Loxjie D30 DAC and Headphone Amplifier Review

[laudio]

Received my D30 today after ordering on the early sale. Love it!

 

[holbob]

Does this one pop like the e30 and other topping / smsl at low price points (when used as pre-amp)? It's driving my wife up the wall when putting on YouTube videos for my 3 year old. Every bloody video it pops after the video ends and when the next one starts....

 

[mattzildjian]

Does this one pop like the e30 and other topping / smsl at low price points (when used as pre-amp)? It's driving my wife up the wall when putting on YouTube videos for my 3 year old. Every bloody video it pops after the video ends and when the next one starts....

Are you sure this isn't a windows setting or driver issue?
I had the same thing happen to me many years a go and it was fixed with a driver or some windows audio setting I cannot remember exactly.

 

[escape2]

Is there a reason why this D30 review hasn't been added to the Master table of reviews yet?

The table says: Latest review date: 2020-11-08 which I'm assuming means November 8th.

 

[Zek]

2020-11-08 which I'm assuming means November 8th.

Maybe - August 11th...

 

[escape2]

Maybe - August 11th...

But all other dates in that table use YYYY-MM-DD format.

 

[ninetylol]

Shouldn't be long for this level performance under $200.

Its already under 200

 

[RickSanchez]

Is there a reason why this D30 review hasn't been added to the Master table of reviews yet?

The table says: Latest review date: 2020-11-08 which I'm assuming means November 8th.

Correct: date formats are YYYY-MM-DD.

We are still working through a backlog of measurements that need to be added to the database; looks like the D30 is in that backlog. More information will be coming soon on the status of the review index table.

 

[escape2]

Thanks, Rick!

 

[peterwen]

https://hifi-express.com/products/loxjie-d30-ak4493-hi-res-dac-amp
Today it have the 11.11 promotion discount, will be end in 24 house.

 

[Borée]

Hi everyone, it's my first message here. I was looking for a DAC last month, discovered this forum and was pleased by this review. So I bought a Loxjie D30 from hifi-express and got it yesterday after three weeks.

Sound is really enjoying even with Bluetooth. I may be dumb, but I can't go beyond 44100 Hz. I'm using foobar2000 or Jriver Media Center 25 and I feed them with 48000, 96000 and DSD64 files: each time the DAC stuck at 44100 on the OLED display (confirmed by the XMOS USB DAC Driver Control Panel, coming from loxjie website). I have no known resampling feature enabled somewhere.
Does someone have an idea? Did I miss something?

 

[ninetylol]

Hi everyone, it's my first message here. I was looking for a DAC last month, discovered this forum and was pleased by this review. So I bought a Loxjie D30 from hifi-express and got it yesterday after three weeks.

Sound is really enjoying even with Bluetooth. I may be dumb, but I can't go beyond 44100 Hz. I'm using foobar2000 or Jriver Media Center 25 and I feed them with 48000, 96000 and DSD64 files: each time the DAC stuck at 44100 on the OLED display (confirmed by the XMOS USB DAC Driver Control Panel, coming from loxjie website). I have no known resampling feature enabled somewhere.
Does someone have an idea? Did I miss something?

You need to turn on wasapi output in your Player (sometimes called exclusive mode) or set Windows Audio settings to your desired sample rate. Although upsampling is useless and will hurt your audio quality.

 

[Borée]

I can confirm that I'm dumb: sampling rate was fixed at 44100 in Windows basic control panel. I searched during 24 hours, and got the idea the minute I posted the message… I wonder how my brain works… Sorry

 

[Borée]

You need to turn in wasapi output or Set Windows Audio settings to your desired sample rate. Although upsampling is useless and will hurt your audio quality.

You answered in the meantime: yes it was that sample !
Thank you a lot !

 

[Propheticus]

I've been reading/lurking quite a bit on these forums, but just created an account. As often is the case with reviews as well, people keep quiet until there is something to complain about. I think (or hope) I would have also created an account to give praise, but regrettably my first post is about an issue.
After the positive review of the Loxjie D30 and concluding I did want to try an external DAC/AMP with my Fidelio X2, I decided to jump on the 11.11 discount and bought one. My PCs onboard sound (Realtek ALC1150) performs well, but I still wondered whether I would hear improvements in 'fullness' or less distortion on peaks.

Now I don't know whether it's a characteristic or a faulty unit, but after turning the D30 on I was immediately disappointed. From the get go I can hear a clear distortion. This distortion:
- Does not sound like a pure tone/sine, but rather like something pulse modulated at an audible frequency.
- Does occur without any input connected, only power and the headphone cables are attached.
- Does not vary with volume setting, it stays at a constant level regardless.
- Seems to reduce somewhat when touching the unit.
- Also sounds softer when connected to an outlet without ground pins.

