Low battery life not reflective of large size and heavy weight
Comparing to the tiny Qudelix 5k, the XP-2 does *very* poorly in terms of range and occlusion. If this is in your right pocket and you have a wireless earbud in your left ear for example, you can get some occlusion issues.
Also comparing to the Qudelix that is about a quarter the size and weight, the XP-2 has barely noticeably better battery life. Not sure what this offers that doesn't come in a smaller, lighter, cheaper and almost overall better performing package. The cheap, plastic faux screen also cracked very easily.
the range is significantly lower than my other Bluetooth audio devices, including a pair of wireless apple earbuds, Bose headphones, and a 15$ mpow i bought 8 years ago. It's like 10x less, it's not even close. Depending on how I hold it and what body parts are in the way, sometimes it doesn't even get 2ft of range before the audio starts to have issues.
I put 1 star even if the sound quality is good because the entire reason why this product exist in the first place is Bluetooth. In terms of sound quality, it's not that much better than a 9$ apple dac unless you have headphones that are hard to drive. Audio that lags and stop playing is >100x worse than having a receiver with a slightly worse dac chip.
I bought this amp for sale, as I dont really need a dedicated amp, but I am very happy with the versatility and quality. I can definitely notice an improvement to sound quality when I use it in wired mode, and the option to use it with bluetooth is nice for on the go applications. A really nice little all in one device.
After just a couple of months of use, the device no longer connects through Bluetooth or USB-C. I was busy when it stopped working and so didn't have time to fiddle with it, but I just spent an afternoon trying to factory reset it or find a firmware update for the device and came up with nothing. It's basically just an expensive brick.
The photo shows what happens when I try to pair the Bluetooth via NFC. This error code is the most I get out of the device, it doesn't show up on a Bluetooth scan on any device I've tried.
I don't have a lot of experience with DACs but I have enjoyed this one. Used it with a few headphones and it sounds fine. I have started to use in in my car as a bluetooth receiver for music. the stereo and speakers in my car are not great but it makes a big deference to use the XDUOO XP-2 PRO plunged into the car aux vs my phone.
I really like this product. I believe it gives the music I listen to the extra punch I want to make everything stand out. The only thing I would change is to have a balanced out on it but I believe they just came out with one recently. Overall great product and I’m happy with it.
This acts very well as a portable DAC and it works well with phones but the Bluetooth range and quality could be better.
It's a bit overkill for its best use case but it's definitely nice to have. I'd still recommend it.
Good build quality, sound, pairing experience and battery. The bluetooth has abysmal range and is only usable at less than 2-3 feet which was kind of the point of having it be wireless. Only worth it if you have your source closeby.
Battery loose inside UPDATE: Massdrop sent replacement
UPDATE: MassDrop sent me a replacement and the new XP-2 does *not* have the same issue. Must have been a random failure? Questions the QA/QC of Xduoo, but thanks to Massdrop for their quality customer support on this one.
Upon receipt, when moving the DAC/AMP around (like lifting off a table, walking in pocket, etc), you can feel a heavy mass shifting from front to back, moving most the distance of the unit. Feels like a 9V battery size/weight.