Asus MU3C-AD(M) Dongle DAC - First impressions and basic measurements

[staticV3]

This is a first look at the Asus MU3C-AD(M) dongle with ES9260Q DAC chip. On AliExpress it costs $20.

As I'm currently incapacitated with a broken hand, these will be some basic impressions and measurements with a multimeter.
If there's enough interest, then I'll do a full set of measurements with SINAD, Dynamic Range, 50mV SNR, Jitter, Zout, Load Sweeps, all that jazz.

First, the basics:
This DAC can play back up to 24bit, 96kHz content. On Windows, there are some enhancements on offer, too.

An ADC is built-in for making calls with your headset. It records at 48kHz, 16 or 24bit.

Strangely, the Asus dongle lacks UAC2 hardware volume control.
In practice, that means that users on macOS, iOS, or iPadOS cannot control volume like normal and the DAC will be locked to 100% volume.
If you press the volume keys on your Apple device, the OS will show this icon:

Volume sliders inside YouTube, Spotify etc. will continue working.

If you're on Windows or Android, then this is not a problem since those OSs will just use their own software volume instead.
However, if you're using foobar2000/AIMP/Audition/... with ASIO or Wasapi Exclusive output, then just like on Apple, the regular OS volume control will be disabled. Volume control programmed into the software will continue working.
If you use USB Audio Player Pro/Hiby Music/Neutron with Bit-perfect enabled, then the DAC will be locked to 100%.

According to ESS, the headphone Amp built into the ES9260Q will output 1Vrms max. With my multimeter I'm seeing 1.05Vrms (at 60Hz):

Let's take a look at output impedance next.
First play a 1kHz sine and reduce the output a bit.

Then put a 10.49Ω dummy load across the output and measure again

Paste it all into a handy calculator and voilà:

Output impedance is approximately 0.21Ω at 1kHz.

Next, let's take a look at how much Phantom power the dongle will supply to your microphone.
First, unloaded:

and with a Primo EM272 as load:

not bad.

Lastly, here's how much current the dongle will draw from your USB host, compared to some other portable DACs:

That's all I have for now. If you have questions or specific measurements that you'd like to see, comment them below and I'll see what I can can do.

 

[tifune]

9038D6K?

 

[staticV3]

9038D6K?

The original 9038D hasn't been available for about half a year now due to exploding silicon prices.
While waiting for silicon prices to recover, IVX prepared an improved version of the 9038D called 9038D6K. This version became available two weeks ago.

Improvements are:
-slightly lower noise and distortion
-CTIA headsets work without adapter (though there's no mic input)
-improved EMI resistance
-higher capacitance for power rail filtering

Here's 1kHz THD+N and 48kHz Jitter of my 9038D6K. You can buy one here.

 

[staticV3]

@Jimbob54 when sharing AliExpress links, you can delete everything after ".html". The rest is just worthless tracking info.

 

[Jimbob54]

@Jimbob54 when sharing AliExpress links, you can delete everything after ".html". The rest is just worthless tracking info.

Imma just delete the whole post anyway - but cheers for the tip