FiiO has released the USBDAC JA11, with an initial price of only $9 (69RMB) and support for PEQ DSD128 PCM384

[pers]

The annoying “clicking” sound on the TinHifi firmware when using a PC made me switch back to the FiiO firmware.
I remember this happening on the stock JCALLY firmware as well and I felt the worst was on the TinHifi firmware as it was loud and frequent.

I am not sure if I have heard the annoying “clicking” sound on the FiiO firmware before.
I have finished listening to two albums with the FiiO firmware and there was no annoying “clicking” sound during playback using PC + DeadBeef Music Player.
Update:
Occurs also on FiiO firmware but very rarely.

 

[HissingFree]

Look, when hissing is even worse than the crappy headphone jack of my laptop, which has only like 0.5 Vrms at lower impedances, then I'm not going to be happy. I would expect better from these dacs.

 

[multiformous]

Hello, I'm sorry if i bother you with my newbie question.

So based on what you said, if that sample rate is not available after flashing that FW, if i play 44.1/16 files (the majority of my files coming from CD), won't they play?. On PC I use foobar, with output set to "[exclusive]".

If I select exclusive mode in foobar for the JM12 with TinHiFi firmware and play 44.1kHz content, I get an "unsupported stream format" playback error. It will work if I enable a resampler in foobar, however. If I don't use exclusive mode, I assume Windows handles the resampling and 44.1kHz content plays normally.

 

[jkim]

The annoying “clicking” sound on the TinHifi firmware when using a PC made me switch back to the FiiO firmware.
I remember this happening on the stock JCALLY firmware as well and I felt the worst was on the TinHifi firmware as it was loud and frequent.

I am not sure if I have heard the annoying “clicking” sound on the FiiO firmware before.
I have finished listening to two albums with the FiiO firmware and there was no annoying “clicking” sound during playback using PC + DeadBeef Music Player.
Update:
Occurs also on FiiO firmware but very rarely.

Exactly what environment and settings are you on when using this dongle? You mean playing audio on Linux? What player did you use and what sample rate did you choose?

Based on tests reported so far, if you hear this clicking sound using the TinHifi FW, I believe there are two possibilities:

• Occasionally occurring distortion shown in unsteady FFTs. If this is the reason, this phenomenon is completely random. Any firmware can be perceived more problematic than the other depending on your limited testing time window (we cannot observe the frequency of distortion over infinite time).
• Resampling by the OS may cause this clicking. Although I doubt this possibility, it should be ruled out by testing the OS's resampling quality.

 

[jkim]

Look, when hissing is even worse than the crappy headphone jack of my laptop, which has only like 0.5 Vrms at lower impedances, then I'm not going to be happy. I would expect better from these dacs.

This concerns with exactly one of the main points made in my reply to your earlier post. Our expectation seems to be too high for a dongle costing < $10. Sure, if you want to take only the lower noise contrived by DRE and consider it your top priority, use it. It's your personal choice. It's like taking the lesser evil when one has to, which is up to each individual.

 

[HissingFree]

This concerns with exactly one of the main points made in my reply to your earlier post. Our expectation seems to be too high for a dongle costing < $10. Sure, if you want to take only the lower noise contrived by DRE and consider it your top priority, use it. It's your personal choice. It's like taking the lesser evil when one has to, which is up to each individual.

Expecting less noise floor or at most equal than mediocre laptop headphone jack is expecting too much?

Btw, now that I think about it, noise floor is very similar to CX31993 + MAX97220:
udiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/meizu-mblu-lifeme-pro-portable-dac-amp-review.46550

105 dynamic range at 1.46Vrms I think ends up similar compared to 102 dynamic range at 1Vrms if we want to derive noise floor. Does what I am saying make any sense or it doesn't work that way? because I hear similar hissing between Tinhified JM12 and Jcally JM6 Pro.

