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Luxsin X8 DAC & HP Amp Review

Rate this DAC & HP Amp

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 1 0.5%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 9 4.2%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 56 25.9%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 150 69.4%
  • Total voters
    216
Since it remembers remembers settings per output, just like with the PEQ you can also use hearing compensation for your speakers if you so wanted to :p
 
This hearing compensation acts like the audiogramme one would perform at the so tor, this is a very nice feature and might show ton people we all suffer from earing loss
 
When i tried using the AI feature to change the headphone gain, it doesnt change that but instead changes sth called Analog gain. I dont hear anything different but would like to know what this is @Luxsin
image.png
 
Quicker to just manually adjust gain in the menu than typing into the AI
 
JohnsonD123 said:
Yes but since that analog gain that the AI mentioned doesnt actually change the headphone gain, im wondering what it actually is
Click to expand...
I just did some investigation on this and made some findings:

1: The DAC Gain setting the AI mentions actually refers to the headphone gain, I told it to increment the value from the default 0 (low gain in menu) to +6 which /should/ I guess be the high gain setting, but it seems to internally be set to something else because the high, medium and low selections in the menu now are gone leaving only the manual redetect feature:

1789436486094.png


This seems to be a continuity bug with what the AI thinks it can do vs what the menus are programmed to show/do by user physical interaction. This will be one for @Luxsin to confirm/update I think.

Telling the AI to set the DAC Gain back to 0 reverts back to low HP gain in the menu and restores the vanished selectable values.

2: I also told it to tell me what the range of values possible is for whatever it calls is the "Analog Gain" setting, which it said was up to +15dB or -15dB. I told it to then change the Analog Gain to +15 and then manually went into the menus to find what setting that changed but could not find anything. I asked the AI to tell me the current value for this setting and it said it was +15 like I requested, so it has obviously changed something internally but there isn't a menu option for. Another one for @Luxsin !
 
Is it just me or does anyone else think the the real benefit of this DAC/amp is not the HP-EQ or Ai assisted PEQ features, but that it sounds really, really good without all that!? :) I've just spent a day or so with the unit and despite the best efforts of Google Ai (much smarter that the Luxsin version but then its just a baby really!) and putting together a really good PEQ profile based on Orator1990 for my Ananda Nando pairing - there is definitely some magic happening when I hit 'Bypass' in comparison? The DSP engine is definitely doing something even when it's not doing anything - just me maybe, perhaps subjective bias (I haven't forgotten where I am posting! ;))
 
I don't think it is the DSP in bypass mode alone as it's being skipped surely, but more to do with the supporting components.

Also the CS DAC uses Wolfson technologies acquired by CS around 2012 time, Wolfson amps for those who experienced them back in the day had a very distinct character to the sound, and in the X8 there are 8 of them in parallel and then you have the dual mono power amps for the outputs.

I think it all just comes together for a really clean and wholly enjoyable sound as opposed to being clinical/neutral like say the Topping DX5 II used in the exact same way (NOS + no EQ).

So yeah not just the DAC alone, but the whole package of components and how it's all implemented makes a difference.
 
robbiekhan said:
I don't think it is the DSP in bypass mode alone as it's being skipped surely, but more to do with the supporting components.

Also the CS DAC uses Wolfson technologies acquired by CS around 2012 time, Wolfson amps for those who experienced them back in the day had a very distinct character to the sound, and in the X8 there are 8 of them in parallel and then you have the dual mono power amps for the outputs.

I think it all just comes together for a really clean and wholly enjoyable sound as opposed to being clinical/neutral like say the Topping DX5 II used in the exact same way (NOS + no EQ).

