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xDuoo TA-30 Tube Headphone Amplifier + DAC
$599
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xDuoo TA-30 Tube Headphone Amplifier + DAC
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$599
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4.6
(36 reviews)
5star(26)
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keyboard_arrow_downnjnn
6
Keyboard Club Member
Nov 2, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Good amp with one flaw.
Very stylish, nice sounding, powerful amp, but the volume knob only works for the headphone out and not the aux out on the back, so you will need a different device to control volume.
Recommends this product? No
GuillaumeLefebvre
3
Oct 13, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Pricey, needs tuning, but worth it
Solid build, decent quality out of the box. Powerful enough to drive almost anything. For a better quality, I suggest investing in better vaccuum tubes.
Recommends this product? Yes
Wsub
7
Mar 30, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Cool Amp/DAC
No complaints about this Amp. I currently use it as my primary PC amp and it hasn’t given me any issues.
Recommends this product? Yes
Bearnana
29
Mar 28, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
High Quality
This is my second xDuoo, as well as my second DAC / AMP. There is definitely a big difference with this compared to it's older brother the TA-20. With the built in filters you can choose and the overall gain to a lot of sounds that were shadowed with the older version. The TA-30 does run hot so I do recommend having ample space from other components and decent air flow area. My preferred default filter is brickwall and it is honestly a blast.
Recommends this product? Yes
zeroack
6
Mar 27, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Surprised me
First I'm not a pro audiophile. I just know what sounds good to me and I'm always skeptical. That being said, I didn't expect much for an all in one tube at this price. Well it's a gem with my Focal Clear MGs. My Sennheisers, Beyerdynamics and Hifmans ran well, but I seem to enjoy my Clear MGs on this unit. I'd say my second favorite on this TA-30 was the LCD-x. The volume on most my headphones is 9 o'clock max. My Hifiman HE6se V2s pushed it to 11 o'clock max. My other Hifimans were a tad less on the volume position.
Bluetooth tested with - Iphone 13 pro max and Google Pixel 6 pro using Tidal, Amazon HD and local Synology. Worked well and did not drop connection if I didn't push the BT range.
Computer tested - Macbook pros M1, M2 and Intel.
Build - It's a mini tank and the design with tube guard rails is done nicely. Tube insertion was tight.
Heat Note - It gets hot, but not as bad as I expected from other reviews. I'd still follow the directions on the placement distance.
Cons - Volume control is very short range and the BT volume works odd. The Z review mentions the BT volume at a certain level acts unusual and I have duplicated his assessment. Using the volume know on the TA-30 is the only option from my testing.
Note - This was my first Drop purchase and paid for faster shipping. They did great and will get my future purchases.
Recommends this product? Yes
SloKid
6
Keyboard Club Member
Mar 11, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Amazing little Tube Amp / Dac
I love this thing! Just got it in a few days ago and have been playing around with it with my HD800S, Arya Stealth, etc and all sound amazing on it!
Recommends this product? Yes
WonderLoaf
4
Feb 8, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Amazing, but the gain is high.
Phenomenal headphone amp and dac! Take note that the gain is set really high. This is an extremely powerful amp. Pairs perfectly with my HD6XX's.
Recommends this product? Yes
Helmus
2
Jan 3, 2023
checkVerified Buyer
Loving it!
So far this thing has been absolutely fantastic. The first one I got with a bad tube, but the replacement has been perfect. No complaints at all. I will say it does give off some good heat so be aware of that!
Recommends this product? Yes
wahyzcrak
26
Dec 20, 2022
checkVerified Buyer
Great Sounding DAC/AMP with Easy Setup
Disclaimer:
I am just a guy who likes listening music and these are just my thoughts coming from a beginner in the realm of audiophile products.
I have always enjoyed music and appreciate high quality production and music that really stimulates the senses with a complete profile, but I never really bought into a lot of the hype around buying expensive audio equipment simply for listening to music. I look at the specs of the built in DAC on the computers I build and in most cases the exceed the specifications of whatever listening device I am using so I always thought that it wouldn't make a noticeable difference to spend a lot of money (I do not buy cheap chipsets when I build computers so the built in DACs are usually decent and can drive 300ohm devices according to specs).
