Dell CN-03GVVD USB-C Headphone Adapter Review

[amirm]

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Dell CN-03GVVD USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone adapter/dongle. It is on kind loan from a member and sells for $12.45 on Amazon for a pair.

As they say, you have seen one dongle, you have seen them all. There is no marking on the thing so best not throw it in a drawer with other dongles like it.

FYI Windows allowed me to adjust the volume in 1% increments. I don't recall other adapters doing this.

Dell CN-03GVVD Measurements:
Let's start with our dashboard:

We have good news and bad news. Good news is SINAD of 97 dB which is about average for all dongles regardless of cost:

Bad news is the 0.49 volt output. This will limit the power for high impedance headphones. I like to see minimum of 1 volt output.

Noise performance is very good for class:

So should be a decent match for IEMs.

There is random jitter but this is typical for the class:

Filter attenuation is good:

But I am not sure why it cuts off at 18 kHz:

Power is super important so let's see what we get at 300 ohm:

You could have easily predicted this level of power using the dashboard:

Performance is better at 32 ohm implying better current capability:

Output impedance is near zero which is good as told by the impedance sweeps:

Dell CN-03GVVD Listening Tests
I plugged in my everyday Tanchin One IEM. This is a 20 ohm IEM with slightly below average sensitivity. The Dell dongle comfortably drove it with excellent fidelity. I could crank it up pretty loud at 100 Max with no sign of distortion. Switching to Sennheiser HD-650 headphone as one could predict, lowered the performance significantly. At max volume, it was moderately loud with little bass impact -- usable but not recommended.

Conclusions
I usually don't consider price in my reviews but in this class, we must. At little over $6 shipped, this is good performance considering that it is from a brand name company. I would stick with IEMs though which I suspect is the target market. For headphones, you better seek out higher performance dongles.

I am going to recommend the Dell CN-03GVVD USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone adapter. For the price of a couple of packs of gum, you get to enjoy music out of your phone.

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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/

 

[Veri]

For $6 it's all right! I'd still go for the American apple usb-c dongle for better performance though:

 

[Multicore]

I understand selling loudspeakers in pairs but this ... How do you use a pair of these?

 

[yossarian]

One probably expects to lose one after some time if it is used with a phone. That is why having two is useful.

 

[TonyJZX]

the 'problem' here is that dell do not provide any specs on what this thing can do

and so with that people can assume it does redbook and 48khz

with the ja11 being released at the same price but with good support from fiio and everything up to 384khz and some dsd type ability then anything else is just an unknown unknown

 

[WalterW]

I guess there are far better and cheaper options, especially from chinese (no-name) manufacturers. Also it has low power and the reconstruction filter drops significantly above 18 kHz. Does not sound like a good product to me.

 

[TonyJZX]

the low power and the 18khz cut off is fine for its intended use though

if i was to get this device free bundled with a smartphone or a laptop i'd be ok with it

 

[AdrianusG]

I guess there are far better and cheaper options, especially from chinese (no-name) manufacturers. Also it has low power and the reconstruction filter drops significantly abobe 18 kHz. Does not sound like a good product to me.

Cheaper than $6, and at the same time better or equal?, are there really?

 

[TonyJZX]

$5 is a hard ask from the chinese UNLESS its on sale

the fiio ja11 is an obvious one but that's untested BUT even if it tests worse than this the feature set cant be beaten

 

[WalterW]

$5 is a hard ask from the chinese UNLESS its on sale

the fiio ja11 is an obvious one but that's untested BUT even if it tests worse than this the feature set cant be beaten

Exactly, either the Fiio JA11 which offers an app with PEQ or many other cheap dongles, which I haven´t seen measurements of, but have more power and appear to deliver more quality as well.

 

[LearningToSmile]

I have the EU spec apple dongle which is the same output voltage as I understand, and it's really not enough for some of IEMs I tried it with, so I'd like to see more power.

I understand selling loudspeakers in pairs but this ... How do you use a pair of these?

I do actually have a use case for multiple cheap DACs like this - it makes switching between different types of devices connected to my PC more convenient. I have speakers on one DAC(a full size DAC/headphone amp) and headphones on the second dongle DAC, and Peace/EQ APO set up to automatically switch EQ profiles when a different output device is selected in windows. It's one click versus switching output on the combo DAC/amp(which is a bit annoying on mine) and then switching EQ profile manually. I've been thinking of adding a second dongle DAC to have a third choice with no EQ to use with IEMs that usually don't need it so I've been paying attention to cheap dongle DACs as a lot of them seem to be coming out recently.

 

[AetherDrive]

Make of this what you will but I believe it's important to note that Dell has laid off almost 25k of its employees in the last year and some change.

It's a decent measuring dongle, certainly nothing groundbreaking and nothing offensive.

 

[nathan]

For $6 it's all right! I'd still go for the American apple usb-c dongle for better performance though:

The amp clips almost at the same point (29 vs 31 milliwatts), right? (But higher fidelity in terms of the DAC section, which would easily justify the $4 or $5 premium for the Apple dongle, imo.)

 

[SeriousSam70]

@amirm: Can I ask why is measured just one channel ?

 

[AdamG]

Manufacturer Specifications:

 

[amirm]

@amirm: Can I ask why is measured just one channel ?

At first I couldn't get one channel to work. I tried everything but it would only produce output in one channel. At that point, i was going to note that and say the device is broken that way. This was with Roon playing the test track. I then decided to run another test with AP driving it and it produced both channels. It was only then that I realized I may have played the one-channel version of test track in Roon. By then it was late at night and I decided to keep going with AP and not redo the dashboard.

 

[debunker]

At first I couldn't get one channel to work. I tried everything but it would only produce output in one channel. At that point, i was going to note that and say the device is broken that way. This was with Roon playing the test track. I then decided to run another test with AP driving it and it produced both channels. It was only then that I realized I may have played the one-channel version of test track in Roon. By then it was late at night and I decided to keep going with AP and not redo the dashboard.

You might want to redo the dashboard anyway. It shows .49V output, but the impedance sweep and the power output for both 300 Ohm and 32 Ohm all clearly show that it can do just shy of 1V. So something isn't matching up and I suspect your initial dashboard is wrong in more than just the one-channel issue.

 

[CedarX]

If this is the same adapter: https://qzxx.com/79408.html

…it would be the fairly common CX31993 chip.
SA1023z, HHW59, 750-BBDJ appear to be other Dell pn of the same (?) adapter.

CX31993’s brother, the balanced CX31988, was reviewed as part of the Yongse Y01: slightly better performances and (coincidentally?) exact same 3.2 / 29 mW measured power.

 

[beefkabob]

If this is the same adapter: https://qzxx.com/79408.html


…it would be the fairly common CX31993 chip.
SA1023z, HHW59, 750-BBDJ appear to be other Dell pn of the same (?) adapter.

CX31993’s brother, the balanced CX31988, was reviewed as part of the Yongse Y01: slightly better performances and (coincidentally?) exact same 3.2 / 29 mW measured power.

I don't remember any text on the USB-C port.

 

[CedarX]

I don't remember any text on the USB-C port.

Dell part numbers are a messy jungle… varying depending on the country of sale, bundle, packaging, color, marking, stickers…

It could be a different adapter…
Maybe that’s why you get a pair: so that you can cut one open to find out exactly what you get !!!