Hi
The Headphonia USB DAC cable uses a WM8740 DAC chip, which was Wolfson's top of the line DAC chip until recently. The receiver is Ti PCM2706 and the output is AD8656. I did a bom on the parts and they come to over half the asking price, which includes shipping. The price is unusually low.
It doesn't support kernel streaming (or at least I can't get it to work....) so I started using asio4all with my laptop but the Ployech gives better detail and definition. I'm using a Mini3 as the amp and recabled HD650.
It gets quite warm in use. It doesn't carry any audible noise into the Mini3 from the laptop.
Sound wise, it wasn't a pleasant surprise at first but after only a few hours it was improving. After a few days it became clear it is very good value for money and generally a good sound but with 3 eaknesses.
There is a bass rolloff with a Mini3. The output couples via 1uF ceramic caps and 10K shunt resistors. The Mini3 has a 10K input volume so that gives a 5K impedance with 1uF caps. So the bass roll off is a -3db @ 30Hz high pass filter (if I've done my sums right). It only really affects things like the Mini3 - for most other things with input impedance of 47k-100K there's no real roll-off. It's also only evident on tracks that have that deep bass hit. Dare I say it but Avril Lavigne Sk8er Boi has a good 'test of deep bass urge'.
There is some v slight loss of high end detail. I couldn't explain this because it certainly isn't the chips. It had to be something to do with the output caps or low pass filter around the AD8656 I guessed.
There is some v slight edginess to what is otherwise a very good sounding dac.
I like to modify, so I cut open a small part of the shrink wrap to reveal the output caps and resistors. I replaced the 10K with 120K (just what I had lying around), and the 1uF with 33uF 16V Blackgate N.
The Mini3 roll off has gone, there is just the right amount of detail and some, but not all, of the edginess has been smoothed away. It is certainly very hard to hear any deficiencies now, so I am just enjoying the music. It's much better than the laptop sound card, even though that isn't terrible either.
I'd definitely recommend this little dac considering the price.
cheers