Further observation: I'm using powerline net adapters (Devolo magic 2 next). The distortion sound softer when plugging in the D30 in a socket further away from a powerline adapter.

My conclusion: It seems to be bad at filtering mains noise. My PC's sound is (audibly) silent, at the same time the DAC/AMP produces loud and clear noise (this is no soft background hiss by any means).
My question: Other than getting rid of the powerline adapters, can I do something to get rid of this audible distortion? / Do you think it might be a faulty unit and is an RMA worth a try?

 

[peanuts]

im not surprised. seems like most of these cheap chinese units are built like junk, there have been multiple topping amp fails around here too

 

[Toku]

I've been reading/lurking quite a bit on these forums, but just created an account. As often is the case with reviews as well, people keep quiet until there is something to complain about. I think (or hope) I would have also created an account to give praise, but regrettably my first post is about an issue.
After the positive review of the Loxjie D30 and concluding I did want to try an external DAC/AMP with my Fidelio X2, I decided to jump on the 11.11 discount and bought one. My PCs onboard sound (Realtek ALC1150) performs well, but I still wondered whether I would hear improvements in 'fullness' or less distortion on peaks.

Now I don't know whether it's a characteristic or a faulty unit, but after turning the D30 on I was immediately disappointed. From the get go I can hear a clear distortion. This distortion:
- Does not sound like a pure tone/sine, but rather like something pulse modulated at an audible frequency.
- Does occur without any input connected, only power and the headphone cables are attached.
- Does not vary with volume setting, it stays at a constant level regardless.
- Seems to reduce somewhat when touching the unit.
- Also sounds softer when connected to an outlet without ground pins.

Further observation: I'm using powerline net adapters (Devolo magic 2 next). The distortion sound softer when plugging in the D30 in a socket further away from a powerline adapter.

My conclusion: It seems to be bad at filtering mains noise. My PC's sound is (audibly) silent, at the same time the DAC/AMP produces loud and clear noise (this is no soft background hiss by any means).
My question: Other than getting rid of the powerline adapters, can I do something to get rid of this audible distortion? / Do you think it might be a faulty unit and is an RMA worth a try?

First, you need to find the source of the noise. Does the D30 noise disappear when I remove the Power line net adapters?

 

[Propheticus]

First, you need to find the source of the noise. Does the D30 noise disappear when I remove the Power line net adapters?

Was planning on testing that. Can't during the day, since internet is a first world necessity while working from home
Still, if that's the case, the D30 is unusable for me if it can't reject/filter mains noise regardless of its source. Neither my AVR, nor my PC have any issues doing this.

Edit: Lunch break allowed me to test with the adapter in my 'office'. This confirmed the powerline adapter is the source of the noise the D30 picks up.

Now the question: does it simply have a poor netfilter by design or is this a defective unit? Doubting between returning or replacement...

 

[somebodyelse]

You could try using a filtered mains extension for the D30 - if you're lucky it'll stop the noise without breaking your powerline networking. There's another thread on powerline network interference that may help - it's not just a problem for the D30.

 

[GDK]

I've been reading/lurking quite a bit on these forums, but just created an account. As often is the case with reviews as well, people keep quiet until there is something to complain about. I think (or hope) I would have also created an account to give praise, but regrettably my first post is about an issue.
After the positive review of the Loxjie D30 and concluding I did want to try an external DAC/AMP with my Fidelio X2, I decided to jump on the 11.11 discount and bought one. My PCs onboard sound (Realtek ALC1150) performs well, but I still wondered whether I would hear improvements in 'fullness' or less distortion on peaks.

Now I don't know whether it's a characteristic or a faulty unit, but after turning the D30 on I was immediately disappointed. From the get go I can hear a clear distortion. This distortion:
- Does not sound like a pure tone/sine, but rather like something pulse modulated at an audible frequency.
- Does occur without any input connected, only power and the headphone cables are attached.
- Does not vary with volume setting, it stays at a constant level regardless.
- Seems to reduce somewhat when touching the unit.
- Also sounds softer when connected to an outlet without ground pins.

Further observation: I'm using powerline net adapters (Devolo magic 2 next). The distortion sound softer when plugging in the D30 in a socket further away from a powerline adapter.

My conclusion: It seems to be bad at filtering mains noise. My PC's sound is (audibly) silent, at the same time the DAC/AMP produces loud and clear noise (this is no soft background hiss by any means).
My question: Other than getting rid of the powerline adapters, can I do something to get rid of this audible distortion? / Do you think it might be a faulty unit and is an RMA worth a try?

This sounds to me like a ground loop. It’s common and has nothing to do with the unit. There are lots of threads here that deal with it.

EDIT: This is clearly incorrect and should be ignored.