quick sort of impressions of this after a week or so
i just dropped this into my usual setup where i can change speakers and dacs at will and the best thing i can say about the D3 is that is offers a pretty seamless experience over my other devices... it just works to a higher level of performance than i expected
i'm using mainly my JBL Arena 130s which is a pretty easy drive at 86dB... with the standard 36v 5a psu there's plenty of clear volume
my other test speakers are the Edifier P17 which at at abysmal 77dB is a much harder ask... i tested a big set of Mission floorstanders which are 89db I think and they will fill the room (and the next room too)
BT is great for Qualcomm phones with AptX... for iphones AAC is also good... had no issues with opt. or coax.
USB input...
well it goes 32/384... whatever it sends to the ESS 9023 is another story but it does work as well as you'd expect from a modern dac
there's a CS 8000 series sample rate converter in the mix
on my example i do notice the 3.5mm analog input has a slightly higher noise floor than the digital section... which I was able to get around by increasing the gain on the dac rather than the device itself... this unit is primarily a digital device and so i can excuse the 3.5 being not as dead quiet as the digital section
i hear the subwoofer out is a fixed 80hz... this worked fine with my tester 8" 100w sub with it on flat
BUT since you have no control over your main speakers you would have to pair it with a small set that cuts at 80hz... which the only set i have that does that is the P17s... with the other speakers i have i feel the bass bleed from the main was a bit... much
do i like this device? yeah I do... it surprised me with how competant it is at everything it purports to do
i do not complain that it does not do MQA or DSD because it never said it did and in reality for most as long as it does better than 24/192 then that's good enough and the ALC 4050 does more than that.
operationally i left the unit with the base blue color on the LED display but with brightness down low... the unit does not have display shut off
the remote looks like a generic unit but there's no mention of the remote at all in the manual but its easy enough to work out
the unit is 100% controllable with the display OR the remote which is nice
the unit is a 'one button device'... ie. the vol. ctrl. presses in lightly to change function but a HARD long press for on/off
also the unit never gets hot but admittedly its the start of winter here but i usually never turn anything off
