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I doubt that overheating is an issue of these DA chips per se, as there are many other devices equipped with (similar) AKM chips on the market, that work OK. But to find out if we're dealing with overheating here we need measurements of defective DAC(s), since healthy ones obviously won't show...

Sure, especially the black hotties do ;)

You mean D/A chip or chassis? How about other parts, did you check their temperature?

Is it possible, that the overcurrent protection mechanism "loses" its logic as a result of thermal overload and triggers the protection mode anyway?

If (serious) overheating is to blame, then heatsinks alone will not do, I'm affraid. You're probably gonna need to take harder steps, like mounting fans, thermally conductive tapes or heatpipes and drillig holes in the chassis. Or better sink the whole shit in a bowl of some tasty, Chinese...

Well, I used to utilize that magic for picking up girls some 30 years ago, but unfortunately it's not the case anymore :( What I have left for my autumn years is disassembling broken Chinese devices and blowing wind on them. Now, call it life, if you will... Btw, DAC is working flawlessly...

I'd rather have the hottest girl, but I can't afford such an expense, I'm affraid. :) I measured the AK4490 surface temperature with a (K-Type) thermocouple connected to a digital multimeter. DAC looks like this:

It wasn't that hard for my (no-name, Chinese) DAC to reach 98 C on hot days, so... Btw, max operational temperature for AK4493 is 85 C. It probably won't burn at this level, but may fail to operate properly, I assume.

All of this may be true, but it doesn't make (possible) heat-related failures invalid. I think it's woth cheking, that's it.

Datasheets, unlike phisycal devices, do not generate heat, so testing the latter ones is less stupid, than guessing, I guess :)

To make sure the AKM chips (or any other parts) are not subject to overheating some temperature tests would be more useful, than guessing., I guess :)

Remove DAC cover and point a desktop fan towards PCB (for a couple of hours, at least) to see if this is an overheating issue. I bet it is!

Any news in this matter after 14 days?

Two chips get warmer than one, thus allowing you to spare a few bucks on your heating bills and making them more...balanced :)

"If" seems to be the key word here :)

As I mentioned before - sticking heatsinks on chips won't help much to effectively dissipate heat for at least 2 reasons: 1. very modest dimensions of chips and heatsinks, 2. quite small chassis, which is missing ventholes. Therefore it is simply NOT possible to expel the hot air outside the...

Apart from being equipped with different DAC chip, looks like D30 is also far from perfect. According to some Amazon customers, at least... Btw, perhaps removing the entire headphone amplifier section from future versions of DX3Pro and providing the DAC with better quality parts instead would...

I heave serious doubts about it, as my attempts to cool down my tiny AKM4490 DAC with heatsinks proved otherwise :) If ambient temperature rises above 30 C (which was the case last summer) passive heatsink cooling simply won't do, especially if the chassis is small and is missing ventholes.

If overheating is substantial sticking heatsinks on chips won't help much to effectively dissipate heat due to their modest dimensions, I'm affraid.

Guys, those of you facing temporary failures of your DAC (ie hissing, distorted sound, losing one channel, etc), especially during longer listening sessions, please check the temperature of AKM chip. I had similar issues with a different Chinese device (based on AKM4490) and the only working...