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Loxjie D40 Review (DAC & HP Amp)

Rate this product:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 4 1.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 4 1.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 42 17.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 184 78.6%

  • Total voters
    234

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Loxjie D40 stereo DAC with Bluetooth and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $430.
Loxjie D40 Review Headphone 600 ohm SNR USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.jpg


I like the design -- it reminds me of some European brands. Bright white LED display is highly responsive as is the rotary controller. I expect and am happy to see built-in power supply in this price class:

Loxjie D40 Review Headphone Back Panel USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.jpg


Loxjie D40 DAC Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard using USB input and XLR connection:

Loxjie D40 Measurements Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


This is stellar performance with distortion at -140 dB and noise floor that is almost falling off the bottom of the chart! No wonder then that the D40 ranks as the forth best DAC I have ever measured:

Best Bluetooth stereo DAC review.png


best high-end dac review 2022.png


RCA output performance is nearly as good:
Loxjie D40 Measurements RCA USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Dynamic range as we could predict is excellent:

Loxjie D40 Measurements Dynamic Range Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


IMD performance is excellent other than a small indication of "ESS DAC IMD Hump:"

Loxjie D40 Measurements IMD Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Linearity is textbook perfect:

Loxjie D40 Measurements Linearity Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Multitone results is superb:
Loxjie D40 Measurements Multitone Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png

Jitter performance over USB is excellent as well:

Loxjie D40 Measurements Balanced USB Jitter Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Toslink and Coax add some low frequency benign jitter:
Loxjie D40 Measurements Balanced Coax Toslink SPDIF Jitter Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Three filters are provided:
Loxjie D40 Measurements Filter RCA USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Attenuation is quite high which helps when we perform wideband THD+N measurements:

Loxjie D40 Measurements THD+N vs Frequency Balanced USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Loxjie D40 Headphone Measurements
Let's start with 50 mv and full output SNR:

Loxjie D40 Measurements Headphone 600 ohm SNR USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


The former is slightly below average:

best headphone amplifier review.png


Fortunately there is good amount of power with very low noise and distortion in general:
Loxjie D40 Measurements Headphone 300 ohm USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png

Loxjie D40 Measurements Headphone 32 ohm USB Stereo DAC Bluetooth.png


Notice lack of clipping. This means any distortion you hear is in the headphone or the content!

Loxjie D40 Listening Tests
I performed my testing with my Sennheiser HD650 and Drop Ether CX which are at different ends of the impedance spectrum. There was plenty of volume driving both with superbly clean sound. Driving my everyday Dan Clark Stealth headphone was also satisfying but due to its lower sensitivity, the D40 could not drive it to its maximum volume.

Conclusions
Playing at this level of performance is not easy: tons of attention needs to be paid to circuit design and layout to stomp any and all sources of noise and distortion. Other than leaving some ESS IMD distortion on the table, the D40 performs superbly in DAC department. The headphone output while not at the same level, still provides excellent performance and volume level.

I like the physical design which sets itself apart from the competition while being very performant to user input.

It is my pleasure to recommend the Loxjie D40 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/
 
Last edited:

_thelaughingman

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WHOA!!! Fourth best SINAD on the DAC list. Definitely a good product with the balanced offering and that price.
 

alekksander

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nice!
does anyone know why the multitone graph usually shows more distortion in lower frequencies?
 
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_thelaughingman

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Thanks Amir! Nice work Loxjie!

Great DAC for the price. The HPA is iceing on the cake.

I might need to come up with an excuse to get this.
I was literally thinking of the same idea to do away with the stack that i have on my desk.
 

Dzhaughn

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Not bad at all. But for just a bit more money, wouldn't you rather have a MiniDSP Flex and a $120 headphone amp (say, the Magni) that performs better?

With the Flex, you can listen LPs with properly EQd headphones with the full 20 bit dynamic range. And then add a tube amp EQ filter when you want to dream about your ancestral hi fi sound. Maybe you can make Joy Division sound like it was intended to: on a cassette player in a car.

Of course, the second paragraph is meant to be cute. But I honestly think the MiniDSP Flex is a game changer. It should completley change the workflow for how Amir tests speakers.
 

enricoclaudio

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Thanks for another great review, @amirm Thanks God I'm not in the market for another DAC as this could have been my choice right now.
 

Aperiodic

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So Amir, pros and cons, this unit vs the similarly priced (and just-reviewed) JDS Element III?
 

_thelaughingman

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So Amir, pros and cons, this unit vs the similarly priced (and just-reviewed) JDS Element III?
Balanced outputs on this vs SE on Element III and better SINAD on this because they’re using TOTL ESS chip. JDS lab focused on polishing the element vs pushing the SINAD war, plus the digital volume pot and OLED display on element for better product.
 

remlemasi

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So Amir, pros and cons, this unit vs the similarly priced (and just-reviewed) JDS Element III?
I’m in the same boat. While Element III is technically not SOTA DAC/SINAD wise, it shouldn’t matter right? Both are comfortably high enough that they should sound identical right? So it’s all about features, industrial design, after sales support, etc.
 

DrIacozKnows

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Thanks Amirm.
This is the best DAC in terms of cost benefit ratio.
In the headphone amp field the Topping A30PRO is still hard to beat.
 
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Aperiodic

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I’m in the same boat. While Element III is technically not SOTA DAC/SINAD wise, it shouldn’t matter right? Both are comfortably high enough that they should sound identical right? So it’s all about features, industrial design, after sales support, etc.
If the customer support provided here is anything like for SMSL (Nonexistent IME; I have the Sanskrit 10 vII and never got an answer to a simple technical query after 2 or 3 emails), then count me in the JDS camp. Responsive customer service is worth more to me than an overkill SINAD number.
 
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amirm

amirm

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