This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Fulla E DAC, Headphone Amplifier and microphone input. A member kindly drop shipped one to me and costs US $109.
I think the packaging and color are absolutely adorable! And I really like the feel of a volume control on top. Connectivity is rather rich despite the tiny package:
You have Toslink in addition to USB-C input. No power supply is provided but you need one to use Toslink by itself (or use your computer's USB connection). A microphone input is provided to go with the gaming angle:
During the testing I ran into a problem with the clock sync would get lost at times. I could not figure out what was going on. I contacted Schiit and they sent me another one with the same problem. You can see its manifestation here:
Source tone was 1 kHz so we should see a flat line but instead, there was this pattern to clock jumping lower at very precise times. I managed to figure out that whatever sample rate the unit is powered on in, works fine. But if you change it, you get this instability. So if you started with 44.1 kHz and only played that sample rate, all was well. But if you switched to 48 kHz, which some of my tests use, you get the above instability. Power cycling the unit would get it working at 48 kHz but now, switching to 44.1 kHz would cause the problem. I reported this to Schiit and they have confirmed it is a firmware bug. They have a unit with updated fix coming to me to confirm. Company says they have not had any customer complaints about this which is believable as likely people just play 44.1 kHz content.
As an aside, I like Schiit's sense of humor as evidenced in the name the product exposes to USB class:
Schiit Fulla E Measurements
Let's start with our dashboard:
This is decent enough performance for the class, clearing 16 bit hurdle. But as regular readers know, competition is stiff in this price range with many higher performance products (but with different features/pricing):
Here is the performance at other output levels:
Maximum of 2 volts is going to hurt power rating at high impedance later.
Noise performance is good at 2 volts out and above average at 50 millivolts:
Linearity is very good:
Jitter is not:
Fortunately not likely to be an audible concern.
IMD is again decent for class:
The standard default DAC reconstruction filter is provided:
Which again results in decent wideband distortion+noise test:
You buy this device to use with headphones so let's see power at 300 ohm:
As I predicted, we don't get much of it before the output clips. We are talking dongle class performance here, not desktop. Fortunately current delivery is good resulting in good bit of power at 32 ohms:
I have not had a chance to listen to it. When I do, I will update the review.
Conclusions
Schiit nails the look and functionality of this little box. It is so good that I think they should consider making a higher performance, slightly larger one. As is, general performance is good sans the low output voltage which limits usage of high impedance headphones to efficient ones. The sample rate bug is unfortunate and keeps me from recommending it.
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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/
I think the packaging and color are absolutely adorable! And I really like the feel of a volume control on top. Connectivity is rather rich despite the tiny package:
You have Toslink in addition to USB-C input. No power supply is provided but you need one to use Toslink by itself (or use your computer's USB connection). A microphone input is provided to go with the gaming angle:
During the testing I ran into a problem with the clock sync would get lost at times. I could not figure out what was going on. I contacted Schiit and they sent me another one with the same problem. You can see its manifestation here:
Source tone was 1 kHz so we should see a flat line but instead, there was this pattern to clock jumping lower at very precise times. I managed to figure out that whatever sample rate the unit is powered on in, works fine. But if you change it, you get this instability. So if you started with 44.1 kHz and only played that sample rate, all was well. But if you switched to 48 kHz, which some of my tests use, you get the above instability. Power cycling the unit would get it working at 48 kHz but now, switching to 44.1 kHz would cause the problem. I reported this to Schiit and they have confirmed it is a firmware bug. They have a unit with updated fix coming to me to confirm. Company says they have not had any customer complaints about this which is believable as likely people just play 44.1 kHz content.
As an aside, I like Schiit's sense of humor as evidenced in the name the product exposes to USB class:
Schiit Fulla E Measurements
Let's start with our dashboard:
This is decent enough performance for the class, clearing 16 bit hurdle. But as regular readers know, competition is stiff in this price range with many higher performance products (but with different features/pricing):
Here is the performance at other output levels:
Maximum of 2 volts is going to hurt power rating at high impedance later.
Noise performance is good at 2 volts out and above average at 50 millivolts:
Linearity is very good:
Jitter is not:
Fortunately not likely to be an audible concern.
IMD is again decent for class:
The standard default DAC reconstruction filter is provided:
Which again results in decent wideband distortion+noise test:
You buy this device to use with headphones so let's see power at 300 ohm:
As I predicted, we don't get much of it before the output clips. We are talking dongle class performance here, not desktop. Fortunately current delivery is good resulting in good bit of power at 32 ohms:
I have not had a chance to listen to it. When I do, I will update the review.
Conclusions
Schiit nails the look and functionality of this little box. It is so good that I think they should consider making a higher performance, slightly larger one. As is, general performance is good sans the low output voltage which limits usage of high impedance headphones to efficient ones. The sample rate bug is unfortunate and keeps me from recommending it.
-----------
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/