NiPO A100
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Disclaimer
This piece of gear is part of the Australian Head-Fi tour organized by @Damz87 with no influence in my honest opinion. These impressions are my subjective experiences and, as always, as it was my daily driver not as I’m doing a surgery into the frequency response. Your experience may vary, so always consider auditioning the gear yourself. Respect your fellow forum members and have fun.
Introduction
Dongle DAC/AMPs have come a long way since Apple decided to remove the 3.5mm jack from its phones. These days, they pack more tech than some older desktop stacks. There are dongles, and then there’s the Nipo A100. In a market saturated with little boxes promising DAP power and audio quality from your phone, the A100 came in with one purpose: clarity, synergy, and leverage the MagSafe convenience. This isn’t your generic thumb-sized DAC/AMP, it’s a purpose-built solution that sounds clean, dynamic, and surprisingly powerful, all while packaging a premium feeling build.
We have seen an increasingly obsession with flavour, sparkle, and coloration in our gear, the A100 aims for a cleaner delivery. It doesn’t try to remix your music or extract the maximum performance from the IEMs. Instead, it gives you a clean bridge between your phone and IEM with a good bump in power. But its real trick? Feeling like a natural extension of your phone, especially if you’re an iPhone user.
Build Quality
First impressions of the A100 are deceptively modest. It’s compact, much smaller than many battery packs, but it’s internals are well used. The chassis is a sleek, sturdy aluminium housing that feels premium and in multiple colours. It’s light enough for daily use, yet solid enough to handle less careful use.
The standout design feature is the inclusion of a MagSafe-compatible magnetic ring on the back. This allows the A100 to magnetically latch onto the back of iPhones and other compatible smartphones, creating a seamless one-piece feel. No more awkward dangling dongles, you will still need to be fiddling with interconnect cables as it doesn’t have Bluetooth. All in all, this alone makes it one of the most user-friendly DAC/AMPs for mobile setups today.
A100 also houses a 3900mAh battery, capable of up to 13h playback time on SE and 9h on BAL. Yes, another plus, it has its own power source. That means no battery drain on your phone, better current flow, and plenty of headroom to push power-hungry IEMs. Inside, the DAC chip is the ESS ES9039Q2M, a flagship-grade chip known for its transparency and clarity. The DAC also offers multiple filters to choose from.
Power output peaks at a robust 600mW from 4.4mm BAL and 125mW from 3.5mm SE out of an AD8397 Amp, more than enough for just about any IEM and many full-size headphones. This is achieved with an analog amplification stage adapted from Nipo’s own N2 TOTL DAP known for its lively and energetic sound. Despite the magnetic hardware, the A100 includes sufficient shielding to eliminate interference or magnetic distortion, something many dongles fails to deliver.
Sound Performance
The Nipo A100 impresses right from the first listen with its clean, uncoloured presentation. It doesn’t try to inject warmth, roll off the highs, or overextend the lows. It simply cleanly delivers what’s in the recording. That neutrality makes it a perfect for your IEMs and cables to show their synergy. It reminds me of Lotoo sound and makes it a great tool for reviewers. Whether you prefer copper for musical warmth or silver for treble detail, V or Harman tuned IEMs, the A100 steps aside and lets the gear show what they are capable.
This is a well-developed and tuned DAC/AMP. The noise floor is impressively low, making it ok for sensitive IEMs (I’ll let more people to test this with their own gear to confirm), yet the output power ensures it can keep up with more demanding IEMs. The A100 manages to avoid the typical “ESS glare” some DACs are known for, likely due to its clean amp stage. Even brighter IEMs like the Simgot Supermix4 remain smooth and well-behaved here.
There’s a dynamic snap to the way it handles transients which I usually miss on lower priced dongles, likely thanks to the design heritage borrowed from the N2. The sound is neither dry nor clinical, it’s just focused and well-resolved.
Synergy With Some Entry IEMs
YoungSe SunWukong
The A100 pairs beautifully with the SunWukong, helping it maintain its crisp, mid-focused signature while keeping the midbass tight and fast. The upper mids remain forward but never harsh, and the dongle’s neutrality means the IEM’s strengths, especially vocal separation and rhythmic punch, remain the star of the show.
Elysian Pilgrim
With the more resolving Pilgrim, the A100 acts as a booster rather than a fine tuner, as mentioned before, a clean bridge. The Pilgrim’s stage stays nicely open, treble stays crisp, and there’s zero hiss or imbalance. Details come through with clarity but never feel fatiguing.
