AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
I couldn't care less about the VU meters but this seems really good.This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Luxsin X8 balanced DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $699.
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Lots of effort has gone into making that angular front panel as to tilt up the beautiful display upward. This makes it a lot easier to see and use as it is a very responsive touchscreen. As you see, it has room for proper visualization of two VU meters and such. Interestingly, the unit has Wifi enabling it to be controlled over the web (and the app?). But it is not a streamer.
Back panel shows connections we expect:
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I wish the industry would move away from IIS interface to HDMI ARC. It costs more but it is a far, far more useful input than IIS.
The unit has substantial weight which keeps it from being yanked by the cabling.
Luxsin X8 Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard using XLR output and USB input:
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Performance is excellent and just shy of state of the art:
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RCA performance is naturally a bit lower:
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From here on, I am going to focus on XLR output, starting with dynamic range:
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IMD response is excellent:
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Linearity is a hair, literally a hair off at the lowest levels:
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There are options for filters; I used the standard sharp short delay one:
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There are some correlated jitter components:
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Fortunately levels are well below audibility.
For Multitone, I ran it at two levels:
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There has been discussion and many measurements form members on distortion in Cirrus Logic based DACs. The X8 uses 8 CS43198 DACs in dual mono/parallel configuration. It was suggested that lowering the level in multitone test shows this problem. As you see above, there is no impact. A dual tone test was said to cause the same. Again, I did not see the issue:
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Note that I have not confirmed these tests on DACs that have this problem. But as far as I can see, there is no problem, likely due to wildly different circuit design and implementation of multiple DACs in parallel.
THD+N wideband test showed unusually high levels of impairment:
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As I suspected, this is due to noise shaping which pushes audible noise into ultrasonics:
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If I lower the measurement bandwidth as to exclude that, performance becomes superb:
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Luxsin X8 Heapdhone Amplifier Measurements
I again focused on XLR balanced headphone out. For the others, just divide the power by four.
The X8 has incredibly powerful headphone amp:
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My standard here is > 100 milliwatts; the X8 delivers 10 times that at 1 watt!
Switching to 32 ohm, the doors are blown:
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If you have ultra sensitive speakers, you could use this as a power amp!
There is that oddity of high noise below 2 milliwatts and some noise a bit after. So probably not a good fit for very sensitive IEMs which is also indicated in 50mv measurements:
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Luxsin X8 Headphone Listening Tests
I configured the X8 in low gain and used the XLR HP out to drive my Dan Clark AEON Core headphone which I recently reviewed. I always start with bass heavy music tracks as that is where you can better hear power limiting. I clicked on the first track and jumped out of my seat! It was incredibly dynamic and loud. I had forgotten that the X8 delivers over 2.5 watts even in low gain!!!
As to challenge myself, I switched to high gain and went through the rest of my tracks while having a heavy hand on the volume control.Oh boy. The incredibly dynamics and fidelity was beyond words. We are talking about gobs of power and ability to listen to quiet parts very loud (for testing). On the latter, I could easily hear background noise in the recording that I had not heard before. Really, a stunning combination.
Conclusions
There is no question that Luxsin has built a premium DAC and HP amp in X8 in every regard. From superbly responsive and easy to use display to powerful headphone amplifier that can drive any headphone with ease, perfection is attempted. Performance is just a slight hair off from bleeding edge by a mere dB or two. In exchange, the X8 aces many other areas to the delight of this reviewer who has tested hundreds of such devices.
I am happy to recommend the Luxsin X8.
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Just something I wonder about, but this has horizontal cooling fins on the sides. I expect the difference to be small, but wouldn't they allow better airflow if they were vertical?
