[dsrk]

Thanks dsrk! Looks like there might be two different cells wrapped together because I see two sets of (+) and (-) wire leads. Not an ideal setup for a drop in replacement but it might still be manageable by extracting the crimps from the old battery connector and inserting the two crimps from a replacement battery.

Hey, what opamp do you have there?
That is the stock OPA1612.



Nice. Are those the mushroom head interlocking type? I think that's the same as 3M Dual Lock but marketed for picture frame mounting. I used Dual Lock for my FiiO A5 and smartphone.

That is the stock OPA1612. I am going to get MUSES03.

Yes, they are same. They are much more secure than velcro.

 

[runssical]

That is the stock OPA1612. I am going to get MUSES03.

Yes, they are same. They are much more secure than velcro.

I was mistaken about the battery being a double cell. Marv at SBAF said xDuoo just double tapped the battery to double the voltage:

Out of curiosity, I measured the rails. +/- 13.5V, which is pretty beefy. No wonder the XD-05 sounds good. Looks like xDuoo did a voltage multiplier circuit from that single battery. Kudos to them for not forcing the opamps to run at low voltages.

Regarding opamps, Marv touted the old OPA627 singles as his favorite for the XD05+:

I really hate saying that I preferred the OPA627. These suckers are $29 a pop at Mouser and we need two of them. It doesn't make much sense for a $250 DAC/amp. And even then, I don't necessarily like the sound of the OPA627 in most circuits. But here, they just worked. The OPA627 follows the characteristic sound of many BB opamps of that era, mellow, and in the case of OPA627 dark. Those of you who know me that I'm good with a darker presentation. The OPA627's presentation isn't quite as vivid as the the stock OPA1612, but it doesn't lose much. The heft in the lows is still there, it's not over-bloated at all (always a concern with IEM DD bass), maybe the articulation is a nick behind, but oh, the OPA627 brings so much more to the table. The presentation is more rounded with microdynamics and microdetail more fully fleshed out. I don't get that sense of simplification anymore. At times I thought it may have been to dark, but after switching back to the stock OPA1612, I was like F this crap, OPA627 all the way. I don't miss anything from the OPA1612. There's a reason why the OPA627 has a reputation and is priced the way it is, despite, or because of its niche.

Before anyone scurries off to order a pair of a OPA627s I would caution you that Marv has been overly fond for the 627 for decades and his preferred flavor of sound will not appeal to most people. A decade ago after he recommended it for the Matrix M-stage, with the same fervor seen here, I took the plunge, bought the M-stage and a pair of 627s. It didn't sound impressive at all with the Senn HD600. The sound was dark, lacking in detail, essentially boring.

I look forward to reading your impressions of the Muse opamp once you have them in hand. My old A5 had a Muse02 and sounded pretty good. For what it's worth the best opamp I ever heard with my M-stage was the OPA1642AID. Bought it off eBay. There's a link below. Might be worth a try.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-OPA16...669491&hash=item33dc2ab37b:g:7pgAAOSwQcJaB9Xk

At one point I tried an expensive discrete opamp in my M-stage, the Sonic Imagery Labs 994Enh-Ticha. The sound was excellent but only slightly better than the inexpensive OPA1642AID. Like a 5% improvement. In hindsight it wasn't worth the added cost.

 

[runssical]

For those interested in opamp rolling with the XD05+ there was a detailed comparison of over three dozen opamps last July:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/xdu...ion-impressions.789886/page-119#post-15729305

 

[runssical]

Any legit reviews for the XD05-BAL yet? It's been incredibly quiet. I'm still open to changing my mind about this series of amps but no one is advocating for them.

 

[Dobrescu George]

My new in-depth written review, this time about the XD-05Plus from XDuoo and Xtenik Audio is live now!! If you're looking for one of the AMPs with the most driving power, but also with an ergonomic design for that power, the XD-05Plus is really hard to miss.

I liked it with many pairings, and I feel like xDuoo is often overlooked because it is budget, but it may be a better overall option than even TR-AMP and other large house names

https://www.audiophile-heaven.com/2021/02/versatility-ultimate-xduoo-xd-05-plus-dac-amplifier.html

 

[flibottf]

Little shot of the Burson v5i inside the XDuoo XD05 plus!