I have to say that recently I have changed my tune. I knew that a quality headphone would make a difference and that different headsets sound different (for example I typically have always just bought gaming headsets or headsets that I could easily use on my Xbox and PC without any real set up - gaming headsets typically have very exaggerated and nasty bass for my listening taste), but I did not realize that when I upgraded to a 6xx I would be almost in a euphoric state when I first put them on and heard the proof. You can actually feel the music in your body and affecting your mood with a good listening device - it is truly delightful.
So, I decided to see if maybe I have always been incorrect about external DAC/AMP setups. I can't tell you exactly why I decided to start off in this price range, but I did some due diligence research first and decided that one way or the other I wanted my first to be something that I could keep for a long time and entering the tubes into the equation just gives me options down the road to change the sound when the tubes have played themselves out. I couldn't be happier with my decision to purchase this as my first external DAC let alone a DAC with a built in tube rectifier and matching pre-amp tubes. The TA-30 really did add a nice sound to the already impressive sound of the 6xx headphones. For me, it was noticeable and pleasant without even waiting to burn the tubes in before using the device. This thing seems to put out a lot of power (my reference is only the fact that I barely have to turn the volume up on the TA-30 to get desirable output to my ears) so I assume it is capable of driving a headphone system that requires quite a bit more power than the 6xx.
Since I am a novice in the audiophile scene I will skip trying to get technical about the sound being warm, highs and mids, etc, because frankly I do not personally feel that I have enough experience examining aspects of audio output beyond just being honest about the fact that there is a noticeable difference in the sound you are hearing through this device and that I personally find it to be enjoyable and ultimately desirable.
Instead, I will gear my last section here towards anyone else like me who is just getting into this and is finding a lot of the information and guides online to be bit much (a lot of them make it seem like this is rocket science.. well frankly if you want to understand things the way and audio engineer or an expert does then it kind of is - but if you just want to enjoy listening to music then it is very simple).
Areas where some guides online try to have you do too much:
Setup
I truly mean it when I say the first thing that you do should not revolve around trying to get a bitperfect audio stream to this unit from windows. All that is required to run this unit and get what I consider to be a pretty obvious difference in the sound you are hearing is plug the tubes into the sockets assuming that the tubes don't have obvious visual defects, plug in the power, make sure volume knob is all the way down(just because), plug in your headset, and flip the switch on the PSU in the back of the unit. If you are using Windows 10 or 11 it will almost certainly recognize the device right away and your onboard or windows generic usb drivers will just work. Now, for me and because I do not really like realtek, especially any of their software, I have the audio drivers that are built in disabled in my bios. No problem because the windows USB drivers picked up this device without any issues. Now, here is the caveat, several Music Streaming Services have desktop applications that allow you to use asio drivers to play the music to your external DAC. Without trying to really understand what asio actually is or explore whether or not the asio drivers your chipset has are any good, just know that it is something you may eventually want to have access to because I was personally able to tell a marginal difference between sound using asio to send audio data to the TA-30 and Direct Sound(which applications use to give you sound if they do not have options for wasapi or exclusive mode) - and I preferred the sound quality I was getting by using the asio drivers to output audio.
asio
A lot of chipsets come with their own asio driver as part of the USB driver package, but in some cases it is something you will have to specifically look for or opt to install when you are installing or updating your drivers. So, if you want to use the drivers that are built specifically for your chipset then you should make sure you have updated them to the latest version from the manufacturer and that they include the asio drivers.
The other option is to download the xDuoo USB drivers from the xDuoo Firmware Downloads page located at the top - xDuoo USB Driver V5.0.0 ( For all xDuoo headphone amp except Link Series). I was able to simply install this driver and then the Qobuz desktop app had an option for the xDuoo asio along with the options for Wasapi and Wasapi exclusive that it already had. Doing this essentially just has the app stream the audio data to your device without the need for direct sound (the windows audio processor) to apply any audio processing or apo to the sound your DAC is receiving from the usb controller. Doing this is also kind of neat because this amp has a display that tells you what sampling rate it is receiving and the number displayed on the screen will change, mostly between 44.1K and 96.0K when using Qobuz, but with that changing dynamically as the track changes it also lets you know that you are getting a good quality audio output that should be pretty accurate without any artifacts added by direct sound, etc.
