iFi Hip Dac Tour Review

A little background: I happened to join the iFi Hip Dac product tour, because I wanted to learn more about iFi portable yet affordable amp. And I was able to listen to the Hip Dac over the course of a week with my various head gear. I also compared the Hip Dac to some of the other portable headphone amps that I had come across over the years. Specifically I compared Creative G5, Fiio Q1MKII, Fiio Q5, and Topping NX4. Some of the headphones I used were Audeze iSine10, Audeze Sine, Soul sl150, Polk Buckle, Spadger (HM5 clone), and Jade Audio EA3.

Short version:
This Hip Dac is something very special. It does one thing, usb to 3.5 single ended or 4.4 balance. The bass boost is the best. The power match works like a gain switch without the noise. The charge is through the usbc port and there is no noise. The other big USB port connects to transport, be it from Mac or PC (I used the Mac) or Android or iOS (this cable is only shown in the manual). Sound quality being the most important factor, Hip Dac is better than Topping NX4 by a lot, Fiio Q1MK2 balance by a margin, Fiio Q5 balance by a margin, and Creative G5 by a margin. By a margin could mean the size of the ocean if dynamic amplification is important to you. I highly recommend you listening to this Hip Dac amp.

Long version:
There is supposedly a new technology in the Hip Dac. And according to iFi press releases the digital audio processing is really fancy. Some how iFi took the best of the multibit and single bit processing technology and combined those attributes into the Hip Dac. So if I did the math, you get the high dynamics of multibit and the high resolution of the single bit. What my ears hear is something special. I hear enormous dynamics in the music and the details are incredible. The amp background is black. The separation is quite noticeable. Me likes. What can I say. Stuff like this makes me feel like the world is going in the right direction. And I didn’t even mention the price of admission.

What I didn’t do: (in my defense I had the Hip Dac for only one week)
I did not have a 4.4mm adapter to do balance. But I ordered one, will be arriving by boat. Anyway, I could hardly believe this thing could be better by much over single ended. I certainly didn’t need more power; granted I don’t have Argon’s. And I did not run otg to Android.

Spec as I saw it: Single ended power: 280mW@32 Ohm. Plenty. Balance gives you more: 400mW@32 Ohm.

What you can’t do with the Hip Dac:
It’s hard to believe I would go there, but the internals do not have op amp sockets to plug in something else. A real cavalier might install a socket, but for what. I don’t know. No inputs for analog, and I think this is because the way the digital audio processing works. And it seems the best way to keep signals clean is to keep it digital until the very last step, going to analog. Hip Dac has bass boost, a really good one at that, but not an equalizer to shape the spectral response. I really needed to pull back the mids on the Sine. The battery is removable via 2 pin connection, once the internals are pushed open, but iFi has not provided extra battery purchase option yet.


Comparisons:
Hip Dac was compared to Fiio Q1MKII and Q5 from memory as I had participated in those product tours as well. Basically Hip Dac sounds better to my ears because of the dynamic amplification. However the Fiios do offer other flexibility with connections and use cases. But in my humble opinion sound quality over rules those other factors; mind you, the detail retrieval and clarity were equal subjectively. The Hip Dac is much better than the Topping NX4 in my opinion. Before I thought my NX4 was working fine. But now I wonder if there is something wrong with it. Hip Dac is playing mind tricks on me. Definitely Hip Dac has set a new standard in audio amplification quality. Lastly I compared Hip Dac to the Creative G5. The only real reason G5 can even be mentioned here is because of the SBX processing. With the built-in eq in the SBX feature, I was able to pull back the mids on the Sine. It is true the G5 can sound digitally artificial dsp sounding, but I only found that with the bright headphone like the Spadger. G5 also seems to have more power with the SBX than Hip Dac in single ended mode. But sound wise Hip Dac destroys G5 in every way. Hip Dac has better separation, blackness of background, detail retrieval, and last but not least more dynamic amplification.


Spectral analysis:
I should have put this in the previous relevant section as I did not spend time analyzing the spectral response of the Hip Dac, beyond affirming that they’re all there: bass, mids, and highs.

Future cast:
I hope iFi does not rest on their laurels and continue to bring great innovations to us audio fans. And in the future please add an eq somewhere.

