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All portable USB DACs with THX AAA amp

lofiguy

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Nov 5, 2021
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Even though this is a short list of products, I didn't find such a summary here or anywhere for that matter. Hope this helps someone.
  • THX Onyx ($150 amazon, $233 walmart under the brand Lixada) (review)
  • FiiO Q3 ($150 amazon) (no ASR review)
  • FiiO AM3D ($190 aliexpress, sold out elsewhere, requires compatible FiiO DAC: X7/X7MKII/Q5/Q5s) (Q5s+AM3D review)
  • Monolith 24460/124460 ($300) (review -- which annoyingly does not contain the proper product name in the title)
 

bravomail

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Oct 19, 2018
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Even though this is a short list of products, I didn't find such a summary here or anywhere for that matter. Hope this helps someone.
  • THX Onyx ($150 amazon, $233 walmart under the brand Lixada) (review)
  • FiiO Q3 ($150 amazon) (no ASR review)
  • FiiO AM3D ($190 aliexpress, sold out elsewhere, requires compatible FiiO DAC: X7/X7MKII/Q5/Q5s) (Q5s+AM3D review)
  • Monolith 24460/124460 ($300) (review -- which annoyingly does not contain the proper product name in the title)
so beside having a high price and good SINAD, does THX AAA provide anything special? can it walk on water? turn watered audio into red hot wine audio?
Compared to other good portable DACs - what does it bring to the table?
 

Spocko

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so beside having a high price and good SINAD, does THX AAA provide anything special? can it walk on water? turn watered audio into red hot wine audio?
Compared to other good portable DACs - what does it bring to the table?
For less money, the ddHiFI TC44B reviewed on ASR matches or beats all the THXAAA dongles you've listed - I bought it after @amirm reviewed it. Is there a reason to pay more than $90 (I bought it at Linsoul, and always out of stock) if you're looking for the best dongle? Obviously the Monolith is bigger so it's more powerful but other than power to drive large/difficult loads, but among the smaller THX dongles, the TC44B is a clear value winner with no compromise to performance unless you do need more power. I use these exclusively with IEMs so no problems and they have balanced outputs too.
 
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