[Beyond the hype] NeoMini PCM2702 USB DAC

A few years ago, USB DACs based on PCM270x series of USB-receiver-cum-DAC were the rage. I can't give you the exact dates because I was late to the party and have stopped going for a while now, but 2007 to 2009 seems like a fair estimate.

[Beyond the hype] Sound Blaster Audigy vs Realtek ALC888 (on-board GA-MA770-US3)

I'm going to start another series/category, this time being reviews on old things.

In these posts, I will look at old products, to find out 1) How good they really were in the past compared to other old alternatives, and 2) How good they are now compared to newer alternatives and whether they should continue to be used.

I may also be looking at some stuff that are not that old, but the hype has in my opinion died down. Wink wink. Well you'll see it when I post it.

Now lets move on to the meat of this post, starting with an old famous product.

LJM CS4398 Take Two

In my first review of the LJM CS4398 eBay DAC, I used a Xonar DX to do mainly RMAA measurements.

Well, some thing happened the week before this, and also now I have an STX, so I want to do some new measurements, measurements that are not RMAA and can be used for comparison against others.

Zhaolu D1.3 headphone amp section RMAA

Because why not.

Cheap and good or just cheap? LJM / zoe_tsang CS4398 eBay DAC

Update: Read Take Two of this DAC here.

Fiio E5 and E11 - PSP Edition

So, do the results in the previous post apply to this scenario?

Fiio E5 and E11 - Xonar DX Edition

Xonar DX and STX 0dBFS input and output voltages

Xonar DX
Input: 2.08Vrms
Output: 1.69Vrms
Input dB required for 1Vrms = -6.4dBFS

Xonar STX
Input: 2.06Vrms
Output: ?
Input dB required for 1Vrms = -6.3dBFS

PSP (fat) RMAA measurements

This is a bit late (okay, a lot late), but here are the RMAA results for the first PSP.

PSP max volume unloaded
PSP max volume 33Ω

(Ignore the crosstalk measurements because they are wrong!)

Unloaded

33Ω

Because I want to see if I'm going to get an improvement with what I'm going to do.

Oh, and the output impedance is about 15.8Ω. Kinda high for some earphones. My X10 sounds like this:

What high source output impedance meets uneven load impedance sounds like

This has been sitting on my desktop for a while so I uploaded it before deleting it.

I did do this with an MS-1 last time, but MS-1's impedance is fairly flat so there isn't much to be heard. This one is more extreme.

Klipsch X10 Xonar DX recorded vs original (original from 01m29s onwards).mp3 - MediaFire

Xonar DX output impedance

~86Ω @ ?V into 33Ω load
~108Ω @ 0.15V into 16Ω load

Update 23/03/12: I remeasured again with a 16Ω load @ -22.7dB into a 16Ω load and got 108Ω. I will try to remeasure when I get another 33Ω load working, but I'm expecting both figures to be correct. I'll post the possible explanation once I confirmed the numbers.

Well you don't have to read the rest of my blabbering, but if you want to,