Bursonin' by Francois Flibotte, on Flickr

 

[runssical]

Finally got an Asgard 3 and it's met my expectations. My HD650 has never sounded better. In fact, I recently was mulling the idea of selling them off because they never gave me that "wow" moment until now. If your usage case is primarily a single location such as your bedroom or den than go with a legit desktop setup and forego the battery operated devices. Portables will never close the performance gap of desktop gear even the budget options.

With the HD650 I have the Asgard 3 set to high gain (+15dB) with the volume knob at 2pm for multiple classical music albums. My dac has stronger than average output voltage at 2.1v. So with all of this taken into consideration my HD650 does not have that much volume headroom left on the Asgard. This is important because it demonstrates how power hungry the HD650 is. The Asgard puts out 3.5 watts @ 32ohm and 600mW @ 600ohm. By contrast the XD05+ has a listed output of 1 watt @ 32ohm with no information on how it performs with higher impedances. Notice that I used the word "listed" because Xuduoo's product specs are suspect. As we know the company itself is sketchy and untrustworthy. Schiit, if anything, is conservative with their output measurements as independent ASR tests can attest to. I just can't imagine driving the HD650 properly with the XD05+. It just doesn't have the juice and keep in mind that battery voltages, even with regulated lithiums, fall trail off during discharge. So XD05+ probably doesn't operate to spec after the first 20 minutes of usage.

 

[Chamade]

Finally got an Asgard 3 and it's met my expectations. My HD650 has never sounded better. In fact, I recently was mulling the idea of selling them off because they never gave me that "wow" moment until now. If your usage case is primarily a single location such as your bedroom or den than go with a legit desktop setup and forego the battery operated devices. Portables will never close the performance gap of desktop gear even the budget options.

With the HD650 I have the Asgard 3 set to high gain (+15dB) with the volume knob at 2pm for multiple classical music albums. My dac has stronger than average output voltage at 2.1v. So with all of this taken into consideration my HD650 does not have that much volume headroom left on the Asgard. This is important because it demonstrates how power hungry the HD650 is. The Asgard puts out 3.5 watts @ 32ohm and 600mW @ 600ohm. By contrast the XD05+ has a listed output of 1 watt @ 32ohm with no information on how it performs with higher impedances. Notice that I used the word "listed" because Xuduoo's product specs are suspect. As we know the company itself is sketchy and untrustworthy. Schiit, if anything, is conservative with their output measurements as independent ASR tests can attest to. I just can't imagine driving the HD650 properly with the XD05+. It just doesn't have the juice and keep in mind that battery voltages, even with regulated lithiums, fall trail off during discharge. So XD05+ probably doesn't operate to spec after the first 20 minutes of usage.

You are comparing apples to oranges. It has nothing to do with Xduoo being 'sketchy' and Schiit being trustworthy.

The Arya dynamics and low-end don't shine on the XD-05 compared to the A90 or Ifi Micro Black Label, but crapping on Xduoo for that reason wouldn't make any sense. It's very competent for its case use.

 

[misteral201103]

As we know the company itself is sketchy and untrustworthy.

What? What's the precedent for this statement?
I had wonderful results for a few years with the XD05 and Hifiman 400i, Audioquest Nighthawks and Hifiman Ananda. Only stopped using it because my Fiio M11 was capable of driving my headphones nicely with balanced output. Currently, one of my students is borrowing my 05 to power his Meze 99 Classics, and loving every minute of it.

Absolutely fine if it doesn't drive the 650 well, amp and power matching is an important element in achieving your ideal sound. But that doesn't make it a poor portable amp, and I would really like to know where your claims about the company stem from.

 

[Giru]

Finally got an Asgard 3 and it's met my expectations. My HD650 has never sounded better. In fact, I recently was mulling the idea of selling them off because they never gave me that "wow" moment until now. If your usage case is primarily a single location such as your bedroom or den than go with a legit desktop setup and forego the battery operated devices. Portables will never close the performance gap of desktop gear even the budget options.

