This is a review and detailed measurements of the D&A Alpha balanced DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by Shenzhen Audio and costs US $399.
No, you are not seeing double. What I tested before was the Alpha Pro. The non-pro version has the same distinct white LED and clear front panel with labels that are kind of hard to read. Otherwise, it is a very simple unit to use. I especially like the brightness of LED ring around the volume control changing proportionally to its setting.
I upgraded it before testing it. In the interest of digging my way our of mountain of gear here to test
, I focused my testing on balanced output unless said otherwise.
D&A Alpha DAC Measurements
Our usual dashboard produced stunningly good results:
We are talking a fraction of a hair below best there has ever been:
Noise performance is stellar as it should be to get the above result:
Max output is higher so it is able to generate even better results if your amplifier can handle it:
Multitone shows off the incredibly low distortion products:
But we do have a hint of "ESS IMD Hump:"
You get that small step up in distortion around -40 dBFS.
Jitter output is clean as a whistle and nicely shows off the multiples of 250 Hz deep in the J-test signal:
The DAC doesn't expose filter setting which is fine by me as the default is what I expect:
Edit: forgot to show THD+N vs Freq:
D&A Alpha Headphone Amplifier Measurements
The Pro version had a superb DAC as well but fell short in headphone amplifier department. Not here:
That's huge amount of power into such a high impedance load. But it gets better:
We are talking 8+ watts into 32 ohm load! Not only can this amp push out voltage, it can back it with ton of current. It should not have trouble driving any headphone to ear bleeding levels.
Lacking an analog negative gain, it only produces average noise results using unbalanced out (balanced was worse):
EDIT: I see that the specs say low gain is negative so not sure why the results are not better.
D&A Alpha Headphone Listening Tests
Ok, I predicted the Alpha could play loud but didn't think it could get this loud... Using my Dan Clark Core headphone at or above 12:00 in high gain, not only did it threaten my hearing, but managed to threaten the headphone with risk of drive damage! I could hear the bass notes to go from clean to increasingly distorted while my inner ear started to tingle!!! Stuff I do for you all!
Set it at 11:00 and heavy bass demo material makes you feel like your head is inside an orchestra playing not only superbly dynamic, but incredibly clean. Detail hangs out in the air inside your skull like nobody's business. See, I can write flowery subjective sentences without use of AI!
Seriously, the Alpha takes away the worry about not having enough amplification for any headphone while producing stunning fidelity.
Conclusions
I am amazed that D&A when down half in price, took the word "Pro" out of the name and produced a state of the art DAC and headphone amplifier. On the latter, it is able to pump out incredible amount of power, removing any thought of the amplifier getting distorted. If you hear something unthwart, it is your headphone or source, not the Alpha! Your only worry will be hearing damage so I suggest you stay with medium gain unless you are sure you need the high gain.
Listening to the combination of Dan Clark Core and D&A Alpha once again reminds me how far we have come in pushing the state of the art in sound reproduction, albeit by using a headphone. Aha moments come back to back in the same track in the matter of seconds!!! And all this for $399 in a distinctive packaging.
Company deserves especially kudos for improving performance so much yet reducing the retail price significantly.
I am happy to recommend the D&A Alpha DAC and headphone amplifier.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
No, you are not seeing double. What I tested before was the Alpha Pro. The non-pro version has the same distinct white LED and clear front panel with labels that are kind of hard to read. Otherwise, it is a very simple unit to use. I especially like the brightness of LED ring around the volume control changing proportionally to its setting.
I upgraded it before testing it. In the interest of digging my way our of mountain of gear here to test
, I focused my testing on balanced output unless said otherwise.D&A Alpha DAC Measurements
Our usual dashboard produced stunningly good results:
We are talking a fraction of a hair below best there has ever been:
Noise performance is stellar as it should be to get the above result:
Max output is higher so it is able to generate even better results if your amplifier can handle it:
Multitone shows off the incredibly low distortion products:
But we do have a hint of "ESS IMD Hump:"
You get that small step up in distortion around -40 dBFS.
Jitter output is clean as a whistle and nicely shows off the multiples of 250 Hz deep in the J-test signal:
The DAC doesn't expose filter setting which is fine by me as the default is what I expect:
Edit: forgot to show THD+N vs Freq:
D&A Alpha Headphone Amplifier Measurements
The Pro version had a superb DAC as well but fell short in headphone amplifier department. Not here:
That's huge amount of power into such a high impedance load. But it gets better:
We are talking 8+ watts into 32 ohm load! Not only can this amp push out voltage, it can back it with ton of current. It should not have trouble driving any headphone to ear bleeding levels.
Lacking an analog negative gain, it only produces average noise results using unbalanced out (balanced was worse):
EDIT: I see that the specs say low gain is negative so not sure why the results are not better.
D&A Alpha Headphone Listening Tests
Ok, I predicted the Alpha could play loud but didn't think it could get this loud... Using my Dan Clark Core headphone at or above 12:00 in high gain, not only did it threaten my hearing, but managed to threaten the headphone with risk of drive damage! I could hear the bass notes to go from clean to increasingly distorted while my inner ear started to tingle!!! Stuff I do for you all!
Set it at 11:00 and heavy bass demo material makes you feel like your head is inside an orchestra playing not only superbly dynamic, but incredibly clean. Detail hangs out in the air inside your skull like nobody's business. See, I can write flowery subjective sentences without use of AI!
Seriously, the Alpha takes away the worry about not having enough amplification for any headphone while producing stunning fidelity.
Conclusions
I am amazed that D&A when down half in price, took the word "Pro" out of the name and produced a state of the art DAC and headphone amplifier. On the latter, it is able to pump out incredible amount of power, removing any thought of the amplifier getting distorted. If you hear something unthwart, it is your headphone or source, not the Alpha! Your only worry will be hearing damage so I suggest you stay with medium gain unless you are sure you need the high gain.
Listening to the combination of Dan Clark Core and D&A Alpha once again reminds me how far we have come in pushing the state of the art in sound reproduction, albeit by using a headphone. Aha moments come back to back in the same track in the matter of seconds!!! And all this for $399 in a distinctive packaging.
Company deserves especially kudos for improving performance so much yet reducing the retail price significantly.
I am happy to recommend the D&A Alpha DAC and headphone amplifier.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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