Hey, Like the thread title suggests, I'm looking for a portable USB-DAC with a headphone amp and optical digital out. Anybody know any, I really need the optical out. TIA.
Portable USB-DAC with a headphone amp and optical out?
- Thread starter soulblast
- Start date
Sonic Sleuth
New Head-Fier
Most portable DAC AMPs that can power a headphone have optical in but you can consider Shanling UA5, DC-Elite, Quloos MUB1 for optical out.
As far as I know, the Shanling UA5 and the iBasso DC-Elite only support COAXIAL SPDIF-output and not optical TOSLINK SPDIF output - just like the recently released Fiio KA13 and KA17 do.
So if it has to be optical SPDIF output, the selection is much smaller.
Edit: I own the two Fiio KA13/17 Dongles and the KA13 is able to provide analogue output via 4.4mm and coaxial via 3.5mm TRRS simultaneously(!). The KA17 is either SPDIF or analogue output - I do not know how the other two dongle-DACs handle this.
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I assume you also want decent analogue sound quality from the DAC and not only basic sound plus optical output.
But if that is NOT the case, there are some cheap DAC/Dongles which provide optical output and a limited quality analogue output
like the
Reiyin DA-02 USB-A DAC (I own one - it is ok-ish)
or the DA-03
I also have since some years the SABAJ Audio D1 which has analogue and both coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs (inkl. volume control) - quite bad sound quality and only 48/16 but it was actually available for like 10 EUR at that time.
If you actually only want to to have a lightweight portable solution without having both functionalities in ONE device I would strongly suggest to better go with a high quality dongle-DAC for your headphones and an additional USB-to-optical SPDIF digital converter like the SMSL PO100 or the Cubilux USB-C to TOSLINK adapter.
But if that is NOT the case, there are some cheap DAC/Dongles which provide optical output and a limited quality analogue output
like the
Reiyin DA-02 USB-A DAC (I own one - it is ok-ish)
or the DA-03
I also have since some years the SABAJ Audio D1 which has analogue and both coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs (inkl. volume control) - quite bad sound quality and only 48/16 but it was actually available for like 10 EUR at that time.
If you actually only want to to have a lightweight portable solution without having both functionalities in ONE device I would strongly suggest to better go with a high quality dongle-DAC for your headphones and an additional USB-to-optical SPDIF digital converter like the SMSL PO100 or the Cubilux USB-C to TOSLINK adapter.
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