, but this is software and Google can fix the driver.
As for my computer, NO problems, NEVER. Always plugged it in, and right away works. Driver is plug-n-play on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.
In conclusion, BUY THIS DAC. It's WELL worth the money, and you'll go from 'acceptable quality' or even 'cringeworthy quality' to STUDIO grade that'll make you LOVE music again. I can honestly go as far to say to my friends, buy it, and if you don't fall in love with it, I'll pay for it.
To connect my DAC to my Note 4 I use this cable: Meenova Mobility Cable: MicroUSB-to-MicroUSB OTG
https://amzn.com/B00ZYB44UW
When I first received this, I listened to music ALL night and my jaw dropped all night. You can ask any of my friends, I raved about it for the first few months I had it. It still shocks me till this day with new songs I discover. The audio quality, umm, how to explain it, studio grade. I was fine with my old laptops audio quality (IDT) but this goes above and beyond your 'acceptable quality'. This sounds like something I'd be listening on at a recording studio for some top artist. Everything sound so clean and real. Vocals sounds like the person is talking right into my ears, like they have their microphone plugged straight into my headphones. Instruments you hear a big difference, they sound so clean and real, and FLAC makes it even more better. I get shivers down my spin with this quality. For $70 it far exceeds it's price tag imo. If I can get this quality at $70 I can't imagine what I can get with their $500 DAC, which I plan to buy later.
Build quality is VERY nice, the whole thing is metal and the headphone port is gold plated and looks very high-end. The volume knob is nice, even though I prefer digital up/down buttons. Just the build quality alone should tell you this is going to be a good product. The battery lasts I'd say 6 hours, it's not bad, and you can charge it while listening with no notice in degraded audio quality.
The amplifier is not as powerful as I'd like, but for my small on-ear headphones having the gain on High and at vol. level 6 it's plenty loud. But if you have big headphones that are say over-ear this may not drive them very loud if at all. I think this DAC/amp is designed more to be portable and for in-ear headphones and small on-ear headphones.
People say this DAC won't work for your Android phone, that's incorrect. I have Note 4 and on 5.1.1 and 6.0.1 the DAC has worked, however with complications but it does work. Every time I want to use it on my Note 4 I have to restart my phone and very shortly after it's done booting plug the DAC in. Play audio RIGHT away, if it sounds robotic, re-plug the DAC in and keep trying, sometimes a few times then it'll work. It does this very often, but I've had the DAC work everytime. The drivers for this on android are a bit flaky as you can see, but this is software and Google can fix the driver.
As for my computer, NO problems, NEVER. Always plugged it in, and right away works. Driver is plug-n-play on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.
In conclusion, BUY THIS DAC. It's WELL worth the money, and you'll go from 'acceptable quality' or even 'cringeworthy quality' to STUDIO grade that'll make you LOVE music again. I can honestly go as far to say to my friends, buy it, and if you don't fall in love with it, I'll pay for it.
To connect my DAC to my Note 4 I use this cable: Meenova Mobility Cable: MicroUSB-to-MicroUSB OTG
https://amzn.com/B00ZYB44UW
