World's Cheapest DAC Review

[restorer-john]

Concerning our DAC - any clue what's inside?

I'll pull the ones I have here apart and take some pics.

 

[amirm]

Typo says 96 db instead of 69 in text. Just after dominating our Sinad.

Thanks. Fixed.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It involved a female tenant flushing something down the toilet that I had to remove by hand, you can use your imagination for the rest (no gloves were used, mistake).

If that is the worst you've got, then I'll definitely keep my stories to myself.

 

[audiopile]

AMIR -it could be worse . Before she bought this house -the septic system was tested and spectaculrly flunked - no part of it was still functional. Seller had to install and pay for two lovely buried 2500 gallon cement tanks. And (aren't we lucky!!!) -about every 35 days a Peterbuilt truck with a pump and a 5000 gallon stainless steel tank mounted onto it backs in on our blacktop driveway and carries off 5000 gallons of our best work -about 125 bucks a visit. Oh -and DUH-just realized that load plus truck weight is destroying the blacktop driveway . I have lived in a succesion of 75 tp 120 year homes - when This Old House repirs plumbing I laugh-NEVER have I had a plumbing repair go even close to as smoothly as they show and I'll concede Richard T. is skilled and I'm plumbing phobic -experience has been a brutal teacher in my case. I feel your pain Amir.

 

[restorer-john]

This is the A/D version in the same casework. I can't seem to find the D/A- think I gave it my father for optical TV to HiFi sound a while back.

unmarked

 

[xykreinov]

View attachment 86979
/

Wow, all the makers of the measured DACs scoring worse than this little metal sound-box should be embarrassed, to say the least.
This thing is worth less than a Big Mac, yet, it scores better than things that cost as much as an excellent wagyu steak

 

[amirm]

Wow, all the makers of the measured DACs scoring worse than this little metal sound-box should be embarrassed, to say the least.
This thing is worth less than a Big Mac, yet, it scores better than things that cost as much as an excellent wagyu steak

Yeh, that was my thought too as I was looking at at the rankings.

 

[martijn86]

Here's an idea. What if any DAC that gets into the the 120's get a physical ASR award and anyone scoring worst than the cheapest DAC in the world get an engraved Plunger so they can get their sh*t together.

 

[pavuol]

Wow, all the makers of the measured DACs scoring worse than this little metal sound-box should be embarrassed, to say the least.
This thing is worth less than a Big Mac, yet, it scores better than things that cost as much as an excellent wagyu steak

Also, leaving alone "dedicated" audio solutions, the results of the Dell XPS 8930 are still scandalous, after so many years of massive progress on every level of HW, such a neglect and ignorance having this audio output in a powerful desktop system from renowned manufacturer

 

[pavuol]

Looking at the "sh!tty portion" of the review/comments, I think to attract more readers to this valuable forum we should better add some sexual content , how about this (my morning listen):

Spoiler: only for mature gentlemen with refined music taste

as featured in a playlist "1001 songs you must hear before you die (2017 edition)"

 

[Blumlein 88]

....and anyone scoring worst than the cheapest DAC in the world get an engraved Plunger so they can get their sh*t together.

I might prefer a broken as designed award. Image of broken electronics being swept into a dust bin.

 

[Chromatischism]

As long as you keep the trenches where the absorbtion pipes are, reasonably free of invasive trees/roots and stop grass from growing inside the grey water tanks, they are awesome. We've replaced the grey water (submersible float activated) pump once at this house and once at the other house and they were 20 years old.

My son was going to set off some matchead rockets on top of the septic tank (as it is thick cement) and I told him about people being killed or injured by gas explosions from septic tanks blowing the cement lid off...

WTH did the other guy end up? Damn.

 

[xykreinov]

Also, leaving alone "dedicated" audio solutions, the results of the Dell XPS 8930 are still scandalous, after so many years of massive progress on every level of HW, such a neglect and ignorance having this audio output in a powerful desktop system from renowned manufacturer

Yeah. I mean, I expect very little from integrated audio, but the 8930 is exceptionally lousy. I can understanding cheaping out as much as possible, but there's definitely gotta be some sort of engineering mistake contributing to the 8930's score. As this review examples, even the cheapest of the cheap aren't that bad, in this decade.

 

[Ordonana]

At $2 performance is irrelevant.

Performance is never irrelevant. Performance as a paperweight? Even At 2$ it still needs to function, otherwise 2$ is expensive. Probably why it gets a recommend.

 

[dougi]

Our local electronics hobby chain in Oz sells these for $55! Performance relevant at that price. https://www.jaycar.com.au/digital-to-analogue-audio-converter/p/AC1715

 

[archerious]

This is a review and detailed measurements of what has to be the world's cheapest DAC. It is so cheap it doesn't even have a name! It is literally called "Digital To Analog Audio Converter." Actually, it is also available under many other names on various sites (Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, etc.). Pricing from China is as low as $2! I found one for $3 with $2 shipping to US for a total of $5. The sample I have was kindly purchased by a member and sent to me for $6 I think.

