I was looking for an upgrade for my laptop sound card, but this little dac/amp has so much more to offer.
The sound is clean and crisp, with no distortion. On Windows 8.1 it's plug and play and works straight away.
The amp section is quite decent too.
The device has pre-amped RCA outputs, so you can control the volume. This is extremely useful with powered studio monitors for example.
Sometimes you need to switch it on and off if the spdif input isn't detected and you don't hear any sound. Keep in mind that the spdif input has the priority over the USB one if both are used.
But the only real downside is that it's only USB powered, so it won't drive headphones with high impedance (you can always buy a separate amp for those and connect it to the RCA outputs).
If you're looking for a good all-rounder DAC/amp under 200 bucks, you can't go wrong with this one. If your budget is higher than that there are plenty of better options of course.
EDIT. After two years the unit broke. The digital input no longer works and the device keeps switching on and off.
The sound is clean and crisp, with no distortion. On Windows 8.1 it's plug and play and works straight away.
The amp section is quite decent too.
The device has pre-amped RCA outputs, so you can control the volume. This is extremely useful with powered studio monitors for example.
Sometimes you need to switch it on and off if the spdif input isn't detected and you don't hear any sound. Keep in mind that the spdif input has the priority over the USB one if both are used.
But the only real downside is that it's only USB powered, so it won't drive headphones with high impedance (you can always buy a separate amp for those and connect it to the RCA outputs).
If you're looking for a good all-rounder DAC/amp under 200 bucks, you can't go wrong with this one. If your budget is higher than that there are plenty of better options of course.
EDIT. After two years the unit broke. The digital input no longer works and the device keeps switching on and off.