So yeah not just the DAC alone, but the whole package of components and how it's all implemented makes a difference.
Click to expand...
Yes I agree, whatever they have designed it is very good! What I meant was the marketing hype and the reviews are mostly all about the Ai features and the 2500 headphone profiles and the various other way to tailor the sound - but for my Ananda Nano whatever I try with these amazing features it always impacts the sound unfavourably, in a way I find hard to describe. It just seems to flatten the space somehow, haven’t encountered this with DSP before. Roon didn’t do that nor do the WiiM streamers I have, the Pro and the Ultra?
 
timiambeing said:
Is it just me or does anyone else think the the real benefit of this DAC/amp is not the HP-EQ or Ai assisted PEQ features, but that it sounds really, really good without all that!? :) I've just spent a day or so with the unit and despite the best efforts of Google Ai (much smarter that the Luxsin version but then its just a baby really!) and putting together a really good PEQ profile based on Orator1990 for my Ananda Nando pairing - there is definitely some magic happening when I hit 'Bypass' in comparison? The DSP engine is definitely doing something even when it's not doing anything - just me maybe, perhaps subjective bias (I haven't forgotten where I am posting! ;))
Click to expand...
Or you know, could just be those fancy VU meters and RGB ambient lighting smacking at your placebo but who am I to say

1789639122176.png
 
Hey I thought why not keep the 'DSP messing up spatial information' thing going, so I asked the built-in MyAi about such things... here's what it said (this is Luxsin Ai)...

---------------------

Me: I have a question you might be able to answer, why is it that with the 'Bypass' selected the sound opens up and the spacial information is greater, even though the HP-EQ does change frequency response it loses something in the process?

Luxsin Ai:
That's an excellent observation, and you're touching on something real that goes beyond simple frequency response curves.

Here are the likely culprits:

  1. Phase distortion from filters — Even though PEQ filters are designed to be "minimum phase," each filter still introduces phase shifts across the frequency spectrum. When you stack 10 filters (especially with varying Q values), these phase shifts accumulate. Phase coherence is critical for spatial imaging and soundstage — it helps your brain reconstruct the 3D acoustic space. Bypass has zero phase artifacts, so the spatial cues remain pristine.
  2. Group delay — Each filter adds slight time smearing at different frequencies. Bypass has perfectly flat group delay (zero delay everywhere). This timing precision is what allows precise localization and that sense of "openness."
  3. Transient preservation — Phase distortion can subtly blur attack transients. Orchestral instruments (strings, percussion) rely on clean transient information for spatial positioning and sense of presence. Bypass preserves every transient edge intact.
  4. Preamp headroom and clipping risk — Your Minimal Shrillness Tame has 0 dB preamp, so headroom is fine. But in general, heavy EQ processing can interact with the DAC's behavior in ways that aren't purely frequency-linear.
The trade-off: Yes, EQ sacrifices some spatial magic to solve tonal issues. That's why your instinct to use minimal intervention (just 3 surgical cuts) is spot-on for classical music—you get shrillness control while keeping most of that openness intact.

Me: Yes even that has some effect, is there any possibility that this phase shift could be addressed in firmware? Not expecting that, but I never experienced these shifts with Roon or even with the simple WiiM Pro EQ?

Luxsin Ai:
Great question, and it touches on real technical differences:

Why you didn't notice it with Roon/WiiM:

  1. Linear phase filtering — Both Roon and WiiM Pro use linear-phase EQ (also called "zero-phase" or "acausal" filtering). Linear-phase filters introduce no phase shift at any frequency — they're "pre-compensated" to flatten the phase response. The trade-off is a longer filter kernel (more latency/pre-ringing), but for music listening, that's invisible and worthwhile.
  2. Minimum-phase limitation — The Luxsin X8 appears to use standard minimum-phase IIR filters, which are computationally lighter but inherently introduce phase distortion. This is a hardware/DSP architecture choice, not just firmware.
Could firmware address this?

