iBasso D7

titaniumgrade5

New Head-Fier
Pros: quiet background good sound
Cons: limited amplification
This is a great sounding portable DAC+Amp. Happy I still have one, since it's no longer produced.
 
Very black background given the price. Good clean sound despite only USB power.
 
Have larger more powerful amps and they have more noise in the background.
 
Small and easily portable. Solid, well built.
 
A bit of hissing when turning volume nob, which is not super smooth in turning, but only then. Prompt customer service from the company.

snellemin

500+ Head-Fier
Pros: Smooth clean bass. Even better with the dac upgraded to 8741.
Cons: usb input only
Great little amp that I purchased used. Driver installs on Win8.1 and 7 with no problems. Using the D7 with my Sony MDRV6 on my work PC. Sony headphones have some foam added in the chambers. This little amp sounds really smooth over the the pc output. Running it on low gain with Bass enhancement enabled in the speakers properties. I'm using the VLC player and bass is set at 7.9db @ 60hz and the preamp set at 5.5db. Perfect settings for me to enjoy bass heavy music and not getting fatigued after 4 hours of jamming. I like it as much as the FIIO E12A. The design shows it age, but still looks new when I received it. I recommend this little amp if you just want something better than what your PC can produce.

Update 2/3/17
I'm still using this little amp, but strictly as a DAC through the RCA output. Still plays every genre of music well. It feeds music to a Parasound preamp and Parasound amp. I've tried using the coax out and no issues there too. For fun I had all three outputs feeding(front aux out, rear RCA, rear Coax) through different units and it didn't complain.
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Update 1/22/18
I finally updated the dac chip to 8741. What a huge difference it has made. Sounds very analog and way more detail retrieval. Worth the upgrade for those still using this nice little unit.

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Mad Max
Mad Max
Are you serious? It's just a "drop-in" upgrade like an opamp? What?!
snellemin
snellemin
Yes in my case it was just a "drop in". Pin for Pin the 8740 and 8741 are the same. The voltage on the digital input is lower. I took a chance and soldered in the new. I have had no issues with overheating and still works today. It has been four months and it works about 32 hours a week ever since.

tomscy2000

Headphoneus Supremus
Pros: Light, versatile, good laid-back SQ
Cons: Power treatment not the best, susceptible to EM interference, generic Thesycon Driver doesn't support 176.4k sample rates
Looking back at this unit, it was excellent for the price. It had great connectivity (coaxial S/PDIF output, both 3.5/RCA full scale outputs, 9 Vrms headamp) despite only being USB-powered,
 
The OPA1611-based 9Vrms headphone amplifier was smooth and laid back, sometimes a little too laid back for the detail lover in me, but very pleasant to listen to. It had low and high gain, and <1 ohm output impedance, so it paired well with multiple sources, equally at home with both my IEMs and my HD598. I compared it to the DACPort, and I thought the Class A headamp in the DACPort was slightly more refined, but got pretty hot, whereas the D7 only ever got slightly warm. The D55 (Hibino iBasso Japanese only version) was more spacious sounding, but not any better as a DAC.
 
I could always carry it around with me if I wanted to, as it was super light. But the enclosure was tough too. The silkscreening and matte finished showed practically zero signs of wear despite everyday use.
 
It served me well!
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