Headphones:
I will point out the special details that impressed me the most using the Hip Dac.
Previously Audeze Sine and iSine10 were on the same level of performance regarding the music that I listened to, some EDM. But now with having listened to the Hip Dac, I much prefer the Sine’s bass response over the iSine10. The open back nature of the iSine10 shows the lack of bass fullness that is there on the Sine. The Hip Dac really does the bass well. Also I found planar headphones offered a textural resolution and detail retrieval that I never heard before. Talk about scaling with better amp. Even the Jade Audio EA3 which is very sensitive did not deliver the textural resolution and detail. By the way the Hip Dac drives the EA3 with awesome power. I think it is the dynamic performance that is really making me notice. All of the other headphones sounded great with the Hip Dac. And I used the bass boost and the power matched all of the time. The battery life prolly do not benefit from that but sound sure does.



Conclusion:
I think the Hip Dac is a real major major major major major break through in Audiophile community. But I have no budget to be an audiophile. However as soon as Amazon restocks the Hip Dac, even I can be able to afford the price of admission. This is really great. I meant that I could afford this thingy. The iFi Hip Dac is nothing less than a masterpiece with a knob. I unshamefully hype and recommend the Hip Dac to fellow music listeners. The Hip Dac is powerful, dynamic like you can’t believe, offers great detail retrieval and resolution, great separation, and background blackness unheard of at this price point.

Jade Audio ea3 review narratives






How come? :
I believe what is interesting to me is finding out something new; discovering what I did not know before, especially if it’s something that I like. I mean, it’s not to the level of Christopher Columbus discovering America, but we both share in our pursuits in that it’s not only about the money or review sample. And my honesty means that I protect my credibility to do reviews again in the future, and that is important to me.

Setup:
I chose a set of music or playlist, and they all come from online streaming. Therefore I was limited to using a Mac. And thereby I only had the Creative G5, VE Odyssey, and Advance Accessport Lite on hand to DAC and amplify the music. If you own the G5 you would know that it does not support the Mac OS. I was able to use the optical input of the G5 connected to the Mac’s headphone jack with the proper optical cable. I have not yet been able to save streaming to micro SD card yet, so none of my DAPs were included in this review.



Sound:
The Jade Audio ea3 sounds beautiful and drives a lot of bang for the buck. The sound signature is V shaped but audiophile friendly bass tuning. And in my setup, more on that later, ea3 was not treble harsh nor required burn in. Spectrally speaking, bass, mids, and highs, are not the highlight of the show in my opinion. In fact I was not drawn to the different segment of the spectrum to identify distinct sound characteristics. They’re all there, but nothing special stood out in their respect. By the way the ea3 responds well to eq and more bass can be achieved. But what is special is the cleanliness and speed of the response as a whole. The ea3 sounds very transparent and reveals a lot of detail. So that alone should be plenty of motivation to go out and find out more about this new iem. But there is more to consider.

At this stage in earphone/headphone development there are, believe it or not, more things to consider when selecting the favorite one. We are blessed today with many many options on the table. And sobering to say I can mention two things the ea3 is not. It does not do voice like Sennheiser HD600. I know, but who does beside Sennheiser. I’m just a messenger. And secondly the space on ES3, that is KZ ES3 does space presentation better to me. And I like sound to come from everywhere like in a big place where they play music or perform music for the fans. I was told they do those things at the Clubs. As I recall F9Pro had large space presentation. Enough of this focusing all my attention to a couple of things that is only important to me.

Moving on, I wanted to point out that in real life there are things we can not do without help. For instance, if Steve Jobs not invented the iPhone, would we be buying smartphones every year. We would have never done that without a tool to give us leverage to overcome physics. The physics being why would I need a new phone every year. Well in headfi land the physics can be things like: “what in the world is she saying in the song?” The tool to use for leverage is the ea3. This iem is so revealing and so detailed and makes music so separated in sound space you can pick out the words like never before. In one song that I heard streaming and I was doing the dishes, I heard “petty groove.” So I searched like most sensible people on Youtube for songs with “petty groove.” By the way I was using my iPad on the table to listen via my Mpow bluetooth headphones. I failed miserably to find that song. And later I learned the song was “Panic Room.” After listening with the ea3 I heard panic room. I’m just saying, if I had the ea3 before that I would not have gone through that horrible ordeal. We at headfi must get answers, and quickly.

