The audio market is awash with DAC dongles right now. It seems we can’t get enough of these little devices that connect to the USB or Lightning port on our smartphones and serve up hi-fi quality audio streamed from services like Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. They also let you use an old-school pair of wired headphones with your phone. What’s not to like?
The latest headphone DAC to appear on my desk for review comes from Chinese brand HIDISZ. The S8 Pro is also known called Robin, despite not looking anything like the little red-breasted bird featured on countless Christmas cards.
The S8 Pro is no larger than a cigarette lighter and has two copper-colored buttons for adjusting the volume levels and a knurled copper knob that works as a play/pause control. There are no controls for skipping or repeating tracks, so if you do want to move on to the next song or repeat the one you are playing, you’ll need to do that with your phone’s controls and whatever streaming app you are using.
The S8 Pro has a choice of outputs. You can either connect your headphones with a traditional 3.5mm unbalanced stereo jackplug or with a balanced 4.4mm balanced connector, sometimes called a Pentaconn. Which one you choose will depend on the headphones you own, but if you do have a pair of headphones with a balanced 4.4mm cable, use that as the sound will be marginally better and louder.
The device is reasonably well built, although the knob felt a little out of scale from the other buttons. The front of the casing has an illuminated HIDISZ logo that changes color depending on the type and resolution of audio file being decoded.
To connect the S8 Pro to a smartphone, HIDISZ supplies a short USB-C to USB-C OTG cable. One end goes into the S8 Pro and the other into your Android phone, tablet or laptop. Forn iPhone users, there is a USB-C to Lighting adapter included as well as a USB-A adapter for use with older devices.
To start the music pumping, just plug the S8 Pro into your phone and it will be recognized as the audio output. Then plug in a pair of headphones into the S8 Pro and start the music with something like Tidal or Deezer, whichever streaming service you use.
The S8 Pro can handle digital audio files up to 32-bit / 384kHz PCM and DSD256. There isn’t support for MQA, so if you are a Tidal subscriber you’ll want to use the FLAC option on your streaming app instead of Tidal Masters.
At the heart of the S8 Pro there are two Cirrus Logic CS43131 DAC chips. There’s one chip for the left channel and another for the right. The use of two discreet DACs helps with channel separation and produces a more focused soundstage.
The unbalanced 3.5mm headphone output on the S8 Pro has an impedance of 32Ω and can output up to 80mW. If you use the balanced 4.4mm output, the power going to the headphones increases to 160mW, giving more volume. In general, the output is good although I found I had to push the limits with the 3.5mm output.
To put the S8 Pro through its paces, I fired up Tidal and began listening to the hi-res version of Eliane Elias’ new album Quietude. There’s nothing like a bit of gentle bossa nova to test the nuance of a DAC amp. I plugged in a pair of Sennheiser’s new HD 620S, a superb pair of affordable closed-back headphones that have one of the most neutral and detailed sounds you’ll find at a sensible price.
The S8 Pro produces a detailed and nuanced sound that’s not too heavy on the bass but is certainly never harsh or digitally metallic. The DAC has several digital filters built in which can be changed by pressing the two volume buttons together. The filters available are High Pass, NOS (Non-oversampling), De-emphasis, Fast and Slow, Low-latency and Phase-compensated, and Wideband Flatness Mode.
Like so many digital filters, the discernable effect is very subtle and it will depend on how the music was recorded. Try them out and if you find one you like, stick with it but don’t get too hung up on the filters as they are quite marginal. How the music sounds will be impacted much more by the recording than the filter setting.
The sound from the S8 Pro is polite and low on distortion. For the price, the S8 Pro offers a lot and it’s ideal for listening to music for long periods. Choose your headphones carefully as that will also make the most difference to the sound you hear. If you have headphones that are difficult to drive, the limited power of a USB-powered DAC amp will impact the volume levels.
Verdict: If you want a high-quality headphone DAC for listening to hi-res music on the move and you don’t need MQA support, the HIDISZ S8 Pro is a bit of a bargain. It has outputs for 3.5mm and 4.4mm, plus a range of digital filters to try. The build quality, particularly the knob, bothered me a little and I’d like to see the design changed for the next version. However, if you enjoy listening to music with wired headphones and want something that can serve up much better audio than most smartphones, the HIDISZ S8 Pro is a solid buy for headphone lovers.
Pricing & Availability: The HIDISZ S8 Pro is available now and costs £79 / €79 / $99.
More info: www.hidizs.net
Tech Specs:
- DAC: Dual 32-bit CS43131.
- PCM support: Up to 32-bit/384kHz.
- Native DSD support: Up to DSD256.
- Outputs: 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced.
- Chassis: CNC aluminum alloy integrated molding.
- Physical buttons: Power, Volume +/-, filter selection.
- Sampling rate indicator: Colored LED.
- Frequency response: 20Hz – 45kHz.
- Distortion: 3.5mm: 0.0005% /4.4mm: 0.0006%
- SNR: 3.5mm: 125dB / 4.4mm: 125dB.
- Separation: 3.5mm: -74dB / 4.4mm: -110dB.
- Output Power: 3.5mm: 80mW+80mW @ 32Ω / 4.4mm: 160mW+160Mw @ 32Ω.
- Selectable digital filters: High Pass, NOS (Non-oversampling), De-emphasis, Fast and Slow, Low-latency and Phase-compensated, Wideband Flatness Mode.
- Compatible platforms: Windows/MacOS/iPad OS/Android/iOS/Harmony OS.
