iBasso DC05 Portable USB Dongle DAC, Black

Product Information

The US based ESS seems to be the only manufacturer who can meet the increased demand but I don’t know for how long. Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary. Please allow 3-5 business days for mail-in exchanges to be processed.

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

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. iBasso DC05 vs Audirect Beam 2 (69 USD vs 100 USD) – Beam 2 is a bit more ergonomic with the cable detachable, but it draws quite a bit more power from the smartphone, shortening its battery life. The overall driving power is comparable between the two. The sound is actually fairly similar, and both are pretty peppy, pretty forward, lively and punchy, and also dynamic. Beam 2 is a bit brighter than DC05, and where DC05 has a stronger bottom end, Beam 2 has a stronger treble edge, and sounds a bit wider, at the cost of depth.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!! 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. iBasso has developed a custom volume control application that uses the latest UAC2.0 USB protocol to enable 64-step volume control by a connected source device.

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

The DC05 features a parallel dual DAC chipset configuration with two high-performance ES9219C to achieve better SNR and THD. Unfortunately they were short lived due to the chip shortage that is plaguing the industry for almost two years now. To return your product, you should mail your product to: 4F 405, Building F, No.2 Shangxue Science and Technology North, Bantian Street, Longgang Dist, ShenZhen, 518129 Guangdong, China iBasso DC05 houses a 3.5mm single-ended output port that delivers clean and powerful output. It has up to 140mW output power rating at 16Ω of load, at 32Ω DC05 provides up to 93mW of power, which is more than enough to power your IEMs and low-power requiring headphones without trouble. DC05 has an ultra-low output impedance of less than 0.5Ω making it suitable for sensitive pairs too!!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. The midrange of DC05 is clean, crisp and clear, and somewhat bright in the overall signature. This is because the treble isn’t necessarily aggressive, but the midrange has that “iBasso house sound”, of being live, energetic and punchy. The dynamics of DC05 are over-the-top, and for such an affordable tiny dongle, it has quite a bit of life in it. The stage is intimate, but there’s good instrument separation and stereo imaging, so DC05 sounds pretty precise in spatiality. It has enough stage width to not be narrow, but doesn’t go above natural. Happily, the soundstage is well rounded, so there’s a similar amount of depth as it is of width. This allows the users to use both sensitive as well as demanding earphones/headphones with the DC05 with a good range of adjustment. 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. It is airy and clean with good levels of resolution and fine detail and scales quite well with better earphones that are highly resolving.

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

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.

Press Reviews

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 iBasso DC05 is plug ‘n play with Android and iOS while for windows the user must install a driver to enable full DSD support.

Advanced MP3 Players - the MP3 player experts

Treble is extended, sounding lively and agile with excessive energy but without any disturbing sharpness. The sound is crystal clear, crisp and tonally neutral yet pleasant and enjoyable with all kinds of music. 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. Upon hooking the iBasso DC05 to the host device, a window pops-up asking for a permission to access the UAC application.Please keep in mind that these are rough estimates and shipments can be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, like postal strikes or severe weather. 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. The ES9219C is a third-gen chip from Sabre Technologies that handles both decoding and amplification duties.