Dongle DAC Tour 2024

General Discvssions & Theory/Vnderstanding
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Background
Several weeks ago my DAP started to malfunction. Long story short it’s currently with Hiby somewhere in China being repaired. But that left me without a portable HiFi setup for listening at work. Around this time Black Friday sales started showing up online. And I was able to pickup several different dongle DACs for good prices. This gave me something to listen with, and also a good chance to compare some very different DACs. What I ended up with are the following:

Cayin RU6
Cayin RU7
Questyle M15
Hiby FC6

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In addition to just wanting something to listen to and have fun comparing, for a while now I’ve wanted to test how good a dongle DAC could sound if I gave it every advantage possible: good quality power supply, clean USB signal, upsampled PCM (or DSD) that was optimized for the DAC architecture (disable internal digital filters with NOS mode), and run it line out into a good amplifier. Needless to say this has been very interesting! For example the RU6 has atrocious digital filters and an absurdly high noise floor, it’s maybe 16-bit accurate, but it can run at 368kHz. So I used PGGB to generate 16-bit 368kHz test tracks for it, and behold, it sounds pretty damn good! I’ve done similar experiments with all of these dongles and had lots of fun.

So let’s have some fun…
All along I’ve not intended to keep these, but before I sell them I thought I would offer them up here for anyone else interested in trying them out. Hence…

Dongle DAC Tour 2024!

The above 4 DACs are going on tour! And if you’re interested in trying them out you can sign up to have them show up at your place on a tour stop.

No cost to sign up. All you have to do is pay for them to be shipped to the next stop. And of course you are highly encouraged to post your thoughts and observations here on SA!

Each stop is 1 - 2 weeks, hopefully that’s enough time to have some fun before passing them along.

For now I’m limiting this to CONUS. But if there’s enough interest in a European Tour, we can plan to ship the group to Europe at the end of the US Tour.

I’ll kickoff the tour at the beginning of January 2024, and it’ll go until we run out of interest.

I’m planning to include a USB flash drive in the box with test tracks at various bit depths and sample rates (including some DSD test tracks) so you can do some comparisons with how much of a difference that can make.

Any other dongles interested in joining?
If anyone has a dongle DAC that you would like to include in the tour, send me a message and we’ll figure out how to add it. The more dongle DACs the marrier!

How to join
If you want to join the tour send me a message here on SA and I’ll add you to the list of Tour Stops. I’ll generate the list of stops based on order I receive request to join.

Hopefully this sounds like fun to more members here than just me :slightly_smiling_face:

Let me know if any questions.

Let’s Go! :headphones::notes::musical_note:

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This is pretty sweet pf you to organize!

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I second that!

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Happy to do it! It’s a lot of fun to compare notes with people here on different pieces of gear. And for the most part dongles like this are a HiFi novelty item that are fun to try but don’t make sense to buy and own long term. So for me to get them cheap, try them out, and let others try them before I re-sell them makes some sense.

I’ve not gotten many responses yet, but that’s fine too. Just a fun thing for anyone interested.

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It’s not much, but I could throw in an OG L&P W2 to the pile to tour around as well!

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EDIT: I only just remembered that I also own an L&P W1 as well, lol, so that can go on some travels as well :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hello,
I would register for the Eu Tour if there are several participants.
Stop for me would be Germany.
I would have to think about possible customs costs to Europe.
Could cost something with 4 Dongels where imported into the first country, after that it is no problem.

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Putting my name in the hat. My GL-AMT16 IEM is stupid source-picky, so this is actually a perfect opportunity :joy: .

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Hee hee…DONGLE DAC, i find the name so childishly humorous :rofl: :joy: :rofl:

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Haha. It is reminiscent of something like tally whacker…

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Okay, I’m kicking off the tour today, shipping the box of dongles to the first listener!

We only have 4 participants in the tour at this point, which is fine. But if you want to join in, send me a message and I’ll get you added to the queue.

Maybe to clarify, there’s no cost or obligation if you join the tour. Just have fun listening and ship them to the next stop when you are done with them (trying to limit to 2wks per person).

Also, at the end of the tour all of these will be going up for sale (at approx. 50% of original price). So if you hear one you like, let me know, it’ll be first come first served on purchases. I have all of the original boxes and cables with me.

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