Loxjie D40 Pro DAC & HP Amp Review

[Mark K]

This is basically a Topping D90SE + Topping A90 with almost identical circuit (8ch 1612s for summing. 4 6120s in composite topology for hp out), at less than 1/3 of the price. amazing. it would be even better if it has negative gain.

How could I possibly missed this...With my order of an A90 on its way...

 

[Mkilbride]

Meanwhile in another thread, Topping is accusing these guys of thievery.

 

[Mark K]

I thought all theses products were designed and manufactured by the same Shenzhen Audio Company

 

[staticV3]

I thought all theses products were designed and manufactured by the same Shenzhen Audio Company

Shenzhen Audio is a retailer. They don't design their own products.
SMSL, Topping, Gustard, Loxjie etc are entirely separate entities.

 

[shrimp_dude]

Shenzhen Audio is a retailer. They don't design their own products.
SMSL, Topping, Gustard, Loxjie etc are entirely separate entities.

Isn't Loxjie a budget sister brand of SMSL?

 

[staticV3]

Isn't Loxjie a budget sister brand of SMSL?

Hmm, all I could find regarding that is this snippet from a head-fi review:

Link

Nothing official though, and no obvious connection on their respective websites on the About and Contact pages

 

[GGroch]

Loxjie is a trademark of Shenzhen shuangmusanlin electronics Co.,Ltd..
Sabaj is a trademark of Shenzhen shuangmusanlin electronics Co., Ltd.

SMSL stands for ShuangMuSanLin technology Co., Perhaps a trademark specialist can say exactly what this means, whether it means the factories/designs are identical, or only that SMSL owns the right to sell the brands. They are certainly closely related.

This topic was previously discussed in the much maligned Loxjie D20 thread. Mandy indicated the factories were different.

D20 Note: Loxjie released a new firmware for the D20 in 2020 that supposedly fixes a USB interreference issue and would significantly improve measurements. The firmware requires entirely new drivers so one assumes it fixes something significant.

 

[Mark K]

Shenzhen Audio is a retailer. They don't design their own products.
SMSL, Topping, Gustard, Loxjie etc are entirely separate entities.

My first batch of modern audio gadgets came from a factory resale store selling both SMSL and Loxjie products.

 

[Mark K]

wow, what do they have there under the hood, APx analyzer

i still use my loxjie D30 amp, and its still working fine..

It was D30 drove me for a more capable headphone amp

 

[peterwen]

https://hifi-express.com/products/professional-version-pre-sale-loxjie-d40-pro
If you need professional recording studio equipment, you can also look at this

 

[Mark K]

Using an amp for IEMs is kind of pointless.

Then I was too late to find out one of my IEM died soon after I plugged it into M500

 

[Mark K]

This dac/hp amp sounds like a great value for money and I would love to upgrade my D30 to it. But I will not.
It might sound stupid but the same thing happened to me with Topping before. Those companies (and not just them) keeps changing the form factor with every new release. Today I have the D30 stack on top of an A30 at my work desktop setup, being controlled with the same remote.
The D40 Pro will not match the A30 visually and I don't know about the remote control compatability.
Even if I would wish to upgrade the whole stack (which I dont), to my best knowledge Loxjie doesn't offer a matching A40 Pro. I find it hard to understand their strategy in this regard.

I gave my A30 to a friend and kept D30. Using as a headphone amp it is not powerful enough to drive my modest HE400, K712 pro and even old HD50 sounds dry

 

[Lupin]

I gave my A30 to a friend and kept D30. Using as a headphone amp it is not powerful enough to drive my modest HE400

HE-400
"What makes HE-400 special is: it is 92.5DB efficient so it can be driven by virtually anything including an iPod."

But the A30 is not powerful enough...

 

[Brody]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Loxjie D40 Pro balanced stereo DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company. It normally costs US $430 but is on sale for $388.
View attachment 292875
The enclosure is metal but the silver look makes you think it is made out of plastic. The 7 segment display is workable but certainly not as fancy as a graphic display. It is however aided with hard buttons for common functions. The included remote makes it easy to navigate:
View attachment 292876
Overall, an attempt is made to save cost but not in a way that is too obtrusive. Let's see if performance is subject to same or not.

