Are you sure about the exact temperature (50 degree C) ? Did you measure it or it's just a guess?
I ask you this because it also initially seemed to me that my unit was heating up a bit too much during operation and that it remained quite warm even in standby, but later I calmed down after other forum members measured their units with infrared remote thermometers (and also measured the unit's consumption in watts) both during operation and in standby, and the values measured by them were quite reasonable.
In addition, I read on the RME ADI-2 DAC FS dedicated forum that it also heats up during operation quite a lot (up to 58.1 degrees Celsius), but that it is considered normal. I will quote (in part) the answer given to a worried user by one of the administrators of the forum (and representative of RME Audio): "The unit has a 10 layer PCB that spreads the heat totally even over the PCB. That means that all components have the same temperature, instead of some staying cool and others getting really hot.
The temperatures reached are no problem for any silicon. They could only be a problem for the electrolytic capacitors, drying them out more quickly. Of course we were aware of that. The special low ESR types used throughout also have higher temperature specs, a lot higher than the typical temperature of the PCB". Of course, the answer is valid in the particular case of RME ADI-2 DAC FS, but it can be extrapolated somewhat to other similar devices.
More important,
JohnYang1997 on this forum (
Technical Expert and
Topping Manufacturer Representative) assured me that there is no problem and that the EX5 has overheating protections included, so nothing bad can happen (at least in the short term).
The problem with electrolytic capacitors that could dry out earlier due to the high temperatures in the EX5 enclosure, that's another story. Anyway, you just don't want to keep your EX5 forever, do you ?
Anyway, it seems to me that this (relatively) high temperature during operation phenomenon is a common "problem" for combo devices DAC + HP Amp, compared to devices that are only DACs, with no headphone amplifiers included.