Preamble
Many thanks to @Damz87 and MiniDisc Australia for making this tour possible.
There is much to love about the idea of the audio dongle. Lightweight, widely compatible and very portable, the dongle has been a boon to the audiophile on the go. Their popularity has skyrocketed in recent years with options ranging from the venerable Apple Dongle, which many people state, “is all you need” to extremely expensive options from the likes of Luxury & Precision that seek to show you what is possible in a smaller form factor. Whilst not in the business of making audio sources typically, Dita is a well-known Singaporean brand in the audio business and their first stab at making a dongle is a rather peculiar one. The Navigator enters a rather crowded market and so it is necessary to separate themselves from the pack with either excellent sound or some design feature. Today’s review will look into whether they achieve any of these.
The Factual Stuff
Built out of aluminium, the Navigator is somewhat large as far as dongles go measuring in at around 7cm by 3cm. Within the Navigator are unnamed dual DACs, dual field programmable gate array (FPGA) independent crystal oscillator clocks (whatever that means) and an amp stage that outputs 340 mW through 32 ohms of resistance through its 4.4mm balanced output and 110 mW at the same resistance through the 3.5mm output.
The Naviagtor has knurled buttons for volume up and down, a kickstand and a magnetic slide that houses a screwdriver bit.
Within the box, there is also a thick knotted lanyard, a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to Lightning cable.
The Navigator is priced at 300 USD.
The Opinion Stuff
Sound
Bass
The lower-end performance of the Navigator seems to be focused on the sub-bass frequencies, imparting a stronger sense of physicality to any IEM that I threw at it. The texture and detail contained within that sub-bass boost isn’t necessarily the best but this is a rather safe frequency to add a little shelf too. I do not think that it is a huge, measurable boost (looking at you iBasso PB5) but rather just a slight emphasis on sub-bass frequencies.
Mid-bass feels less emphasised with warmer IEMs such as the Multiverse Mentor with songs like “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” by Creepy Nuts being less emphasised with its punchy bassline that lines the song.
Overall, this region is generally well done with some added fun-factor.
Mids
Moving to the mids, there is a slight heightening of upper-mids to my ears as female vocals such as Mina Okabe’s on “Every Second” feeling distinctly forward in the mix.
Male vocals such as Daniel Caesar on “Japanese Denim” feel less emphasised, falling slightly further back on the stage and cleaner in its rendition with warmer IEMs. There is a reduction in note weight here as it tends to fall leaner and meaner in its rendition of these vocalists.
Instruments in grand orchestral pieces such as “Fi’s Farewell – Skyward Sword (Epic Version)” feels slightly shallow and lacking in drama. There is a flatness imparted on some of my IEMs that makes the experience slightly less engaging.
The Navigator therefore does not do so well with the mid-bass to lower-mids region, seeming leaning a little more bright in its rendition in this region.
Treble
The upper end of the frequency response curve on the Navigator felt fairly linear with perhaps a slight smoothing on this region. I felt that previously brighter IEMs or IEMs with more ‘enthusiastic’ treble boosts were slightly less discomforting when using the Navigator.
Otherwise, the treble region on the Navigator were not particularly impressive in any particular way, looking to present the tranducer that it was connected to in a fairly straightforward way.
Beck’s “Lost Cause” retained the spine tingling upper-end that is felt on nearly all of my IEMs (save for the extremely dark ones) and was rather enjoyable to listen to without leaning too hard into the fatigue region.
Overall, I feel that treble is done quite well with the Navigator presenting in a manner that is wholly inoffensive.
Technicalities
The Navigator’s technical performance was somewhat disappointing to me when comparing it to my DC04 Pro or my DAP. From recollection as well, the W4 and the RU7, both heavy hitters in the dongle world, impressed me far more (noting this perhaps from my rose-tinted memory).
The staging performance of the Navigator felt rather flat in its depth and somewhat confined in its width. There is an ‘overbearing’ nature to the Navigator that feels somewhat too forward and too centre to the stage. I felt the need to lower volume with various IEMs as I found songs such as “Gurenge (The First Take edition) by LiSA being just too much whereas this was not the case with other sources.
Detail retrieval and imaging was somewhat okay, I didn’t feel that there was a loss of this but it simply didn’t wow me with additional microdetailing. On a macro sense, there is a perceived lack of dynamics in that swings in volume feel limited in their reach (which is potentially part of the volume management mentioned above).
Even with ‘holographic’ and ‘layered’ IEMs such as the Multiverse Mentor, the Navigator felt as if it was projecting music from a single drive positioned right in front of you rather than a surround sound system. I speak in hyperbole of course but the metaphor represents what I felt when using the Navigator.
I believe that the Navigator also has a sense of poor dynamics, that being the ability to reproduce swings of volume. Whereas many of my IEMs on capable sources present crescendos and sparsely produced tracks in a manner that contrasts extremely well and leads to a dramatic sense of scale, the Navigator felt compressed, congested and just permanently loud. It was quite common for me to listen at lower than expected volumes with the Navigator whereas other sources felt considerably more open and able to pushed to higher volume.