Build and function:
The ea3 comes with basic preformed ear hook and 0.78mm 2 pin connector headphone cable. It’s good but not great. But considering the price point, this comes with Knowles BA. And it comes with additional tips but I only needed to use the ones already on the ea3. See pictures for more detail. The fitting for the 2 pin connector could be better designed to prevent premature failure. Otherwise everything looks and feels premium and light weight. The fit was comfortable for me. Because this is cable up wearing iem, it does take a minute to put this on, one ear at a time. If you practice piano using headphones, this can get a bit in the way when taking breaks between practice runs. By the way ea3 was so clean and revealing, the digital piano’s sounds limitation could be heard.

Comparison:
I used the KZ ES3 and the Sony MH755 for comparison with the ea3. I felt the ES3 and MH755 were on the same level. But the ea3 was on another level of performance. The ea3 was just more transparent, cleaner and more uncolored, faster response, better separation, better detail, and more capable. However with that said I would still keep ES3, and I don’t think I can get much for the MH755 if I tried to sell it, so no reason to dwell on that thinking. I just like the sound presentation of the ES3 with its big space presentation just like the F9Pro. The ES3 is more colored to the KZ house sound, which I appreciate despite not being transparent.



Value/Conclusion:
Some people may say ea3 cost $40 and others may say $50 or more. I say it would cost less if you get it at Amazon because you’re dealing with an official Jade Audio distributor, and Amazon offers intangible benefits like peace of mind. I think ea3 is a competitive player in the less than $100 iem market. And I think ea3 offers Knowles BA which is well respected. But the most important things are the sound, comfort, value, and compatibility/applicability. Sound is good; comfort is good; and value is more than competitive. But compatibility/applicability depends on each to their own. For instance, ea3 might serve as a filler to a slot in the rotation that is wanting of something differently special. Also some people may have G5 or similar DAC/amp that is warm and treble rolled off, and the ea3 would not come across overly treble boosted. So it depends on you.
Last but not least my playlist included EDM where ea3 really shines.

This is the best value iem on the market.
I endorse, so it is said.
The cost really disguises the performance of these.
Granted everything man made seems to always gets better; and someday
this too may become eclipsed in value by something better and cheaper.
But life is just moment in time. Happiness is a state of mind. Few things
can turn coal into diamonds, likewise few things can turn money into happiness.
This is one.

Q5 review

Here, I am writing a review of the versatile Fiio Q5 after having participated in the product tour. I found the Fiio Q5 to be very substantial in many respects. The physical build and the fit and finish were very premium. I really like Fiio's taste in form and function. And there is no question the Q5 sounds good and is better than the recently released Q1MKII. Why it is better is subject to a couple of things, which will be explained shortly. Pleased be advised that it is possible that you nor I will benefit financially from this written material so help me God. But if you believe a word I say then please secure your wallet before continuing.

There goes Fiio, releasing yet another portable audio amplifier, the Q5. Haven't we been impressed enough already with the Q1MKII? Well it seems this one is different.
Not that it isn't impressive; it is. What we have with the Q5 is taking the goodness of the Q1MKII and going in a different direction. It is like this. Some people live in the urban environment and they require specificity in doing things. Like a bro would not be caught club hopping after hours with sandals on, not gonna happen. A gentleman, dude if you will, needs the proper attire; and hence the Q1MKII. Other people live out in the boonies and can and must roam the earth. In doing so they require equipment to survive; equipment that can do many things practically and efficiently; and hence the Q5 is born.

The Q5 can do what the Q1MKII does well with more power, within reason, to driving headphones. Outside of portability, Q1MKII can not best the Q5; if price was not made a factor. That said what is it that the Q5 can do that Q1MKII can not do? A whole lot,
and please check the user's manual, that is made available by Fiio, for details. I have to disclose that I simply did not have enough time, due to tour regulation guidelines, to give an honest look-over of every feature that the Q5 brings. Yes, I did not do all of my homework. But!!! I had fun. And the Q5 made me happy within this context.

None the less, I list here what I like about the Q5. The Q5 has a lot of versatility. More connections than most will ever use, let alone need nor want, but is good to know when the time comes that you're ready; sounds kind of inappropriate but I digress. And I like the included accessories and other goodies like storage pouch and torx driver and more. Last but not least the sound quality on the Q5 is really amazing. And the single ended connection sounded really good just like the balance connection.

Here below I listed my relative feelings in comparisons to other gear that I am familiar with.