Loxjie D40 Pro Measurements
I must say, I was not prepared to see state of the art performance out of the D40 Pro:

View attachment 292877

It nicely lands in the middle of top 20 best DACs tested as far as combination of noise and distortion:
View attachment 292880

RCA performance as usual a bit lower but still way past transparency:
View attachment 292882

For above, I set the volume to 0 dB. It goes to +2 which gives you even more output and performance:
View attachment 292883

Noise performance is excellent of course:
View attachment 292884

Multitone distortion is superb:
View attachment 292885

As is IMD:
View attachment 292886

Linearity is perfect:
View attachment 292887
Jitter is perfect over USB and essentially the same over coax:
View attachment 292888

We have our typical set of filters:
View attachment 292889
View attachment 292890

Using the default filter, we get excellent wideband noise and distortion:
View attachment 292891

So really, nothing to fault the DAC section on.

Loxjie D40 Pro Balanced Headphone Out Measurements
In the interest of time, I focused on balanced output. Unbalance would product 1/4 of power. Speaking of which, this is one powerful headphone output for this class of device:
View attachment 292892
View attachment 292893

Even in low gain mode we have plenty of power meaning you can enjoy the benefits of it never clipping and ultra low distortion. There is no negative gain which is usually required to get state of the art noise performance at just 50 mv output:
View attachment 292895

Still, performance is above average.

You can see the output stage power capability as we switch the output impedance form high of 600 ohm down to just 12 ohm:
View attachment 292896

I expect the headphone output to drive just about every headphone out there in balanced mode.

Conclusions
We have seen price creep in state of the art DACs in the last two years. Loxjie attempts to reverse the trend by producing same state of the art performance but at more affordable price point, especially with their sale. You pay no price for the DAC performance. Headphone amplifier in this class of device is usually competent but short in power to drive the most difficult headphones. Not so with D40 Pro. It produces a lot of power courtesy of its balanced output. There is really nothing to complain about and a lot to praise!

I am happy to recommend the Loxjie D40 Pro.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Very interesting to notice that 8$ switching mode internal units are used to feed the beast instead of big thoroidal transformers that "make the sound" as they say. Your review added to a subjective one i just watched on you youtube explaining how good were listening impressions make me think again about xxxxxx$ heavy and hot units that some people work so hard (or not..) to afford these... Can we finally say that switching mode power supply is superior to a large toroidal transformer for powering a high-end digital audio converter due to its higher efficiency, compact size, inherent noise reduction and greater versatility in operating within a wide input voltage range?

 

[Snoopy]

Meanwhile in another thread, Topping is accusing these guys of thievery.

Lol imagine that.

 

[TonyJZX]

no honor among thieves... (I kid!)

i think everyone knows which thread it is

my takeaway from that is that Topping is doing weird stuff on their builds that seeks to obfuscate copying but it reduces reliabilty and provides no user benefit... like Denuvo

ie. no SANE person would copy our crazy designs!

as this pertains to loxjie... this is an SMSL brand right? and so I've heard of various Loxjie reliability issues and to me, nothing Loxjie does is that special that requires you to stick to this brand... they havent seemed to have released a product that is all that class competitive

and so i welcome a day i can buy a loxjie but its aint gonna be soon

 

[Stregnil]

I was on my way to order the Hifiman EF400 to use with my Hifiman Arya Stealth when I came across this thread. Could this be a good alternative to the EF400?

 

[staticV3]

I was on my way to order the Hifiman EF400 to use with my Hifiman Arya Stealth when I came across this thread. Could this be a good alternative to the EF400?

Compared to the EF400, almost all AIOs are good alternatives.
Sabaj, SMSL, Topping, RME, FiiO, Loxjie all make good AIOs (that perform way better than the EF400).

 

[sadheart]

The readings on this are making it a very tempting purchase. I just recently upgraded my Plex / Roon PC to include a graphics card, and now actually use it as a work / game station. So I’ve been looking at getting an amp / DAC. Used to have a Valhalla and Modi years ago running some DT990 Pros, which I loved. About to buy the HD600s since those have been on my list forever. Was looking at a SMSL 6 stack, or possibly a DX3Pro+ to get my started since I do most of my listening on my living room set up. But man, that D40 Pro has me thinking.

 

[robladw]

You talked me into it. I just ordered one to replace a Marantz HD DAC-1 with a CS4398 decent but aging DAC. I have some places to put the Marantz or sell it to someone from work. I cannot wait to get the new DAC and see how it does with this Yamaha A-S1200 and Polk R200 and the subs.