I ordered one of the (V1) #9038S models shortly after this review was posted, because I was in the market for a dongle-form DAC/amp and the timing was perfect. I've been using it with a pair of Shure SE846 IEMs and an OTG cable to an Android phone (running HibyMusic most of the time, which recognizes the #9038S and happily drives it directly); I'm one of the lucky folks who can drive it directly off the phone without a battery, because Android and OTG is still a tire fire. Anyway, so far it's been great in that role, aside from getting a tad warm; the SE846s are
really good at highlighting the noise floor of your gear (8 ohms impedance!), but otherwise they're simple to drive.
I bought a 4-pin XLR adapter shortly after I got it (since that's how most of my headphones are terminated), and it finally arrived in the mail today, and so of course I dropped everything I was doing and started plugging in headphones, because "weeeee new toy!"
None of my cans had a problem with power output, including the planars. I kept swapping between this and my desktop rig to make sure my brain wasn't playing tricks on me.
I have pretty high expectations for large-footprint desktop and home theater gear, but this is just a tiny sliver of a thing that hangs off of a headphone cable, for under $100. When I started shopping for a dongle, I was mostly hoping for something close to the performance of my old portable DAC/amp (Topping NX4DSD), but without having to carry around an "audio brick". I certainly wasn't expecting to be able to drive full-size cans with any reasonable fidelity. It seems ridiculous that I'm sitting here listening to my HE-560s tethered by what is essentially a single cable to my phone and enjoying the hell out of it.
I'm blown away. Good job,
@IVX.