With the HD650 I have the Asgard 3 set to high gain (+15dB) with the volume knob at 2pm for multiple classical music albums. My dac has stronger than average output voltage at 2.1v. So with all of this taken into consideration my HD650 does not have that much volume headroom left on the Asgard. This is important because it demonstrates how power hungry the HD650 is. The Asgard puts out 3.5 watts @ 32ohm and 600mW @ 600ohm. By contrast the XD05+ has a listed output of 1 watt @ 32ohm with no information on how it performs with higher impedances. Notice that I used the word "listed" because Xuduoo's product specs are suspect. As we know the company itself is sketchy and untrustworthy. Schiit, if anything, is conservative with their output measurements as independent ASR tests can attest to. I just can't imagine driving the HD650 properly with the XD05+. It just doesn't have the juice and keep in mind that battery voltages, even with regulated lithiums, fall trail off during discharge. So XD05+ probably doesn't operate to spec after the first 20 minutes of usage.

I'd like some of what he's smoking please

 

[docentore]

I have been using Sennheiser HD660s and can say that XD05+ drives it with ease. I can't see reason why it wouldn't do same with HD650.

But yeah, let's throw some more shiit on the device that you haven't heard with your own ears or even seen with your own eyes.

 

[runssical]

I have been using Sennheiser HD660s and can say that XD05+ drives it with ease. I can't see reason why it wouldn't do same with HD650.

But yeah, let's throw some more shiit on the device that you haven't heard with your own ears or even seen with your own eyes.

The HD660 is 150ohm impedance. The HD650 is double @ 300ohm and has a noted impedance spike to over 400ohm in the mid bass frequency region. The latter headphone is much harder to drive. Sennheiser's goal with the 660 and 58X was to make them more mobile friendly.

 

[runssical]

What? What's the precedent for this statement?
I had wonderful results for a few years with the XD05 and Hifiman 400i, Audioquest Nighthawks and Hifiman Ananda. Only stopped using it because my Fiio M11 was capable of driving my headphones nicely with balanced output. Currently, one of my students is borrowing my 05 to power his Meze 99 Classics, and loving every minute of it.

Absolutely fine if it doesn't drive the 650 well, amp and power matching is an important element in achieving your ideal sound. But that doesn't make it a poor portable amp, and I would really like to know where your claims about the company stem from.

The company (xduoo) does not engage with the community. Their ownership status is murky. There's speculation that they're a subsidiary of another Shenzhen CN based audio company. The specs for their products are not consistent with independent test measurements. For instance, xuduoo lists the S/N at 117dB. However, the measurement of the 3.55mm Line-out from Wolf at ASR was 107dB. That's just one example of xuduoo inflating specs. If you look at Schiit their official specs line up with what we see from independent testers at ASR and elsewhere. For the Asgard Schiit lists a S/N of 115dB and Amir (ASR) measured exactly that.

Then we have a glaring example of misrepresentation by xuduoo with them marketing their new XD05-BAL as a "balanced amplifier" when it lacks 4.0 volt line level output.

 

[docentore]

The HD660 is 150ohm impedance. The HD650 is double @ 300ohm and has a noted impedance spike to over 400ohm in the mid bass frequency region. The latter headphone is much harder to drive. Sennheiser's goal with the 660 and 58X was to make them more mobile friendly.

Well, I still think it would drive the HD650 with ease by looking how much volume I had left on HG.

You have fully right to not to trust the Xduoo and dislike the XD05+, even though you haven't heard it, that's fine.
But I dont get it, why are you trolling? If I don't like some stuff or I think it's garbage I just steer away from it, forum threads included.

 

[runssical]

Well, I still think it would drive the HD650 with ease by looking how much volume I had left on HG.

You have fully right to not to trust the Xduoo and dislike the XD05+, even though you haven't heard it, that's fine.
But I dont get it, why are you trolling? If I don't like some stuff or I think it's garbage I just steer away from it, forum threads included.

I come to this thread for the camaraderie.