Simgot Supermix4
The warm harman tuned Supermix4 benefits from the A100’s transparency. The dongle doesn’t add more warmth or bloat, instead bringing structure to the bass and giving clarity to the treble. This synergy helps tame the Supermix’s occasional softness from warmer sources like R3 II and L&P and adds some needed precision to its delivery.
Comparison With Similar Sized Sources
Hiby R3 II
The R3 II is a great portable DAP, with a warm digital tone and decent power. But in direct A/B, the Nipo A100 offers greater clarity and a more refined top-end. The A100’s dynamics feel more alive, especially in the transients and high-frequency textures. The R3 may offer onboard playback, but for practicality and sound quality, the A100 feels cleaner and more resolving.
Muse M5 Ultra
The M5 Ultra is a more direct competitor in the dongle DAC/AMP space, and while it’s compact and snappy, it lacks the unique MagSafe integration, but includes Bluetooth and real tubes. Sonically, the M5 Ultra leans slightly warm, with a softer treble presentation, especially with the Real Tube mode. The A100 by contrast feels more linear. I personally prefer the smooth sound and capabilities of M5.
Final Thoughts
The Nipo A100 is coming with a clear proposal and delivery not by chasing ultra-high specs or exotic tuning, nor promising to be a TOTL killer. It offers a well-balanced blend of practicality and performance. It’s clean. It’s clear. And it’s compact. It delivers serious audio performance without sacrificing the daily usability of a truly portable setup.
Its MagSafe convenience is no gimmick, it makes on-the-go listening seamless, I knew I needed something like that since dongles came alive. But not only the MagSafe feature, but the whole flat shape.
If you like clean and clear sound done well, and a portable solution that respects the signature of their IEMs and cables, the Nipo A100 is a good solution. It won’t replace your main higher end sources, but it might make you wonder how often you really need it. But nothing is perfect, the included interconnect cables should have been a 90deg angle connector for compactness. Also, A100 UI with switch presses combination to achieve what you want was a bit of a pain to me (e.g. put if for charge and forget to turn charging mode on and you will come back to a dead device again). If you can leave with that, go on for a good time.
This piece of gear is part of the Australian Head-Fi tour organized by @Damz87 with no influence in my honest opinion. These impressions are my subjective experiences and, as always, as it was my daily driver not as I’m doing a surgery into the frequency response. Your experience may vary, so always consider auditioning the gear yourself. Respect your fellow forum members and have fun.
Introduction
Dongle DAC/AMPs have come a long way since Apple decided to remove the 3.5mm jack from its phones. These days, they pack more tech than some older desktop stacks. There are dongles, and then there’s the Nipo A100. In a market saturated with little boxes promising DAP power and audio quality from your phone, the A100 came in with one purpose: clarity, synergy, and leverage the MagSafe convenience. This isn’t your generic thumb-sized DAC/AMP, it’s a purpose-built solution that sounds clean, dynamic, and surprisingly powerful, all while packaging a premium feeling build.
We have seen an increasingly obsession with flavour, sparkle, and coloration in our gear, the A100 aims for a cleaner delivery. It doesn’t try to remix your music or extract the maximum performance from the IEMs. Instead, it gives you a clean bridge between your phone and IEM with a good bump in power. But its real trick? Feeling like a natural extension of your phone, especially if you’re an iPhone user.
Build Quality
First impressions of the A100 are deceptively modest. It’s compact, much smaller than many battery packs, but it’s internals are well used. The chassis is a sleek, sturdy aluminium housing that feels premium and in multiple colours. It’s light enough for daily use, yet solid enough to handle less careful use.
The standout design feature is the inclusion of a MagSafe-compatible magnetic ring on the back. This allows the A100 to magnetically latch onto the back of iPhones and other compatible smartphones, creating a seamless one-piece feel. No more awkward dangling dongles, you will still need to be fiddling with interconnect cables as it doesn’t have Bluetooth. All in all, this alone makes it one of the most user-friendly DAC/AMPs for mobile setups today.
A100 also houses a 3900mAh battery, capable of up to 13h playback time on SE and 9h on BAL. Yes, another plus, it has its own power source. That means no battery drain on your phone, better current flow, and plenty of headroom to push power-hungry IEMs. Inside, the DAC chip is the ESS ES9039Q2M, a flagship-grade chip known for its transparency and clarity. The DAC also offers multiple filters to choose from.
Power output peaks at a robust 600mW from 4.4mm BAL and 125mW from 3.5mm SE out of an AD8397 Amp, more than enough for just about any IEM and many full-size headphones. This is achieved with an analog amplification stage adapted from Nipo’s own N2 TOTL DAP known for its lively and energetic sound. Despite the magnetic hardware, the A100 includes sufficient shielding to eliminate interference or magnetic distortion, something many dongles fails to deliver.