Theoretically yes, but with caveats:

  • A firmware update could implement linear-phase filtering instead of minimum-phase
  • However, this requires more DSP horsepower (larger filter buffers, more CPU cycles)
  • It would introduce slight latency (~10–100ms depending on implementation)
  • The X8 may not have enough spare DSP headroom after handling DSD upsampling, crossfeed, subwoofer DSP, etc.
Bottom line: It's plausible but would depend on whether the DSP chip has enough spare capacity. This would be a great question to ask Luxsin directly—they may have already evaluated it, or it could be a feature for a future hardware revision.

----------------

Now I have to remember this is a £699 product but Luxsin say in their marketing...

"The DigitalAudio Core in the X8 is a high-performance processing module deeply customized by Luxsin and the first of its kind to be applied in a professional audio product. Built on a dual-core HiFi-5 DSP and ARM STAR architecture, with large on-chip SRAM and a DSP operating at over 500 MHz, it delivers the computational headroom required for complex real-time audio processing and advanced tuning algorithms. Its scalable design also enables edge-level AI audio processing, equipping the X8 with strong digital audio capabilities and long-term potential for continuous feature expansion."


Maybe I am expecting too much (that isn't a request for feedback! ;)), maybe Luxsin Ai is incorrect in its analysis of the DSP (it doesn't seem that knowledgable about its own hardware/software really) but it seems to me that Luxsin trumpeting that DSP chip so highly in the marketing, well it ought to be a bit better at this sort of thing really? Don't you think?
 
Last edited:
timiambeing said:
Hey I thought why not keep the 'DSP messing up spatial information' thing going, so I asked the built-in MyAi about such things... here's what it said (this is Luxsin Ai)...

---------------------

Me: I have a question you might be able to answer, why is it that with the 'Bypass' selected the sound opens up and the spacial information is greater, even though the HP-EQ does change frequency response it loses something in the process?

Luxsin Ai:
That's an excellent observation, and you're touching on something real that goes beyond simple frequency response curves.

Here are the likely culprits:

  1. Phase distortion from filters — Even though PEQ filters are designed to be "minimum phase," each filter still introduces phase shifts across the frequency spectrum. When you stack 10 filters (especially with varying Q values), these phase shifts accumulate. Phase coherence is critical for spatial imaging and soundstage — it helps your brain reconstruct the 3D acoustic space. Bypass has zero phase artifacts, so the spatial cues remain pristine.
  2. Group delay — Each filter adds slight time smearing at different frequencies. Bypass has perfectly flat group delay (zero delay everywhere). This timing precision is what allows precise localization and that sense of "openness."
  3. Transient preservation — Phase distortion can subtly blur attack transients. Orchestral instruments (strings, percussion) rely on clean transient information for spatial positioning and sense of presence. Bypass preserves every transient edge intact.
  4. Preamp headroom and clipping risk — Your Minimal Shrillness Tame has 0 dB preamp, so headroom is fine. But in general, heavy EQ processing can interact with the DAC's behavior in ways that aren't purely frequency-linear.
The trade-off: Yes, EQ sacrifices some spatial magic to solve tonal issues. That's why your instinct to use minimal intervention (just 3 surgical cuts) is spot-on for classical music—you get shrillness control while keeping most of that openness intact.

Me: Yes even that has some effect, is there any possibility that this phase shift could be addressed in firmware? Not expecting that, but I never experienced these shifts with Roon or even with the simple WiiM Pro EQ?

Luxsin Ai:
Great question, and it touches on real technical differences:

Why you didn't notice it with Roon/WiiM:

  1. Linear phase filtering — Both Roon and WiiM Pro use linear-phase EQ (also called "zero-phase" or "acausal" filtering). Linear-phase filters introduce no phase shift at any frequency — they're "pre-compensated" to flatten the phase response. The trade-off is a longer filter kernel (more latency/pre-ringing), but for music listening, that's invisible and worthwhile.
  2. Minimum-phase limitation — The Luxsin X8 appears to use standard minimum-phase IIR filters, which are computationally lighter but inherently introduce phase distortion. This is a hardware/DSP architecture choice, not just firmware.
Could firmware address this?