Comparisons
vs iBasso DC04 Pro
I’ve owned the DC04 for some time and regarded it as a simple, clean and quiet source with a brighter lean. When A-B testing the two, the lower-end boost of the Navigator felt readily apparent and both did a rather linear job of handling midrange. The DC04 seems to add a little extra spice on the top end of the frequency response curve as some songs eeked out to be a little more sibilant.
In terms of technical performance, the DC04 felt even more confined than the Navigator in terms of stage width and depth. However, where it managed to escape this perceived issue is a greater sense of dynamism with volume swings. Crescendos and contrasting sounds within the stage felt big and bombastic. The DC04 is in-your-face with its reproduction but does so with greater verticality. The Navigator is similarly in-your-face but occupying a much smaller space and therefore, becoming fairly fatiguing over some time.
Between the two, and taking into consideration price, the DC04 Pro comes out as a winner.
vs Cayin RU7 (from memory)
Caveating the below thoughts with the fact that it is from my memory of a dongle that I once owned, the RU7 impressed with a wonderfully analogue sound signature that felt smooth, warm and well rendered. The RU7 imparts greater tonal colour on my music compared to the Navigator but does so in a manner that is enjoyable to listen to. The mid-bass punch is greater on the RU7 and the mids are just butter to listen to. Technicalities wise, I felt the RU7, despite its smoothed out nature still managed to render detail well, perhaps just not in an obvious manner that the Navigator achieves. Staging on the RU7 is far greater in terms of depth and width compared to the Navigator which falters in this category.
The RU7 brings about some creature comforts in the form of a screen to display certain settings, various DSP settings (DSD64, 128 and 512) and line out functionality. The RU7 was also somewhat noisy as far as dongles go.
Overall, the RU7 brings about musicality in spades whereas the Navigator is a more straightforward endeavour. With that being said however, I would pick the RU7 in a heartbeat.
vs Luxury & Precision W4 (from memory)
Once again, I will have to speak from memory as I no longer own the W4 but it definitely made an impression on me! I characterised the W4 as clean, lean and excellent in its detailing prowess. There is a slight dryness to its timbre that I recall which is not as pronounced on the Navigator but otherwise, the W4’s technical performance trumps the Navigator thoroughly. Outside of technical performance, the W4 felt far faster in its note rendition which is a good and a bad thing. Good in that the leading edges of notes felt readily apparent but bad in that it created a more etched sound that not all will enjoy. Tonally, the W4 seemed to lean slightly bright but with a slight sub-bass emphasis. On the topic of bass, the W4 rendered it tight and well detailed whereas the Navigator is more boomy and emphasised.
The W4 has creature comforts in the form of a screen, a volume wheel and a raft of DSP functionality that adds to its sound modifications. The W4 is considerably more expensive than the Navigator but I feel that it does an excellent job of proving its value. It’s sound quality means it is a win over the Navigator.
Value & Quality of Life
Outside of sound quality, the Navigator raises some questions in my mind in the direction that it is taking design-wise. It is obvious that the Navigator seeks to appeal to the ‘everyday carry’ folks who enjoy showing flat lays of knives and wallets. There is a camping-chic quality to the design and whilst there is a feeling of ‘ruggedness’ there is similar feeling of ‘why would you make such a specifically targeted dongle?”. The kickstand is basically useless in my use-case, the thick knotted lanyard adds unnecessary bulk and the screwdriver is one of the most questionable inclusions in an audio device I have seen.
300 USD gets you one of the best dongles in the market in the form of the Cayin RU7, which in a smaller size, brings about a more impressive sound signature and with creature comforts such as a display and a line-out option. For a not-insignificant amount of money more, you can also get the crème de la crème in the form of the Luxury & Precision W4 which has a volume wheel, some considerable digital signal processing prowess and a very clean sound signature.
The Navigator feels as though they had a price target to meet and threw a shell around a dongle that came off the shelf of a Chinese OEM. The exterior still speaks of quality and a higher grade of finish compared to other dongles in the market but this feels as though it belongs on the subreddit /r/ATBGE. An acronym standing for “awful taste but great execution”. A very minor and perhaps petty bug-bear with me is the failure to name the DACs utilised in the Navigator. It’s often common that this is the case with some form of proprietary DAC chip or some heavily modified off-the-shelf option but it is common within the market to simply state whether it is a ESS, AKM, Cirrus or otherwise in the dongle itself.
Too bulky, silly inclusions and a loss of focus are definitive negatives of the Navigator which lead me to the conclusion that it offers poor value and outside of looking cool or you have a very particular desire to have a kickstand and/or screwdriver bit storage, I would look elsewhere.
Conclusion
The Navigator is a unique proposition in the market but for reasons outside of its raison d’etre. In implementing novel design choices that do not concern sound, the Navigator presents something of an odd choice in the market that seeks to appeal to the intersection of audiophilia and other hobbies (EDC and campers I suppose). That unfortunately is lost on me and as such, the Navigator does not do much to sway me from the more tried and true choices that I compared it to above. It’s sound doesn’t amaze me in any particular manner or even have a distinctive character.
It is for that reason that I would give this a big miss.