As I understand it, what I am looking for is low noise floor, but reviews don't measure that, one has to look at 50mv performance but that is also not always present. Looking at this general data, it seems I am looking at around 110 db of dynamic range with 1 Vrms output if I don't want hissing. But then some dacs for some reason perform much worse at lower input signal, like 1more dac tested here had 114 db dynamic range with 1 Vrms output but only 59 db with 50mv output.

 

[markanini]

Expecting less noise floor or at most equal than mediocre laptop headphone jack is expecting too much?

The noise level of mediocre onboard audio should be at least 10dB higher than that of the dongle, roughly twice as loud. Possibly even higher, as the output impedance (OI) is typically around 75Ohm, which significantly impacts efficiency.

If you're hearing noticeably louder noise, it suggests an issue beyond the dongle, likely interference from RF/EMI causing the "hissing" sound. CS43131 dongles are known to be less affected by RF/EMI, so they might be a better option for your setup.

 

[pers]

Exactly what environment and settings are you on when using this dongle? You mean playing audio on Linux? What player did you use and what sample rate did you choose?

Based on tests reported so far, if you hear this clicking sound using the TinHifi FW, I believe there are two possibilities:

• Occasionally occurring distortion shown in unsteady FFTs. If this is the reason, this phenomenon is completely random. Any firmware can be perceived more problematic than the other depending on your limited testing time window (we cannot observe the frequency of distortion over infinite time).
• Resampling by the OS may cause this clicking. Although I doubt this possibility, it should be ruled out by testing the OS's resampling quality.

I'm such an idiot.
I forgot that I had previously changed the output device setting to the default ALSA output which is PipeWire on DeadBeef Music Player and forgot to set it back to exclusively use JM12 as the output device.

It should have been this way:

But instead it was like this:

When I restored the settings to use JM12 as the output device the “click” sound problem became very rare.
I listened to several albums in a marathon and only heard the “click” sound twice.
By the way I am using Fedora 41 (Xfce) + DeadBeef Music Player.

 

[HissingFree]

The noise level of mediocre onboard audio should be at least 10dB higher than that of the dongle, roughly twice as loud. Possibly even higher, as the output impedance (OI) is typically around 75Ohm, which significantly impacts efficiency.

If you're hearing noticeably louder noise, it suggests an issue beyond the dongle, likely interference from RF/EMI causing the "hissing" sound. CS43131 dongles are known to be less affected by RF/EMI, so they might be a better option for your setup.

I doubt it's about interference because I get the exact same hissing with both JM12 and JM6 Pro when connected to either Laptop or to my Smartphone.
I used FiiO KA11 and that was perfect, but it died in like a month, I know CS43131 would be fantastic but I hoped for a decent 1 Vrms minimum <10$ DAC/Amp.

 

[markanini]

I doubt it's about interference because I get the exact same hissing with both JM12 and JM6 Pro when connected to either Laptop or to my Smartphone.
I used FiiO KA11 and that was perfect, but it died in like a month, I know CS43131 would be fantastic but I hoped for a decent 1 Vrms minimum <10$ DAC/Amp.

You mentioned hearing a "hissing/static" sound during silent audio playback. Any noise in such a test isn’t from the active dongle circuitry, as auto-muting activates when the output is silent. This suggests the issue might be insufficient RF/EMI resilience. While the difference may not matter to you, it could explain why you hear noise while others don’t. General feedback indicates that the CS43131 offers better RF/EMI resilience and has shown reliable performance for you. Unfortunately, there’s no standardized method for testing RF/EMI resilience. Hope this helps.

 

[jkim]

Expecting less noise floor or at most equal than mediocre laptop headphone jack is expecting too much?

Unfortunately it seems that the current market offerings tell the situation is like that. Decent noise performance with at least 1 Vrms output AND no peculiar distortion behavior is difficult to get at < $10. To the best of my knowledge, such dongles do not exist.