The other amps and daps in my possession that I made comparisons with were the Advance Accessport, Benjie X1, Walnut V2.1, and Creative Labs G5; as well as Q1MKII.
These comparisons reflect observations made in recent memory.

Q5se: Q5 single ended mode with ios

Q5bal: Q5 balance mode mode with ios

Q1se: Q1 MK II single ended mode with ios

Q1bal: Q1 MK II balance mode mode with ios

AAP: Advance Access-port

BX1: Benjie X1

W: Walnut 2.1

G5: Creative Labs G5

Relatively Power wise:
Q1se < AAP < BX1 < W < G5 < Q1bal < Q5se ~ Q5bal

Relatively Clarity wise:
Q1se < W < BX1 < G5 < AAP < Q1bal ~ Q5se ~ Q5bal

Conclusion:
I really liked the Q5 for all that it does, but I would still choose the Q1MKII if the main use case was portability with balanced earphones. With that said if I plan to use headphones at all then the Q5 is a must. Fiio continues to bring greater value, performance, and quality as time goes on.

F9pro review

Welcome to this review. I participated in the headfi tour for the Fiio's flagship hybrid ear phone the F9 Pro; one dynamic driver and two knowles balance armature drivers. And I am writing this review after having spent some time listening to the F9 Pro in my unique way. As the F9 Pro is the newest and the most advanced ear phone to date that I have encountered, I approach this review with a challenge to myself that I would find something to point out in both camps, positive and negative. And what I discovered was that filling the positive camp with observations was easy. But filling the negative camp was not so much as easy. In fact I will explain what happened shortly. The overall rating of this precision engineered F9 Pro is a resounding thumbs up and a recommendation that goes as far as to say life is too short "have cake and eat it too," I'm just saying.

Ok, where do I begin? Instead of the organized and methodical approach to analyzing like in a school textbook, lets just go all over the place. I say this because the F9 Pro is great at projecting the sound presentation all over the place. It creates a listening environment that is so much like listening to big headphones and even speakers, I am amazed. This to me is very appreciative on a number of levels. For one, I found a headphone that does not mess up my hair in the F9 Pro. And second, bigger is better when it comes to sound, but F9 Pro does this with even more desirable qualities that headphones and speakers simply can not match; i.e. noise isolation, clarity, portability, and so on. Speaking of positives, I could prolly go on and on about the balance armature that there are two knowles and they bring very excellent clarity, separation, and coherence with the rest of the sound presentation. Music with a lot going on is presented like F9 Pro is not breaking a sweat delivering the nuances of the subtle details in each and every sound in the music. In another words, no mud can be found here. I really was impressed how the details in the voices and the strings became evident; where all of the details that a microphone can pick up, the F9 Pro delivers untarnished. And another important factor to mention is how well F9 Pro gets along in the community. For explanation please feel free to continue to the next section.

The F9 Pro can be enjoyable to listen with or without a dedicated amp/dac. At 28 ohms the F9 Pro can be driven easily by an iPad mini and deliver quality sound. But like all enthusiasts, you should not settle for just good enough. In this field of interest, you should seek out what sounds the best with what you can gain access to, reasonably. And I found out that the F9 Pro had skills. It had skills to be transparent; at least enough to preserve the sound signature of an amp/dac. Ideally both the amp/dac and headphones should be transparent to deliver the source music as intended just like it was at the recording. Anyway my Accessport can be bright and my Walnut V2.1 is warm. And when the F9 Pro was connected to the Accessport, the sounds came through with brightness. And when the F9 Pro was connected to the Walnut, the sound came through with warmth and tenderness; so I did what anyone member of headfi would, turn up the volume. Let me tell you the F9 Pro is a blast to play loud. Because it is so poised at maintaining its resolve; it's impressive. Now there is an inside baseball going on with the Walnut as far as balance armature is concerned. Basically Walnut's high output impedance, like 100 ohms, suppose to sound bad with balance armatures. Apparently the F9 Pro breaks free from this convention and goes where no other balance armatured equipped earphones have gone. Bcause F9 Pro sounds amazing with the Walnut V2.1.

