Aiyima DAC A5 PRO

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`A quality upgrade in sound over the built in headphone output in my laptops and with lots of very nice features to enhance the experience in this unbelievable value for money DAC.

Whats in the box

Sound Quality compared to laptop headphone jack

So getting an external DAC was an interesting upgrade. There is a jump in audio quality over built in analog outputs (e.g. a headphone Jack on a mobile or laptop) but the quality of engineering in most external DAC’s from the last few years (and especially with companies like Aiyima) is so excellent that is almost impossible to hear differences between a DAC’s like this and a Eur300+ DAC when setup correctly. Though they would measure slightly worse.

There are some ‘dud’ DAC’s out there which have noise levels which can be exposed with sensitive headphones or with quality am speakers but not this one.
I had checked the DAC chipset before purchasing and is it the well liked ESS9018 already used by lots of top end audio equipment and I also check out the SINAD measurements (done by some well know audiophile websites) and this DAC provided good results for the money.

I really like the fact that the Aiyima provided some excellent other options beyond the obviously headphone output. It has multiple inputs so I currently have the Optical input coming from a Wiim Mini Steamer and the USB input coming from a Raspberry PI (though I did try with my MacBook Pro on my work desktop). And for output I also have set up the DAC with 2 output options - so when not using headphones, I have it connected to my A07 Amplifier (another quality device from Aiyima) feeding my speakers and it is a definite upgrade in sound from the Raspberry PI DAC I was using exclusively with the A07. This IMO is the best feature as I have now both multiple inputs options and multiple outputs options, the convenience is fantastic.

The sound when listening on my Sennheiser headphones is excellent, no complaints - I have only really used the 3.5 inch connection but its great that it includes the larger headphone jack also. Note: once I unplug the headphone it switches back to feeding music to the RCA outputs on the back - which feeds the music the A07 - so super easy to switch from headphones to speakers.

Paired with an Aiyima A07

Very minor nitpicks but given the price it would have been impossible to :

1. A Remote control would be nice
   Since I am using multiple inputs it would be nice to have a remote control but because its mostly sitting on my desk I can just switch inputs with the buttons on the front
2. Power supply might be a bit better
   I ended up changing the power supply after a few months
3. Maybe supporting higher bit rates
   it supports 24/196 which is perfect for HD music (as its the max you can get from Amazon HD or Apple Music) so unless you are a crazy obsessive audiophile this DAC is good enough - but I know some reviewers might ‘complain’ that it needs to support even higher bitrates.

Rating

I gave this a Pragmatic rating of 3 - it was a good price when I bought it and had nice features but other DAC are now a more pragmatic choices. The measurements are ok we are getting State of the Art DAC now for Eur60 so its hard to justify this.

Conclusion

This was one of my dedicated headphone DAC amps I purchased and I used it happily for more than a year but once I got more demanding headphones I did update.

I would still recommend it but there are probably other headphone DAC/ Amps that are now more pragmatic.