iBasso D2: Boa Review (56K i shall slay thee!) - Page 5

Is this LOD good? I have a iPod Classic and just ordered a iBasso D2 Boa.

When I was order my Boa I asked iBasso guys about this LOD. So they can make this one for you instead of mini to mini. And I got this dock to mini with my Boa. Works perfect. It's for a 5 bucks more then on ebay, but since it will be send it to you in same parcel with Boa it making not much deference. If it's not too late with your shiping.

So instead of swimmers we have syncronized cables in the images? :^) cute they are.

They should hold up well but I am not crazy about the bass production with the cable but otherwise it is pretty good and the mini is nice. The cable could be shorter though.

Hi, I have the d2000s and the hd580s. Will this be a good choice to power them as my desktop solution?

It'll get the job done, and is not bad. But you may want to think about feeding the D2 Boa signal into a small desktop tube amp for the HD580 later, like a Dark Voice 336i, Woo WA6, or even build a Millett "Starving Student" amp. I find my HD600 go from being an average mid-fi headphone to a true high end headphone when I use them off a good desktop amp.

Hey Larry: I'm curious about your suggestion to feed the Boa DAC output to another amp. I thought the Boa did not have the line-out feature of some other ibasso DAC/amps. If there's no way to bypass the amp section, aren't you feeding a less desirable signal to the desktop amp?

Using the Boa as a pre-amp is just a way to get more power output to drive the HD580, since the Boa is slightly lacking there. The Boa is not quite as transparent as the Pico or Viper or a dedicated DAC, but it's clearly better than headphone out of the Macbook. So, if you feed the boa into a very neutral desktop amp then you'll retain the sound of the Boa.

I use the Pico as a USB DAC Pre-amp all the time to feed my DV336i amp, and the Viper with the right opamps does a very good job as DAC/Preamp too (LMH6622 main/THS4032 ground).

I took whole 48 hours from order to get the D2 Boa at my hands.

Highs sounds little harsh, but I hope it gets better with time. Bass is tight and detailed. Overall the detail of the sound and separation is amazing. Wonderful piece of equipment for the price. A huge step above my previous amp Total BitHead.

I'm still getting the HeadAmp Pico unless someone convinces me it's not worth the money over D2 Boa.

Headphones I use are SE530's, I tried HD-600's but D2 Boa doesn't seem to be powerful enough to drive them properly.

OK, I just ordered the boa. Will post up some reactions once it gets here.

^^ Same. Been eyeing the thing for about 2 months. Decided to buy it today after reading about how fast the shipping is on this thread. I'm in VA. I hope it gets here by the end of the week.

Now I need to find a good LOD cable.

Everyone's ears & phones are different, but I recently added a Pico with DAC to my Boa. I did a volume-matched listening comparison over several hours using 5-15s of music at a time from each device of both with my MD5000s. I found the differences during this test run to be fairly small. (I'll keep listening and I may find new data.) Depending on the track, the Pico sounded either almost exactly like the Boa or (at best) a little better in some dimension - and occasionally the Boa sounded slightly better in a dimension.

Results varied from track to track. On quite a lot of them I doubt I could pick which amp was which in a blind A/B test. Probably the biggest difference was a little better sense of weight and precision in the bass on some tracks, and sometimes vocals sound a little smoother. Other differences were slight at best.

The Boa has the advantage of USB charging which is handy if you take it somewhere where there's a laptop and don't remember the wall charger. The Pico definitely has more power output - but in my listening sessions calibrated to 79dB on the pink noise track I felt by the end that it was almost too loud.

I'd say - pending further careful comparison - with my music & cans the Boa is probably at least 98% as good as the Pico - but that could change with (say) a different source, or different cans, or different source material. If you were to have similar results you'd have to ask yourself if that last 2% if worth the extra cash (my Pico was 2nd hand and cost 3 times what the Boa cost new).

If you can try one yourself you'll be able to find out whether it's worth it for you.

Mazz, I too find these little DAC/amps are all fairly good, and some are very close to each other. The Pico and D2 Viper in my mini-review of USB DAC amps had a very similar sound signature, and I ranked the Viper as a 9.4 on a scale of 10, with the Pico a 9.7 and Predator a 10.0, with the Boa falling between the Viper and the Pico (and the Viper with rolled opamps falling above the Pico and below the Predator). That's not a big spread in rank.

Where the differences get important is whether a particular amp has synergy with a particular set of headphones or earphones, or do they have enough power to drive a particular headphone, or how is the build quality and customer service, or what features are more important to the buyer, etc...

For example - So far only the Pico (and maybe the Vividaudiotech.com V1 DAC/Amp) can drive a 600 ohm AKG K240M fairly well and not only play loud enough to use them but also play them very transparently and naturally; but the Predator/Boa/Viper struggle with it and can only produce barely adequate volume levels. (my TTVJ Portable Millet Hybrid is even better with them, but alas no DAC). Anyway, in that example above there would be a good reason to pick the Pico over the Boa.

Another reason would be if you happen to have one of those headphones that exacerbates (worsens) the slight low mids hump on the Boa, causing female vocals to feel boxy or "cupped hands" as some people call it. The Pico avoids this anomaly, but with many headphones you wont notice the problem with the Boa. But, pick the wrong headphones and the Boa loses it's transparency. For example, the Pico sounds better with Freq Show or q-JAYS or my modded ATH-AD900, while the Boa isn't as pleasant. Switch to the Grado RS-1 and the hump in the Boa lower mids warms them up and they sound better with the Boa than Pico.

I could go on and on. I tell people YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Htbyron did you get your's yet?

I emailed ibasso and they sent me the DHL tracking. I hope it comes by the weekend.


Noticed we are in the same state so I just want to see how fast their shipping really is.

Same here. DHL says it left their HK hub in the evening (Chinese time) of 9/10. No indication of when to expect arrival here on the east coast of US. I'll post here when I get it.

DHL tracking shows package out for delivery this morning -- expecting it to show on the doorstep sometime today (Thu 9/1) after ordering late afternoon Mon 9/8!