Back in the day I used to buy a lot of music compilations; this was a period after the mixed tapes era. In those days a lot of mixes were thrown in with the more commonly heard format, the "Radio Edit" version. I suppose those mixes included unique sound manipulations, but who had time to go through them all. So now here I am using my ipad, but some hackers is adding distortion to my right channel. So I took to summoning my savvy intuition and adapted. I pulled out my music and let it lose on the F9 Pro connected to the Walnut as amp and the Benjie X1 as source/dac in shuffle mode. Since I haven't heard a lot of the mixes, this experience was more than entertaining; it was discovery and I was excited. But more importantly I was blown away at how good the F9 Pro was in delivering the music. Everything sounded fresh and new like I have never heard before; hearing things in the music in a way that I have never heard before. In essence the F9 Pro made it seem like I bought a whole lot of new music. And from an economist point of view I'm saving a lot of money getting the F9 Pro. I know right, economist knows how to get us into financial trouble; cause often they're only right half of the time, but I digress.

Some break down info in a quickie format:

Bass: F9 Pro has mid bass, regular bass, and sub bass no questions asked. But it does not have basshead bass that is always there on everything you play, unless you play only basshead music. In fact the bass has quality in the form of distinction in the bass band, never muddy. I like.

Mids: F9 Pro is clear with great separation in the mids. Voices and instruments can be very revealing with the right setup. I like.

Treble: F9 Pro has the means to deliver the treble honestly, but I prefer to tone down the brightness for the sake of longevity. And depending on the amp/dac used F9 Pro can be versatile and deliver the sound signature that I want. And F9 Pro is good in this way. I like.

Negative camp:
I tried my hardest to find a weakness in the F9 Pro by using the gear that I have, but to no avail. I concluded either there is no weakness to be found or I simply need better gear to evaluate F9 Pro better.

On a different note, this is negative camp for me because I reviewed the Fiio Q1 MK II which I thought was great in the balance mode. However I did not have access to this amp during this review. And therefore I can only imagine how much greater the F9 Pro could have brought to my listening experience in the balance mode. Especially knowing that the F9 Pro is great at handling power and space at the same time.

On a related note, I could not verify the mic and volume up and down button due to hacking on my ipad mini.

Summary:
Fiio has improved upon the F9 with the F9 Pro and I trust it is so. Because my evaluation of the F9 Pro is that it is truely worthy of its flagship status. F9 Pro does everything well. And I learned my inventory of gear can not find a fault with the F9 Pro. It is that good. So I apologize to the reader as I have failed to reveal a weakness in the F9 Pro.

This is the review for the New Fiio Q1 MK II edition.

Disclosure: I joined the Fiio Q1 Mk II product tour and hence this review. I appreciate the chance to evaluate this product at or near the time of product launch. And I am fully aware my written review will reflect on me and my points of view.

I like what Fiio has done here, bringing to the portable fine audio community
something that makes sense. This is Fiio's entry level portable dac and amp setup. And I believe this will open peoples' choices and wallets. You know what the latter means, and as for the former it's like this: I'm an ios user, but this thing made me cross the line to the other side just to find out how they do it in android. It's about the same, as it should be sound quality wise. Most people use smartphones and they demand that better audio quality to be convenient. This does that quite well.

The specs are specs, and I think that it is nice of Fiio to publish the numbers. But I want to know for real what happens when I listen to music at the volume levels and setup that I normally use. And I was pleasantly satisfied with the performance of this Q1 MK II. Power is there in the bass; clarity and separation are there in the mids; and last but not least the treble is presented quite cleanly. In fact the only thing I have trouble with the amp side of the coin is that the Q1 MK II is really difficult to figure out where things stand. It's like being in front of people where nobody is standing up to volunteer to do extra work; amp freq response is flat with no peaks nor valleys. As for the sound stage, I observed the soundstage presentation of KZ ATR, which is big, was preserved in single ended mode and like wise Piston 3 in balance mode, which is a bit typical for earphones.

The dac side of Q1 MK II brings out the details and the presentation of the sound signature. And the dac brings a lot of detail in a way that seems really unheard of before. And the sound presentation is really just hard to describe because there is nothing emphasized. It is possible with more listening there could be found a more definitive sound character. But I could not discern any particular character. I suppose the dac is being faithful to its recorded source data.

