This is a review, listening test and detailed measurements of the TANCHJIM Space portable DAC and balanced headphone adapter. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $90.
I like the transparent window so that you can see the insides. There is an LED that lights up there when you reach the maximum volume control using the toggle buttons on the side. Speaking of those, they are some of the nicest ones I have used with very nice feel and action. You have the option of using 3.5 and 4.5mm headphone plugs. A neat, dual cable USB-C cable is provided as you see in the picture.
TANCHJIM Space Measurements
As is typical for this class of devices, the software I use to communicate with them doesn't work well so I can't run all the tests. But let's start with the dashboard that I can run:
Are you seeing what I am seeing? A portable dongle producing distortion below -130 dB??? Incredible. Going balanced, the output doubles to 4 volts but it would clip so I measured it one notch lower:
In another measurement I saw, it hadn't clipped so SINAD was improved. I will have to follow up with the company and understand what is going on. Using what we have puts the Space in entirely different class than other dongles, easily matching many desktop DACs:
Noise performance is superb regardless of class!
As is multitone:
There is tiny bit of jitter but otherwise, the response is again desktop class than any dongle:
The compatibility issue I have with testing causes the noise floor of these sweeps to be about 15 dB higher than they really are. So let's use them for computing max power:
These are very healthy numbers for a dongle. In case you have different impedance headphone, here is the sweep for that:
As seen, it gets unhappy around 12 ohm but higher than that works well. Even with 12 ohm, as long as you use an IEM or sensitive headphone, you should be fine.
TANCHJIM Space Listening Test
There just enough power to drive my power hungry Dan Clark Stealth headphone. It could do better but the last two notches on the volume control caused audible distortion. Switching to Sennheiser HD650, the Space had much easier time driving it and produced superb fidelity as long as you stayed away from the last two notches. In that regard, I think the output level was a bit lower than competing dongles that produce clean 4 volts of output.
Conclusions
First a confession: when the company reached out to me a few months ago, I had not heard of them and thought this would be a very low performing device. So I responded that I don't think it would do well. They assured me that it would and showed me measurements that were just hard to believe. They sent me a sample which unfortunately got lost. What you see here is the second sample. As you see, performance is just stunning. Use of dual DACs and excellent engineering has translated into a top of the line desktop class DAC but in a container that is the size of an America quarter! Functionality is excellent with nice tactile volume controls. And the thing manages to look attractive to boot! Other than finding out why it won't produce 4 volts, it is the most perfect headphone adapter I have tested!
It is my pleasure to recommend the TANCHJIM Space dac and headphone amplifier. I will be using it as my everyday adapter for my phone from here on!
-----------
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 like the transparent window so that you can see the insides. There is an LED that lights up there when you reach the maximum volume control using the toggle buttons on the side. Speaking of those, they are some of the nicest ones I have used with very nice feel and action. You have the option of using 3.5 and 4.5mm headphone plugs. A neat, dual cable USB-C cable is provided as you see in the picture.
TANCHJIM Space Measurements
As is typical for this class of devices, the software I use to communicate with them doesn't work well so I can't run all the tests. But let's start with the dashboard that I can run:
Are you seeing what I am seeing? A portable dongle producing distortion below -130 dB??? Incredible. Going balanced, the output doubles to 4 volts but it would clip so I measured it one notch lower:
In another measurement I saw, it hadn't clipped so SINAD was improved. I will have to follow up with the company and understand what is going on. Using what we have puts the Space in entirely different class than other dongles, easily matching many desktop DACs:
Noise performance is superb regardless of class!
As is multitone:
There is tiny bit of jitter but otherwise, the response is again desktop class than any dongle:
The compatibility issue I have with testing causes the noise floor of these sweeps to be about 15 dB higher than they really are. So let's use them for computing max power:
These are very healthy numbers for a dongle. In case you have different impedance headphone, here is the sweep for that:
As seen, it gets unhappy around 12 ohm but higher than that works well. Even with 12 ohm, as long as you use an IEM or sensitive headphone, you should be fine.
TANCHJIM Space Listening Test
There just enough power to drive my power hungry Dan Clark Stealth headphone. It could do better but the last two notches on the volume control caused audible distortion. Switching to Sennheiser HD650, the Space had much easier time driving it and produced superb fidelity as long as you stayed away from the last two notches. In that regard, I think the output level was a bit lower than competing dongles that produce clean 4 volts of output.
Conclusions
First a confession: when the company reached out to me a few months ago, I had not heard of them and thought this would be a very low performing device. So I responded that I don't think it would do well. They assured me that it would and showed me measurements that were just hard to believe. They sent me a sample which unfortunately got lost. What you see here is the second sample. As you see, performance is just stunning. Use of dual DACs and excellent engineering has translated into a top of the line desktop class DAC but in a container that is the size of an America quarter! Functionality is excellent with nice tactile volume controls. And the thing manages to look attractive to boot! Other than finding out why it won't produce 4 volts, it is the most perfect headphone adapter I have tested!
It is my pleasure to recommend the TANCHJIM Space dac and headphone amplifier. I will be using it as my everyday adapter for my phone from here on!
-----------
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/
