FiiO devices have not fared the best for me, so this is a pleasant surprise. It's got plenty of oomph - 660mW at 32R, and if that's current limited it's still >550mW into the E3 at 27R, or ~110dB peaks. More to the point, it never sounds weak or mushy on transients, suggesting it's got pretty darned good current delivery.
It sounds darned good with other headphones too, like the 109 Pro and the Clear OG. Impressive, and it tells me that my FiiO problems might be in their USB implementation more than the DAC/amp side of things.
The internal amp is a touch upper-mids pushed, but far from a deal killer, but I agree for $150-ish it's quite good especially with slightly dark headphones. DM13->MMB (OPA modded)->Vali3 is a stellar "cheap" combo. My only real concern is longevity of the transport mech.
to the extent I've noticed it, I think the upper-mid-forward thing is a common trait in CS43131 DACs. It doesn't bother me nearly as much as upper-treble fuckery does, and in the case of the DM13 I've heard worse things for quite a bit more money
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