Note: You will see the word asio4all a lot if you start searching for information on using asio with external dacs or just in general. Unless you specifically know why you would want or need that instead of the asio drivers for your usb chipset or the ones provided by xDuoo (which, I think either are or are based on the driver made by Thesycon) then I would not install it. From what I can tell it is also not a true hardware driver (do not blast me if I am not completely accurate about that) - though from what I understand it does provide an asio option for media players and such that is very low latency which is why you see it mentioned so much.
Considerations
A couple things I have noticed that confused me and led me down unnecessary troubleshooting rabbit holes are when you stream music from amazon or the likes and Amazon says one thing as far as the quality of the track but the screen on the amp does not reflect. This is because Amazon does not implement Wasapi or even Wasapi exclusive mode in a way that bypasses direct sound, as far as I can tell. It would seem that Amazon Music (just as an example, there are others that do this as well so it might even be how it is supposed to work with wasapi) is still sending the audio through windows apo as the DAC will simply report the audio quality of whatever you have the TA-30 set to in Windows Audio Settings. That being said the two mainstream audio streaming platforms I am aware of that have a desktop app which streams to the asio drivers are Qobuz and Tidal. I cannot get the Tidal desktop app to work for me without all sorts of issues with the music pausing, etc, so I do not use that one.
There is also the fact that when you aren't using an application with options for wasapi or asio the sound is going to be going through windows direct sound (which if anyone is being honest actually performs pretty well these days for someone who is just enjoying streaming music). I believe this essentially means that whatever bitrate and quality you have set for this device in the windows sound settings is what windows is going to upscale and downscale everything it is receiving to match before it sends the data to your external dac. I don't honestly have any idea if it is better to pick a higher quality and have windows upscale to match that when it receives lower quality or vice versa, so that is a topic for research if you are really interested in min/maxing your audio experience but for me I don't really notice a difference so far when gaming with music playing in the background (when I do this I set the music player to just use direct sound because I haven't done enough reading about this to really even guess at what is best). Personally on the windows side of things I have the format for the TA-30 output set to 24bit/96000hz and have tried 24/192K and 24/44.1K. The majority of Hi-Def streaming I have tried uses 24bit(or 16bit if 24 is not an option) and either 44.1K or 96K. I have tried setting the device to 24/44.1 and 24/96 and with direct sound I didn't really think there was a noticeable difference after doing a few small tests side by side.
The only other thing that I would recommend off the top of my head for getting noticeably better quality right off the bat is to set the windows audo settings for the dac to max volume as well as any programs that are outputting sound to the device and then exclusively use the volume knob on the TA-30 to control the volume.
Other than that I think the TA-30 is a piece of equipment that most people would be able to add to their PC sound environment and truly enjoy and be able to hear the difference without going to a lot of effort to set it up, especially if you are primarily using it for your headphones.
Edit
I forgot to mention that there are a lot of reviews where people mention how hot this unit gets. That has not been my experience at all. It is warm and in a good way. I suspect that if you crank it way up or if it is trying to drive a system that requires more power then it would certainly run hotter but I wouldn't personally worry about this, especially if you have a desk fan that circulates air in your personal space. I don't listen to my music at especially high levels and with my system you do not have to put the volume knob up very high at all to get what I would consider to be a loud result(I value my hearing and intend to keep it for as long as possible). Rather than increasing the volume it is probably better to find ways to reduce the background noise in your environment from things like fans, etc, or alternatively if you do not have a choice to control the background noise from your surroundings use a good pair of closed back headphones when people and things are creating undesirable noise for you.
(Edited)
Recommends this product? Yes
LordHamfist
17
Nov 26, 2022
checkVerified Buyer
An incredible device!
- Sound: lovely with the stock tubes (Plenty of rolling options for the OCD crowd)
- Build: Like a steampunk tank.
- Heat: People love to exaggerate; the temp never gets so warm that I can't put my hand on any of the flat metal surfaces and leave it there. In fact, it makes a lovely hand warmer on cold nights.
- Issue with design: I have none, though some have suggested that a gain switch would allow for more leeway with the pot.
Recommends this product? Yes
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