105 dynamic range at 1.46Vrms I think ends up similar compared to 102 dynamic range at 1Vrms if we want to derive noise floor. Does what I am saying make any sense or it doesn't work that way? because I hear similar hissing between Tinhified JM12 and Jcally JM6 Pro.

As I understand it, what I am looking for is low noise floor, but reviews don't measure that, one has to look at 50mv performance but that is also not always present. Looking at this general data, it seems I am looking at around 110 db of dynamic range with 1 Vrms output if I don't want hissing.

Your thought process is correct. Right, because dynamic range measurements depend on a device's max output, we need to see its noise level at 50 mVrms for accurate comparison. A 110 dB DR referenced to 1 Vrms, or equivalently a 116 dB DR at 2 Vrms, is very decent noise performance. You won't find such performance among dongles < $10 that do NOT rely on DRE.

But then some dacs for some reason perform much worse at lower input signal, like 1more dac tested here had 114 db dynamic range with 1 Vrms output but only 59 db with 50mv output.

For some dongles tested by Amir in the past, noise measurements were not correct due to an issue he had concerning the ASIO driver. Generally, don't refer to noise measurements of dongles he tested before the JCally JM20.

 

[HissingFree]

Unfortunately it seems that the current market offerings tell the situation is like that. Decent noise performance with at least 1 Vrms output AND no peculiar distortion behavior is difficult to get at < $10. To the best of my knowledge, such dongles do not exist.


Your thought process is correct. Right, because dynamic range measurements depend on a device's max output, we need to see its noise level at 50 mVrms for accurate comparison. A 110 dB DR referenced to 1 Vrms, or equivalently a 116 dB DR at 2 Vrms, is very decent noise performance. You won't find such performance among dongles < $10 that do NOT rely on DRE.


For some dongles tested by Amir in the past, noise measurements were not correct due to an issue he had concerning the ASIO driver. Generally, don't refer to noise measurements of dongles he tested before the JCally JM20.

Ok, but then, did someone here test more accurately either 50mv performance or dynamic range of CX31993 dongles without MAX97220? maybe the version without the opamp is sufficient? or does it also have other issues such as DRE or crackling? another a bit more expensive I've seen is ES9318, could be good.

 

[HissingFree]

You mentioned hearing a "hissing/static" sound during silent audio playback. Any noise in such a test isn’t from the active dongle circuitry, as auto-muting activates when the output is silent. This suggests the issue might be insufficient RF/EMI resilience. While the difference may not matter to you, it could explain why you hear noise while others don’t. General feedback indicates that the CS43131 offers better RF/EMI resilience and has shown reliable performance for you. Unfortunately, there’s no standardized method for testing RF/EMI resilience. Hope this helps.

But then it wouldn't be solved by changing firmware, or do you think a different firmware offers better RF/EMI resilience?

 

[markanini]

But then it wouldn't be solved by changing firmware, or do you think a different firmware offers better RF/EMI resilience?

It's possible. Different FW may handle power draw and internal voltage rail regulation differently, power lines are RF/EMI interference entry points.

 

[jkim]

Ok, but then, did someone here test more accurately either 50mv performance or dynamic range of CX31993 dongles without MAX97220? maybe the version without the opamp is sufficient? or does it also have other issues such as DRE or crackling? another a bit more expensive I've seen is ES9318, could be good.

Who knows? But I have no interest in testing another cheap 1V dongle unless it has PEQ. An ESS-chip-based (AKM-based) device is always likely to be a better choice.

 

[multiformous]

Who knows? But I have no interest in testing another cheap 1V dongle unless it has PEQ. An ESS-chip-based (AKM-based) device is always likely to be a better choice.

Not sure what chip is in this one, but there's a new budget dongle from Fiio called JIEZI that has 10-band PEQ.

 

[HissingFree]

Not sure what chip is in this one, but there's a new budget dongle from Fiio called JIEZI that has 10-band PEQ.

