iBasso DC05 Portable USB Dongle DAC, Black

Product Information

DC05 is the latest USB DAC from the house of iBasso. iBasso has designed it with a premium Dual DAC chipset featuring two ES9219C Sabre DAC chips. It is loaded with premium features such as HyperStream III audio architecture, Time Domain Jitter Eliminator that provides crisp high-res signal decoding with ultra-low THD+N and high dynamic range. Turn your regular smartphone into a high-end audio player with the DC05 today!! I have tested the iBasso DC05 with their own ITX01, FiiO FD3, DUNU Falcon Pro and with the Sennheiser HD660S that did an excellent job in driving them with ease and headroom. I remember the DC03 to be quite powerful and could certainly drive the HD660S but I have the impression that the DC05 is slightly more effortless with greater headroom and dynamic range. Please keep in mind that these are rough estimates and shipments can be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, like postal strikes or severe weather. We have excellent decoding abilities too, with MQA decoding up to 16X, and 32 Bit / 384 kHz for PCM. iBasso didn’t leave out DSD fans either, and DC05 can decode up to DSD265. iBasso is not shy to mention the technical data of DC05, as it features 121dB of Dynamic Range, and 0.00056% THD+N. The total frequency range is rated to be between 20Hz and 40kHz, enough to impress both humans and serpent people.

iBasso DC05 DAC/AMP Dongle – Power For Androids iBasso DC05 DAC/AMP Dongle – Power For Androids

In fact it is so good that it is touching the big boys like the THX Onyx and Violectric Chronos but with less than half of the asking price and this is a hell of an achievement. The DC05 is truly excellent sounding and in blind tests, someone would have a hard time to tell that this kind of audio performance is coming from a tiny USB DAC dongle that is hanging from a phone. This allows the users to use both sensitive as well as demanding earphones/headphones with the DC05 with a good range of adjustment. iBasso DC05 vs Matkar Spectra X2 (69 USD vs 200 USD) – I was able to compare those loosely, since they are not interchangeable , DC05 being a Type-C dongle for Android, and Spectra X2 is made for iPhones. The sound is actually comparable, but Spectra X2 has a bit more dynamics and more detail, where DC05 has more punch in the lows and more impact in the bass.Unfortunately they were short lived due to the chip shortage that is plaguing the industry for almost two years now. We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. PRaT, Texturization, Detail, Resolution, Dynamics, Impact, and overall tonality are all revealed by those songs. We recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The power rating is rather high for a dongle, at 140mW for 16OHMs, and 93mW for 32 OHMs. The output impedance is not very high, at 0.5 OHMs, and if you want to use DC05 as a pure DAC with an external AMP, it has a 2V signal at 300 OHMs, and 1.73V at 32OHMs. If you’re looking for comparisons, DC05 has almost double the driving power DC03 had, even though it has the same size physically. DC05 brings high-resolution MQA decoding right at your smartphone. It supports full MQA decoding ensuring the users a pure sound performance as the artist intended. It also has full support for 32-Bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256 decoding.

IBASSO DC05 Portable USB DAC/AMP - SHENZHENAUDIO IBASSO DC05 Portable USB DAC/AMP - SHENZHENAUDIO

The USB type C plug is connected to the main body with a short braided cable of good quality that features strain reliefs for further protection. It is airy and clean with good levels of resolution and fine detail and scales quite well with better earphones that are highly resolving. The iBasso DC05 houses a 3.5mm single-ended output port that delivers up to 140mW/16Ω and 93mW/32Ω of output power, so it is slightly more powerful than its predecessor. The ES9219C is a third-gen chip from Sabre Technologies that handles both decoding and amplification duties. The DC05 features a parallel dual DAC chipset configuration with two high-performance ES9219C to achieve better SNR and THD.It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with iBasso. I’d like to thank iBasso for providing the sample for this review. This review reflects my personal experience with iBasso DC05. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it. The purpose of this review is to help those interested in iBasso DC05 find their next music companion. There is a lot of competition in the market and it would be difficult to call it the best of the bunch but it certainly belongs among the leaders. The overall presentation of DC05 is detailed, clean, but also has a strong bottom end, with a nice amount of impact and depth. The treble is on the smoother side, fatigue-free, yet it is brighter, more lively, more aggressive and forward, also more dynamic and vivid than the vast majority of dongles that I reviewed to date. With a more intimate soundstage, DC05 works well with brighter and wider sounding IEMs / Headphones, and as it has quite a bit of power, should be fine for most portable headphones and IEMs.

iBasso DC05 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps iBasso DC05 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps

I don’t have the DC03 ATM to do a direct comparison but from memory I would dare to say that the two dongles are close enough. The bass of DC05 is enhanced a bit above what I would consider purely neutral, having a strong bottom end extension and impact. This reflects well for EDM, Dubstep and Electronic music in general, where you can hear the deepest bass notes in every song, and you can even notice nuance and depth quite easily. DC05 doesn’t sound like it has a bass boost turned on, but it surely has good weight and body to music.Mids sound open, spacious, with fine articulation and fluid expression in the vocal range, timbre is mostly natural without severe digital artifacts while instruments sound well textured.