Here is what it looks like:
View attachment 86975

It comes in a surprising sturdy metal box and actually manages to look nice. It needs 5 volt input and comes with a USB to barrel connector for that purpose:
View attachment 86976

Toslink and Coax input are provided:

View attachment 86977

Alas, there is no USB input. The USB connection if for power only. The positive side is that there is no driver to worry about and it works with anything that spits out Coax or S/PDIF such as your TV.

DAC Audio Measurements
Let's start with our dashboard feeding it over Toslink:

View attachment 86978

Sad to see such low output of just 0.8 volt. Usually a DAC has 2 volts out or worst case, 1 volt. Distortion is also quite high, dominating our SINAD to tune of 69 dB:
View attachment 86979

Noise floor is actually decent for such a device:

View attachment 86980

There is jitter:

View attachment 86981

Conclusions
The standard for under $10 DAC is a cheesy plastic thing, albeit with USB input usually. Here, you get a solid metal box that should last more than a few months of being banged around. If you have optical output of your TV and want to feed an active speaker and such with analog audio, this thing could do the job while costing less than a fast food meal.

Objectively this generic DAC is pretty lousy but for tertiary use, it will be fine. So I am going to recommend it just to reward whoever has managed to squeeze so much value out of this thing!

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Still living in spetic tank hell. The guy who was supposed to come yesterday to pump it never showed up. Called the company and they said they didn't even have an appointment for anyone to come and do it and next time they could, would be Saturday. Needless to say, I blew my top and after shouting at three people, they sent a guy late last night to pump it. He finishes pumping it but the main drain is clogged. I knew this was the case and had told them to have a plumber ready to come and unclog it. Of course they didn't have anyone to come and do that either. I was told someone would call me today.

Well, no one called me. So I went to DIY store and bought an electric Auger to unclog it myself. Got it partially clear but not enough. Right then they call me and send a plumber. Guy shows up and puts one of those DIY bladders in the pipe and has me turn on the water. Not only does it not work but blows its attachment to the hose and now the stupid thing is stuck in the sewage pipe! Trying to get it out, he manages to push it further into the pipe! 3 hours later and he still can't get it out.

So now they are coming tomorrow to tear the pipes out to get the stupid thing out! So another night with no facilities.

Not sure any amount of donations is going to cheer me up but it doesn't hurt to try using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Aye I love how this $5 at most DAC beats out Audio-gd NFB 28.28 and wow isn't the worst DAC at all.

 

[kombajn]

As far as super cheap DAC goes I once used this one as temporary main audio source from my PC:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32589666753.html
I bough it out of curiosity, but found it to be actually very usable. It was paired with TEAC A-X35 mkII amplifier that I use as mainly as headphone amp at the time. I have also check it with pair of KZ ZST IEMs ( 1DD+ 1BA. Impedance: 10ohm, Sensitivity: 106dB/mW) plugged directly to this tiny DAC, and didn't notice any background hiss with 100% volume on my PC when nothing was playing. As for power it was good enough for IEM but nothing more demanding. Build quality was very good.

 

[noiseangel]

It rates higher then the PS Audio? And it costs how much?

OMG how shameful. I'm going to have a dozen beers and see if I can't stop this uncontrollable laughter by dulling my senses with liver and neuron poison. .

If only PS Audio spent $10 million less on their new building they may have been able to quell that extra 30db of noise that would have put it slightly in front on this little box.

 

[LTig]

This is the A/D version in the same casework.

View attachment 87007

This one surely feeds the coax output.

 

[DSJR]

This little dac (for a fiver) has been available in several versions over the years and I bought mine for a giggle initially in 2012 - looks identical externally to the one reviewed (my pics of the internals are very poor). It seems slightly sensitive to (sighted subjective) power supplies and I made up a linear adjustable 5VDC one with a Chinese sourced 'eBay' adjustable DC voltage regulator and 30VA 'potted' toroid from RS components which runs absolutely silently which I thought/imagined sounded slightly 'better' than the wall wart I bought to start with.

This'll make people laugh who know me from elsewhere and I have to eat humble pie here. A niche-UK manufacturer's 'Subjectivist' forum I used to frequent raved about this little box as being a giant killer (subjectively speaking of course) and I played my part too in its promotion. Some amps with too high a gain structure preferred the lower output of my generation of this dac and with a bought-in Chinese adjustable linear supply costing forty quid or so, a total of fifty quid was seen as a bargain. I used mine and very much liked the sounds coming out and in all honestly, any slight added 'smudge' or 'dirt' was very well suppressed. I'd never dream of comparing with the 'best' dacs of the day though.

Just goes to show how actually poor our ears really can be (ok, mine!) as something as mediocre as this can actually 'sound' half decent in a lower end system. I can't remember now, but I don't think the Chromecast Audio is very much better than this and that also doesn't sound bad at all to me?

Anyway, thanks for reviewing this Amir. May I suggest it acts as a kind of baseline for subjective dac performance as I honestly don't think it sounds 'that' bad in the real world.