The features in the Q1MK II are plenty. And it is here that I have also a caveat. I know DSD is the new high resolution source material. But I had trouble finding good music that I listen to in DSD format or DSF file. Anyhow, I found modern music to have much better recording of details than from the music I had in CDs. So, much of the audio that I used for evaluation came from modern music, though some acoustical music were a generation past. Anyway I felt the source material was detailed enough to reasonably assess this dac/amp's performance. For the sample of earphones I used with the Q1 MK II, the amp scales really well.

The Q1 MK II was used with ipad mini and android TV box on Lollipop successfully, just plug and play. The Fiio's battery performance was decent but I did not have a chance to run down the battery. The charging though I thought took a while; the red led lights up during charging and goes out when finished charging. The ipad and TV box played music responsively. The amp section has the line input port to accept audio from different devices via analog. I was not too impress with the sound quality, but it is difficult to say between the Fiio and the analog source the reason for coming up short. That is, when compared to the fully balance mode, the sound through the line in as well as sound through the single ended mode via micro usb data transport were not as clear and detailed; though the bass performance was there on all modes.

Here is a bit of after thought on the perspective of amp's performance and its role in volume. The point of getting an external amp is to play audio better than without an amp. And the amp's job is to amplify with low distortion and good sound characteristics. Thereby many people get an amp because sound quality and quantity improves greatly over smartphones.

These are the earphones and headphones used with the Q1 MK II and the corresponding observations.

Balance:
Xioami Piston 3
The clarity of P3 shines nicely. I wish there was more bass, but I think it is the P3 holding back the bass.

Vivo Xe800
The brightness was definitely better as well as clarity than P3. Again I wanted more bass.

Plantronics Backbeat earbuds
The sound clarity is not up to par with the P3 and Xe800, but I discovered how well the Q1 MK II pushed this earbud with power to spare. Definitely noticeable because earbuds are further away from the ear canal and are more difficult to get a good seal; this powerful amp really helps when it comes to earbuds.

Velodyne Vfree
The point of using headphones was clear in the balance mode. Headphones provide a bigger sound and a much more out of the head sound space experience. The bass came through bigger. And I bet you may be wondering how does the treble and clarity stack up to in ear monitors. It also came clear to me in this price point, the headphones with its bigger drivers and poorer isolation can not compete with iems in clarity and treble quality; for that matter separation as compared to XE800. By the way an adapter was used to drive the headphones with detachable cable in the balance mode.

UE4000
Again the similar sound characteristics were observed with bigger sound and clearer space, but not comparable to iems in clarity.

Monoprice 8323
Same here as well, the bass were bigger and space were more surrounding, but clarity was no where near XE800.

Single ended:
KZ zse
Surprisingly in the single ended mode the bass response was acceptable. The highs were pulled back a little like the other earphones and headphones in the single ended mode.

KZ atr
Aside from the fact the single ended mode pulled back the highs from an earphone that is already warm, there was the sound stage of the atr that was well preserved.

Vfree
In the single ended mode the amp just did not appear to have enough power to drive this headphone properly. The sound was very subdued.

The other amps and daps in my possession that I made comparisons with were the Advance Accessport, Benjie X1, Walnut V2.1, and Creative Labs G5.

Q1se: Q1 MK II single ended mode with ios

Q1bal: Q1 MK II balance mode mode with ios

AAP: Advance Access-port

BX1: Benjie X1

W: Walnut 2.1

G5: Creative Labs G5

Relatively Power wise:
Q1se < AAP < BX1 < W < G5 < Q1bal

Relatively Clarity wise:
Q1se < W < BX1 < G5 < AAP < Q1bal

Relatively Bass wise:
W < BX1 < AAP < G5 < Q1se ~ Q1bal ( I did not have bassy balance earphone/headphone)

Relatively Warmth wise:
BX1 < AAP < Q1bal < Q1se < W < G5 ( se pulled back the highs)

Relatively Size wise:
AAP < BX1 < Q1se = Q1bal < W < G5

Relatively Battery drain wise:
Q1bal < Q1se < W < BX1 < G5 < AAP ( includes educated guesstimates)

Conclusion:
For the price of admission you as the customer get quite a lot of value for the money. Be it the dac with interface to ios and android and an amp that can do balance all the way from input to output. It is kind of nice to be a customer for headfi stuff today. But like all audio head gear there are limitations, and although minimal Q1 MK II comes up short for line input and single ended output. Kind of good in that you can still keep around the traditional analog only amp. However for achieving high resolution audio an dac/amp such as the Q1 MK II is most desirable.