This is a review and detailed measurements of the FiiO KA11 portable stereo DAC and headphone amplifier (USB-C). It is on kind loan from a member and is on sale for US $33.
I didn't think there was room to make a stylized dongle but here is FiiO, doing exactly that. Attention was even given to the 3.5mm headphone jack with its white color and such.
Above you see it with my USB-A adapter which I used for testing but is not included with the unit (the plug is USB-C as mentioned).
Note that there is no volume control in the unit. And on Windows, for some reason, all of these devices start with very low volume even though Windows says "100%." You need to change the volume and yet again set it to 100 to get max volume.
FiiO KA11 Measurements
I must say, I was not prepared for such excellently low noise and distortion from this little device:
Distortion is vanishingly low and slightly above nominal voltage output puts the KA11 squarely in desktop class performance and well above many dongles:
Noise alone does the same thing:
As does jitter:
Ditto for multitone:
I was however disappointed with the slow filter:
It should attenuate by 24 kHz and not 26.
Fortunately frequency response is correct:
Again, IMD results are more than what I could ask for in such a tiny device:
Max power is also very respectable:
Conclusions
Who would have thought that we can get such incredible performance in such a small and low cost package? Beyond the small (bug) of DAC filter, the rest of the KA11 performance is amazing, leaving no room for any complaining. And the thing dares to be attractive to boot!
Happy to recommend the FiiO KA11 DAC and headphone amplifier.
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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/
I didn't think there was room to make a stylized dongle but here is FiiO, doing exactly that. Attention was even given to the 3.5mm headphone jack with its white color and such.
Above you see it with my USB-A adapter which I used for testing but is not included with the unit (the plug is USB-C as mentioned).
Note that there is no volume control in the unit. And on Windows, for some reason, all of these devices start with very low volume even though Windows says "100%." You need to change the volume and yet again set it to 100 to get max volume.
FiiO KA11 Measurements
I must say, I was not prepared for such excellently low noise and distortion from this little device:
Distortion is vanishingly low and slightly above nominal voltage output puts the KA11 squarely in desktop class performance and well above many dongles:
Noise alone does the same thing:
As does jitter:
Ditto for multitone:
I was however disappointed with the slow filter:
It should attenuate by 24 kHz and not 26.
Fortunately frequency response is correct:
Again, IMD results are more than what I could ask for in such a tiny device:
Max power is also very respectable:
Conclusions
Who would have thought that we can get such incredible performance in such a small and low cost package? Beyond the small (bug) of DAC filter, the rest of the KA11 performance is amazing, leaving no room for any complaining. And the thing dares to be attractive to boot!
Happy to recommend the FiiO KA11 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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