General Information
An all-in-one DAC/amp with prestige features and a modest footprint
Most scholars agree that Walt Whitman wasn’t referring to the XA-10 when he penned the line “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Historical inaccuracies aside, the line pretty well sums up xDuoo’s latest feature-rich offering. With top-of-the-line decoding, tons of inputs and outputs, and massive output power, the XA-10 contains all the prerequisites of a truly audiophiliac machine.
Full MQA decoding
The XA-10 features full MQA-decoding, delivering the best possible version of your music.
Top-of-the-line decoding
Thanks to double AKM AK4493EQ DAC chips, the XA-10 can decode the highest sample rates outside of MQA. The 32-bit, 2-channel chips are capable of decoding up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and 22.4mHz DSD512. A newly developed capacitor filter allows the chips to achieve all this while using far less power consumption than previous generations.
Fully balanced architecture
The XA-10 was designed with purists in mind. Its fully balanced architecture, which features double DACs, amplifier circuits, and balanced outputs, goes above and beyond to eliminate interference and crosstalk.
4,000mW output power
The XA-10 boasts 4,000mW of output power, allowing you to drive popular high-impedance headphones like the Sennheiser HD 660 S, the Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro, and the Audeze LCD-4. Anything with an impedance less than 601Ω is fair game. 4,000mW of power isn’t quite enough to drive passive speakers, but you could use the XA-10 as a preamp for a pair of powered speakers.
THD+N of 0.0008%
The XA-10 has a Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise rating of 0.0008%. Great, you may be thinking, but, uh, what does that mean? It can be difficult to wrap your head around the concept of a “pure” signal, so let’s speak in terms of liquid. Imagine that the XA-10 outputs drinking water instead of sound. If you were to pour a soda can’s worth of water from it, only 0.2 milliliters of it would be “impure”. That’s about the size of a grain of sand. The other 99.9992% of it is pure and potable. Unless you’re a machine, you’re just not going to notice such minor impurities.
120dB SNR
If you’ve ever cranked an old stereo system without any music playing, you probably noticed a hissing noise. That’s the noise we’re talking about in SNR, or Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The higher the number is, the better. An SNR of 120dB means that you’d have to crank the XA-10 louder than an ambulance siren before hearing hiss. For the love of your hearing, please don’t do that.
Eight ins and outs
With eight ins and outs, the XA-10 is an exceedingly capacious hub for most audio systems. On the back panel, you can connect a turntable via RCA, a laptop or desktop via USB, a phone via Bluetooth, and a gaming console via coaxial or optical. On the front panel, three outputs allow you to run single-ended headphones or balanced headphones with a 4.4 TRRS or 4-pin XLR.
Never hear that “pop!” noise again
A special relay in the XA-10 prevents that awful “pop!” noise that occurs when turning on some amps. Not only is this sound annoying and painful, but it can damage your headphones and eardrums. Do yourself a favor and never hear it again.
Designed for compact desk space
If we can dispense with objectivity for a moment, we’d like to gush about just how cool the XA-10 looks. It speaks a design language both robust and cute, like a cross between a Jawa Sandcrawler and a Battle Droid, but shrunk down to adorable dimensions. Towering four inches above your desktop, it could easily be tucked under an external monitor. Although the only available color is dark gray, it’s a gray that complements all manner of electronics--and the XA-10’s “red eye” offers a nice pop of color.