Theoretically yes, but with caveats:

  • A firmware update could implement linear-phase filtering instead of minimum-phase
  • However, this requires more DSP horsepower (larger filter buffers, more CPU cycles)
  • It would introduce slight latency (~10–100ms depending on implementation)
  • The X8 may not have enough spare DSP headroom after handling DSD upsampling, crossfeed, subwoofer DSP, etc.
Bottom line: It's plausible but would depend on whether the DSP chip has enough spare capacity. This would be a great question to ask Luxsin directly—they may have already evaluated it, or it could be a feature for a future hardware revision.

----------------

Now I have to remember this is a £699 product but Luxsin say in their marketing...

"The DigitalAudio Core in the X8 is a high-performance processing module deeply customized by Luxsin and the first of its kind to be applied in a professional audio product. Built on a dual-core HiFi-5 DSP and ARM STAR architecture, with large on-chip SRAM and a DSP operating at over 500 MHz, it delivers the computational headroom required for complex real-time audio processing and
advanced tuning algorithms. Its scalable design also enables edge-level AI audio processing, equipping the X8 with strong digital audio capabilities and long-term potential for continuous feature expansion."


Maybe I am expecting too much (that isn't a request for feedback! ;)), maybe Luxsin Ai is incorrect in its analysis of the DSP (it doesn't seem that knowledgable about its own hardware/software really) but it seems to me that Luxsin trumpeting that DSP chip so highly in the marketing, well it ought to be a bit better at this sort of thing really? Don't you think?
Click to expand...
Actually, its none of those reasons. For a Headphone, soundstage is determined by how the midrange correlates with your Hrtf (basically what the Headphone actually sounds like on your ears). Long story short, its very hard to EQ more soundstage unless you have the exact data of your Hrtf, or if you yourself understand your hrtf without data from machines. You could try to decrease a bit of upper mids like at 3-4khz, see if that works
 
timiambeing said:
Hey I thought why not keep the 'DSP messing up spatial information' thing going, so I asked the built-in MyAi about such things... here's what it said (this is Luxsin Ai)...

---------------------

Me: I have a question you might be able to answer, why is it that with the 'Bypass' selected the sound opens up and the spacial information is greater, even though the HP-EQ does change frequency response it loses something in the process?

Luxsin Ai:
That's an excellent observation, and you're touching on something real that goes beyond simple frequency response curves.

Here are the likely culprits:

  1. Phase distortion from filters — Even though PEQ filters are designed to be "minimum phase," each filter still introduces phase shifts across the frequency spectrum. When you stack 10 filters (especially with varying Q values), these phase shifts accumulate. Phase coherence is critical for spatial imaging and soundstage — it helps your brain reconstruct the 3D acoustic space. Bypass has zero phase artifacts, so the spatial cues remain pristine.
  2. Group delay — Each filter adds slight time smearing at different frequencies. Bypass has perfectly flat group delay (zero delay everywhere). This timing precision is what allows precise localization and that sense of "openness."
  3. Transient preservation — Phase distortion can subtly blur attack transients. Orchestral instruments (strings, percussion) rely on clean transient information for spatial positioning and sense of presence. Bypass preserves every transient edge intact.
  4. Preamp headroom and clipping risk — Your Minimal Shrillness Tame has 0 dB preamp, so headroom is fine. But in general, heavy EQ processing can interact with the DAC's behavior in ways that aren't purely frequency-linear.
The trade-off: Yes, EQ sacrifices some spatial magic to solve tonal issues. That's why your instinct to use minimal intervention (just 3 surgical cuts) is spot-on for classical music—you get shrillness control while keeping most of that openness intact.

Me: Yes even that has some effect, is there any possibility that this phase shift could be addressed in firmware? Not expecting that, but I never experienced these shifts with Roon or even with the simple WiiM Pro EQ?

