iBasso DC06 Portable DAC

Product Information

The FiiO KA3 offered a good counter-part, as the DAC shows the usual FiiO signature, with softer mids and punchier low-mids. It’s not much, but if you need some groove in your music, you may prefer the KA3. On the other hand, if you favour accuracy, go for the DC06, which portrays each and every nuance, at every given volume. This allows the amp section to operate at its full potential, significantly raising power output at 320mW/32Ω from the balanced output. This one remains, to this day, one of my favorite portable DAC/AMP, thanks to its small size, bulky but catchy design, and excellent performance-to-price ratio. But, a year later, the market has become even fiercer, with competitors from established brands like FiiO , HiBy, Hidizs and newcomers like ddHiFi . Low Consumption, High-Power Output:​DC03 Pro has been designed with premium audio circuitry that has been tuned for low power consumption but delivers high output power. It doesn’t burden your connected smartphone or tablet with heavy power requirements and at the same time provides close to 100mW of clean power through its 3.5mm headphone output port.

Paired with the Audeze LCD-X– one if not my favourite planar – the iBasso gives you the perfect balance between dryness and linearity, a mix that might be a bit tougher to love than usual, but I loved it. And if bad recordings are not welcome, compared to the FiiO KA3, there is not much difference. Again, in my opinion, for people that own the DT 700 Pro X and DT 900 Pro X this is the perfect dongle for on the go. It can sound very contrasted and dynamic when the music calls for it with a satisfying level of impact for a USB DAC dongle. The all-important and hated hiss is kept to zero basically and this device along with most other dongles nowadays seems to employ some type of mute feature that drops output down to zero when there’s no music being played. However, this circuitry doesn’t seem to affect dynamics which are very good on this dongle. Once again, this new unit is absolutely flawless in terms of build quality. It doesn’t scream “POWER” like the DC06 could, but it also feels a little more beefier than the DC03 Pro. The bigger case and 4.4mm Pentaconn output clearly contributes to that, enhanced by the hollow design of its volume guard, perfectly bevelled angles. Next, we move to Daft Punk "Lose Yourself," which contains a massive bassline throughout the entirety of the song. With these other instruments, vocals and synths are layered on top of one another while staying transparent. The Fir Audios and Audezes produced clean tight bass, just as I know they would, both on the DC06 and SPL.Lotoo PAW S1 also produces a fairly smooth and neutral sound, but in my opinion, DC03 PRO beats it by a small margin in terms of intelligibility, better bass control, and in general, sounds more academic and correct. The iBasso DC05 frequency response presentation seems to be flat but the overall tonality comes through with a slightly warm character which is actually a common characteristic of these ESS DAC chips.

iBasso has upgraded its classic DC03 USB DAC/AMP with the all-new DC03 Pro. With premium CS43131 DAC chips from Cirrus Logics, the DC03 Pro brings flagship-level performance to your smartphones. It is designed with a high-performance KDS femtosecond crystal oscillator for clean and precise audio signal decoding. DC03 Pro supports high-resolution PCM and DSD signals promising a quality experience for its users!! I must say, this is my first dongle review, and expectations are pretty high. Thus, battery life may be on par or better. The soundstage seems to be widely presented with a tall panorama but I sensed a personal amount of height and a slight interruption in imaging. There seems to be good placement, technical abilities are rather good and everything seems to be well placed.

It does pair best with IEMs just like most dongle DACs and I must reiterate it was hard for me to provoke IEMs to produce any hiss. The best remedy for this however is to use the iBasso UAC app which has a maximum volume feature and could act as gain control. I did most of the listening from either my Windows 10 x64 PC or my Android mobile device. I used FLAC files, some DSD files, and Foobar. The mobile device was used with the Jet Audio pro player but I could use the DC06 with anything really and it does so with a consistent level of performance.

an integrated GND-centred with a Class H headphone driver able to output 30mW per channel at 32OhmsThe iBasso line of dongle DACs follows a straight sequence of numbers and although the recently released DC05 for example had a lower price tag compared to the DC04 it also had a lower power output rating but it still managed to highlight some small improvements and refinements in design. As for the source, I kept my MacBook and iPhone, combined with the ddHiFi TC28i , to use the USB-C cable solely. For the files, I mainly used Apple Music and Spotify, as I ended up using the DC06 almost exclusively in the train, or at the office. Overall signature Alternatively, you could get a Lightning to USB-C adaptor like the ddHiFi TC28i, and plug it between the DC04PRO and your iPhone. It’s up to you!

The DC06 seems to run on anything, iOS along with Windows and Android. It even ran off my Samsung Chromebook.Lows: deep and fast. The iBasso did an excellent job here, easily reaching the lowest notes and sub rumble, even with moderately hard-to-drive headphones. It’s much more powerful than before, and Ike the FiiO KA3 – again – for the size of the thing, it’s amazing how much oomph you get. Hurray The brand was notoriously known for its noisy players, from the old DX80 up to the DX220. But, since the iBasso DX300, all of that changed, and every device has been an improvement since, with the DC03PRO on top now, reaching nanoVolt level – 900nV or 0.9uV, topped with a 127dB of Signal to Noise Ratio and a 0.12-ohm output impedance. On top of that, the power supply gets a completely redesigned synchronous DC-DC converter, feeding a Texas Instruments Low-Noise Charge Pump Plus LDO, which minimizes power consumption. Long story short, the iBasso DC03PRO drags half less power than other DAC and outputs more current.