Terrific review, ClieOS! I own the iDSD and enjoy it immensely, but you've taugfht me a few things that may help me get even more out it. Thanks for a great and thorough review.

Very thorough review, it packs a lot of features for a portable.

Great review! Thanks ClieOS.
(I actually had a few of those Sony palm pilots years ago).

Great review, Thanks!
Now i feel the need to test it myself..

Best micro iDSD review ever.

cheers ClieOS!  stellar writing, and after owning iDSD micro for awhile- very spot on review.

Super review. Out of curiosity, what would you consider a top-tier amp? And what do these amps have that the Micro iDSD lacks?

Excellent review, ClieOS. If I have to compensate for a slightly leaner amp, would adding a micro iCan would help (of course it won't be portable)? Or any other tube or amp suggestions

@Roscoeiii For portable: O2, Meier Audio StepDance (and quire possibly QuickDance), and FiiO E12DIY (and to a lesser extent, E12A). There are just too many portable amps I have not tried, so the above isn't exclusive.
 
@SonicWarrior Micro ICan is an excellent choice.

Yep - accurate review from my experience. USB digital audio has certaninly blossumed!. 

@ClieOS
do you think the Aune B1 is a good match for this?

Good match as in micro iDSD feeding into B1? Unfortunately I think micro iDSD's amp, while not the greatest, is still more solid performance wise over B1. As a standalone amp and subjectively speaking, I'll say B1 is better sounding - but only in the case when the headphone is not demanding and doesn't affect by high output impedance.

ok... thanks! was thinking of feeding iDSD into B1. 

Hi! Great review!
When used as standardlone dacs through the rca output, is the micro idsd much (or any?) better than the nano idsd when playing standard 44k/16bits files?

@Tunkejazz The biggest difference between the RCA line-out of nano vs. micro iDSD to me is soundstage. While nano's soundstage is plenty good, micro has a very wide, open-ended soundstage. Because of the smaller soundstage, nano's overall texture is more compacted and can sound slightly warmer when compared to micro. That being said, I'll say both are quite excellent. If you have no need for the extra features offered by micro, I think nano by itself is more than good enough as a line-out source.

Thanks! I have a nano, but I am using it as a standalone dac for my Project Ember amp.

"While the amp section is excessively powerful and can drive even fairly inefficient planar magnetic headphone to quite a good level, it has a noticeably drier and brighter sound signature with some of the texture over lower mid to bass range missing."

^^^

And that's the part where I started to smile and got really interested in the Micro iDSD, as that's the kind of signature I personally really like.

Really excellent review as well, by the way!

did the X-Bass function works?  if yes - can you here difference? we have 4 unit and in all 4 devices X-Bass das not works. There is no difference between switch off and switch on.

@JUGA Yes, it works perfectly fine. You can see the XBass graph in the review showing how it works as I measured it myself. I think the chance of 4 units not working is very slim - it is more likely either you didn't hear it (*human are more senstative to mid-bass, around 250Hz to 500Hz, but Xbass is strongest at sub-bass, well under 100Hz), or perhaps the headphone you used already has too little or too much bass and such the XBass effect becomes less noticeable (as it either doesn't add enough to the sub-bass region or simply get over-flooded by strong mid-bass).

@ClieOS
if the micro idsd is to feed into an amplifier, which one provide better sounding: O2 or Micro ICAN? Thanks a lot!