Luxsin Ai:
Great question, and it touches on real technical differences:

Why you didn't notice it with Roon/WiiM:

  1. Linear phase filtering — Both Roon and WiiM Pro use linear-phase EQ (also called "zero-phase" or "acausal" filtering). Linear-phase filters introduce no phase shift at any frequency — they're "pre-compensated" to flatten the phase response. The trade-off is a longer filter kernel (more latency/pre-ringing), but for music listening, that's invisible and worthwhile.
  2. Minimum-phase limitation — The Luxsin X8 appears to use standard minimum-phase IIR filters, which are computationally lighter but inherently introduce phase distortion. This is a hardware/DSP architecture choice, not just firmware.
Could firmware address this?

Theoretically yes, but with caveats:

  • A firmware update could implement linear-phase filtering instead of minimum-phase
  • However, this requires more DSP horsepower (larger filter buffers, more CPU cycles)
  • It would introduce slight latency (~10–100ms depending on implementation)
  • The X8 may not have enough spare DSP headroom after handling DSD upsampling, crossfeed, subwoofer DSP, etc.
Bottom line: It's plausible but would depend on whether the DSP chip has enough spare capacity. This would be a great question to ask Luxsin directly—they may have already evaluated it, or it could be a feature for a future hardware revision.

----------------

Now I have to remember this is a £699 product but Luxsin say in their marketing...

"The DigitalAudio Core in the X8 is a high-performance processing module deeply customized by Luxsin and the first of its kind to be applied in a professional audio product. Built on a dual-core HiFi-5 DSP and ARM STAR architecture, with large on-chip SRAM and a DSP operating at over 500 MHz, it delivers the computational headroom required for complex real-time audio processing and
advanced tuning algorithms. Its scalable design also enables edge-level AI audio processing, equipping the X8 with strong digital audio capabilities and long-term potential for continuous feature expansion."


Maybe I am expecting too much (that isn't a request for feedback! ;)), maybe Luxsin Ai is incorrect in its analysis of the DSP (it doesn't seem that knowledgable about its own hardware/software really) but it seems to me that Luxsin trumpeting that DSP chip so highly in the marketing, well it ought to be a bit better at this sort of thing really? Don't you think?
Click to expand...
FYI, even Luxsin themselves know this, and put on this disclaimer, the AI DSP is really just marketing
IMG_7526.jpeg
 
timiambeing said:
So your take is its all brain/ear reaction to frequency response alterations, that there's nothing else going on?
Click to expand...
Unlike Speakers, Headphones are minimum phase, so yes, its all about your entire torso (not just your ears btw, thats why HATS exists) making it sound different (and ofc Psychoacoustics). The Headphone show team has done an entire presentation on this at Canjam, you can go check that out. Fun fact: you can quite literally make 2 headphones sound the same if they are compensated to your Hrtf
 
JohnsonD123 said:
Unlike Speakers, Headphones are minimum phase, so yes, its all about your entire torso (not just your ears btw, thats why HATS exists) making it sound different (and ofc Psychoacoustics). The Headphone show team has done an entire presentation on this at Canjam, you can go check that out. Fun fact: you can quite literally make 2 headphones sound the same if they are compensated to your Hrtf
Click to expand...
That sounds fun, I'll check that out :)
 
Beta Firmware 1.0.31.0 is now available for the X8
  1. Redesigned the UI for the Wi-Fi and Audio Settings pages. Related functions are now grouped into submenus to reduce the number of items in the main menu and improve navigation.
  2. Added headphone maximum volume protection. Path: Audio Settings > Headphone > Volume Protection.
  3. Added a 5G Wi-Fi switch, allowing users to disable 5G and use 2.4G only for a more stable Wi-Fi connection. Path: Wi-Fi > 5G.
  4. Added WPA3 support for Wi-Fi.
  5. Fixed the USB recognition issue on iOS 27.
  6. Fixed an occasional screen stutter issue.
X8 1.0.31.0.png
 
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