iBasso has been creating and designing DAPs, IEMs, Headphones and Dongle DACs for over 10 years now, and they’ve been the company to offer best service and coverage for their products to this date, leaving competitors in the dust when it comes to supporting really old products like the mighty DX200, and even if your question is how to replace its battery, iBasso will take the time to help and answer all your questions. The stage is intimate, but there’s good instrument separation and stereo imaging, so DC05 sounds pretty precise in spatiality. It can bring all of those to very satisfying levels, and I’m one of those crazy listeners that goes loud, so if it wasn’t powerful enough, I would tell.

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Upon hooking the iBasso DC05 to the host device, a window pops-up asking for a permission to access the UAC application. This is because the treble isn’t necessarily aggressive, but the midrange has that “iBasso house sound”, of being live, energetic and punchy. It is airy and clean with good levels of resolution and fine detail and scales quite well with better earphones that are highly resolving.

This means that DC05 presents the full might of that “iBasso house sound” of live, dynamic and punchy. I could say that DC05 has outstandingly low noise floor and background hissing, so any IEM, even ultra sensitive ones should do just fine paired with it. 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 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps iBasso DC05 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps

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. You should know that they didn’t pick a random ESS chip for the job, and ES9219C is part of Sabre’s Hifi Line of DACs, offering a 64-step internal volume control, which adds some control for IEMs, if you find that there’s too much variation between two steps of volume. Treble is extended, sounding lively and agile with excessive energy but without any disturbing sharpness. 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.The ES9219C is a third-gen chip from Sabre Technologies that handles both decoding and amplification duties.

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

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. It is a somewhat different presentation, the DC03 is slightly more polite and laid back where the DC05 is more upfront, lively, detailed and a touch more clean with better overall layering and control throughout the whole range. 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. 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. But if you have the wherewithal (and a sturdy bag in which to carry it), the FiiO M17 has an awful lot to recommend it.I have greatly enjoyed my time with the DC05 and the truth is that from one point onwards the evaluation duties took a second place as I found myself sitting back, listening to my favorite tunes. Despite consuming rather little from my smartphone’s battery, it is normal for DC05 to get fairly warm, and it consumes more battery while it is not playing something and turns cooler while it is playing something, having a Class-A like behavior. The total frequency range is rated to be between 20Hz and 40kHz, enough to impress both humans and serpent people. 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.

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

All of those were easily driven by DC05, and I couldn’t notice any hissing or background noise with any of them, but I could notice excellent control, low distortion, and a good overall instrument separation with all of them. You don't have to worry anything about output power, background noise, or anything, simply plug in your HiFi IEMs into the DC05 and explore the world of High-resolution Music. It is a type-C adapter, so iBasso knowing that we would want to use it with computers too, included a Type-A to Type-C adapter in the package. Speaking of which, I’ve been using DC05 with a vast collection of IEMs for writing today’s review, including Campfire Holocene, Tin T3 Plus, Dunu Falcon Pro, IMR Audio Ozar, and Earsonics Corsa.All in all, the unit is fairly quiet with IEMs, and I also noticed that it does not draw too much power from my smartphone, leaving the battery life fine while using it. 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. It sounds live, and if you’re looking for a high-quality dongle to power both your IEMs and your Headphones, with a dynamic and punchy sound, DC05 should be the one to go for, at 69 USD. This comes at the cost of driving power, and DC05 has considerably more driving power and amplitude, being able to drive harder to drive headphones and push more volume into both IEMs and Headphones. The US based ESS seems to be the only manufacturer who can meet the increased demand but I don’t know for how long.