It announces 5.3 uV of noise (aliexpress listing shows some power and noise data), I'm not impressed, it's just not good enough. But the PEQ for the price is impressive for sure.

 

[o0o]

However, all in all I wouldn't recommend this device to anyone looking for a cheap PEQ-enabled 1V headphone dongle. Even at less than $10. Why? Because there's an alternative! It is the Hi-Max CB1200AU.

CB1200AU is indeed capable and solid addition to KT02H20 / CX31993 / ALC5686 / CS46L41 crowd and at even lower price + 8-band HW EQ. It's vey tiny bit noisy though and rolled-off at 48kHz which puts its support of sample rates beyond 96kHz into question. But it does accept 192kHz and 384kHz nevertheless. Also the amp is not particularity powerful, especially with planar IEMs. And the durability of the currently available Hi-Max dongle is uncertain to say the least.

And then comes listening time, and the amount of hissing Tinhifi produces is just way too much for me with Salnotes Zero. With JA11 firmware I don't get hissing but I get the crackling. But guess what, crackling is only heard in select situations, hissing is there all the time.

The annoying “clicking” sound on the TinHifi firmware when using a PC made me switch back to the FiiO firmware.

Pls keep in mind JM11 FW has inverted polarity on JM12 which audibly affects the low frequencies in headphones and iems. (test files, online test) (corrected link)

If I select exclusive mode in foobar for the JM12 with TinHiFi firmware and play 44.1kHz content, I get an "unsupported stream format" playback error. It will work if I enable a resampler in foobar, however. If I don't use exclusive mode, I assume Windows handles the resampling and 44.1kHz content plays normally.

You must add resampler in DSP manager and set it to 48, 96, 192 or 384kHz. Than it will play without errors using WASAPI exclusive. SSRC is a great built-in option. SoX is a solid choice as well. I advice to add Amplify before resampler and set it to -0.5dB or lower to avoid any potential distortion.

As for the FWs:
- choose JA11 FW if you need support for ASIO & HW EQ w/app, also accepts DSD128. Crackling noise at very low volume is a downside, so is inverted polarity.
- choose TinHIFI if you don't want crackling noise and inverted polarity. Downsides: no ASIO, HW EQ via windows tool, no support of 44.1 (and multiples of), hence no DSD either.

 

[pers]

Pls keep in mind JM11 FW has inverted polarity on JM12 which audibly affects the low frequencies in headphones and iems. (test files, online test)

The screenshot above indicates that I am using the TinHifi firmware.
My PC recognizes the device as USB-C Audio.
If using the FiiO firmware, my PC recognizes the device as JadeAudio JA11.
If using the JCALLY firmware, my PC recognizes the device as KTO2H20.

***

Guys, I am still experiencing the random “clicking” sound issue.
But I recently realized the “clicking” sound issue is likely not caused by the DAC but due to the “driver flex” on my iem (Tangzu Wan'er S.G OG).
I will confirm it with my other iems/headphones.

***

Update:
3 IEMs and 1 headphone are all experiencing random “clicking” issues.
Meanwhile, the output without the dongle is clean.
I guess I'll just have to accept it.

 

[jkim]

Pls keep in mind JM11 FW has inverted polarity on JM12 which audibly affects the low frequencies in headphones and iems. (test files, online test)

You are mistaking two different things. The test files you attached to the other post differ in absolute polarity and I do NOT hear any difference between the two. And the online test clips at Audiocheck have stereo tracks one of which is inverted for testing relative polarity inversion. And the reason why the 'rumble' clip is often used for 'crackling' tests has nothing to do with the effect of polarity inversion. The reason why the JA11 firmware produces 'crackling' is because of DRE, NOT because of its absolutely inverted polarity.

As a DIY speaker builder a long time ago, I did quite extensive tests by inverting both speakers' polarity (exactly the same difference as in the two test files you attach). There is NO audible difference b/w normal and inverted connections when both channels are treated the same way.