Two weeks into my DX320X. Still waiting for Amp 12 and 14 modules which meanwhile seem to be customs cleared at least.
What to say? The 320 is definitely a TOTL player, sounding absolutely great on all my few gear. A keeper in my book.
But let me try to explain a bit more detailed even if that goes beyond the device itself:
I am the lazy kind of guy and have changed my mind about the need for a dedicated DAP several times over the past years. Most of the time I found my phone and a few decisive apps together with a BT headphone or a dongle for IEM use totally sufficient. Neither my first DAP, an iBasso DX90 nor a later bought A+K DAP or the even later acquired Shanling M3X could really change my view over time. In the end it always had to do with the user experience I encountered. All DAPs I owned sounded fine but none of them was as easy to use as my phones. The few percent of better soundquality with DAPs - for me - never made up its downsides usability wise (phones lacking only the dedicated buttons for track jumping).
The iBasso 320 might be the first DAP to make me change my mind. Why that? It has to do with two things: 1. the hardware and Android version used in the 320 is very close to my phones (a S22 Ultra btw) capabilities and user experience. 2. Roon has released Arc and I have decided to take the risk and dive into their cosmos.
Well, to be honest, 2. might have been even more decisive for me, which has to do with how, where and wherefrom I listen to music. I once had many Vinyls and even more CDs but have almost sold all of them, totally switching to streaming music many years ago. I am an early Qobuz subscriber but being old school about ownership have besides that built up a library of my own on a dedicated NAS over the course of the last almost 12 years. That might explain why Roon is quite interesting in my usecase, being able to fuse Qobuz' library with my own > 30k albums. Nonetheless I was able to withstand Roons temptation, until the release of Arc. The latter was game changing for me because I often listen to my music when driving to the office in my car. So being able to get a hold onto ALL my music EVERYWHERE really grabbed me.
But back to the 320. It sounds great with the standard module already. My IE900 are a good match, though I will try out a Lavricables Master soon in order to see what it may be able to add detail wise...
Even better - to my ears - is the combination of my 320 with the TR-X00 Ebony. I had not used those for quite a while now and (after getting a suitable cable with a 4.4 Pentacon termination) was really surprised to find out how profound and well they deliver a solid bass as well as highly energetic and rightly paced details. This combo is an absolute joy imo...
Besides that the 320 is a device with a great usability, UI and UI-experience. I have only installed a few apps (Google Play, UAPP, Neutron, ROON and ROON ARC) and the 320 is fast and reacting instantly. A pleasure to use, running all my apps with no recognizable lag.
So what is maybe not to like?
Until now firstly the battery. Like many others, I experience a - digital - battery draining which appears to be quick, very quick. Not loading up beyond 80% and trying not to sink (both batteries) below 20%, I usually do not get out more than ~3, maybe 4 hours of usage. I guess (besides the usage in balanced mode) this has to do with the upsampling process to 705/768 khz I have actived in Roon as well as Neutron (since the benefits soundwise are noticeable to my ears). Though 3-4 hours of continous replay are enough for me - seldomly I have the time for listening sessions that reach beyond - , I would have been glad if it would have tended more versus ~6 hours. As the analog battery drains a lot slower (even in high gain modus) that leaves something to optimize for iBasso (in coming devices).
Something else - the setting to limit the battery loading to a max. of 80% only applies when the device is turned on. Being turned off you can still load (both batteries) to 100%. That offers both possibilities, but me, personally would still prefer the limit to apply in both situations (like with my Samsung phone). And I would like the setting to be changed to 85% instead of 80 due to the before mentioned, quite limited run time of the digital battery.
So, all in all, after roughly 2 weeks I am very pleased with the 320.
Forgive me, if this post became a tad long, but sitting at home instead of the office today, having caught a virus, I was in no particular hurry...