Sound Performance
The Nipo A100 impresses right from the first listen with its clean, uncoloured presentation. It doesn’t try to inject warmth, roll off the highs, or overextend the lows. It simply cleanly delivers what’s in the recording. That neutrality makes it a perfect for your IEMs and cables to show their synergy. It reminds me of Lotoo sound and makes it a great tool for reviewers. Whether you prefer copper for musical warmth or silver for treble detail, V or Harman tuned IEMs, the A100 steps aside and lets the gear show what they are capable.
This is a well-developed and tuned DAC/AMP. The noise floor is impressively low, making it ok for sensitive IEMs (I’ll let more people to test this with their own gear to confirm), yet the output power ensures it can keep up with more demanding IEMs. The A100 manages to avoid the typical “ESS glare” some DACs are known for, likely due to its clean amp stage. Even brighter IEMs like the Simgot Supermix4 remain smooth and well-behaved here.
There’s a dynamic snap to the way it handles transients which I usually miss on lower priced dongles, likely thanks to the design heritage borrowed from the N2. The sound is neither dry nor clinical, it’s just focused and well-resolved.
Synergy With Some Entry IEMs
YoungSe SunWukong
The A100 pairs beautifully with the SunWukong, helping it maintain its crisp, mid-focused signature while keeping the midbass tight and fast. The upper mids remain forward but never harsh, and the dongle’s neutrality means the IEM’s strengths, especially vocal separation and rhythmic punch, remain the star of the show.
Elysian Pilgrim
With the more resolving Pilgrim, the A100 acts as a booster rather than a fine tuner, as mentioned before, a clean bridge. The Pilgrim’s stage stays nicely open, treble stays crisp, and there’s zero hiss or imbalance. Details come through with clarity but never feel fatiguing.
Simgot Supermix4
The warm harman tuned Supermix4 benefits from the A100’s transparency. The dongle doesn’t add more warmth or bloat, instead bringing structure to the bass and giving clarity to the treble. This synergy helps tame the Supermix’s occasional softness from warmer sources like R3 II and L&P and adds some needed precision to its delivery.
Comparison With Similar Sized Sources
Hiby R3 II
The R3 II is a great portable DAP, with a warm digital tone and decent power. But in direct A/B, the Nipo A100 offers greater clarity and a more refined top-end. The A100’s dynamics feel more alive, especially in the transients and high-frequency textures. The R3 may offer onboard playback, but for practicality and sound quality, the A100 feels cleaner and more resolving.
Muse M5 Ultra
The M5 Ultra is a more direct competitor in the dongle DAC/AMP space, and while it’s compact and snappy, it lacks the unique MagSafe integration, but includes Bluetooth and real tubes. Sonically, the M5 Ultra leans slightly warm, with a softer treble presentation, especially with the Real Tube mode. The A100 by contrast feels more linear. I personally prefer the smooth sound and capabilities of M5.
Final Thoughts
The Nipo A100 is coming with a clear proposal and delivery not by chasing ultra-high specs or exotic tuning, nor promising to be a TOTL killer. It offers a well-balanced blend of practicality and performance. It’s clean. It’s clear. And it’s compact. It delivers serious audio performance without sacrificing the daily usability of a truly portable setup.
Its MagSafe convenience is no gimmick, it makes on-the-go listening seamless, I knew I needed something like that since dongles came alive. But not only the MagSafe feature, but the whole flat shape.
If you like clean and clear sound done well, and a portable solution that respects the signature of their IEMs and cables, the Nipo A100 is a good solution. It won’t replace your main higher end sources, but it might make you wonder how often you really need it. But nothing is perfect, the included interconnect cables should have been a 90deg angle connector for compactness. Also, A100 UI with switch presses combination to achieve what you want was a bit of a pain to me (e.g. put if for charge and forget to turn charging mode on and you will come back to a dead device again). If you can leave with that, go on for a good time.
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RONJA MESCO
first off, this is not a dongle. If it cant hang from a usb C port freely, if needed to, its not one
OhmsClaw
So this is a questyle competition piece but no BT?
GiullianSN
@Jacobal that’s right, Nipo sits on the premium side and this device follows the brand position. @RONJA MESCO you don’t have to use the MagSafe feature, you can leave it dangling around. @OhmsClaw that’s right, like questyle it’s more on the higher end and bigger size. More direct competition to Questyle would be Muse M5 (with added tubes)
