iBasso DX340: Review and Impressions

iBasso DX340 Mini-Review


Preamble
I have been out of the portable game for a while. The last DAP I owned (and loved) was the iBasso DX50. Later on I tried a number of dongles along with cheap and midrange IEMs and headphones. Most recently I have come to enjoy the iBasso DC-Elite, the iFi Audio Hip Dac 3 and Chord Mojo 2. I will attempt to compare the DX340 to these sources as they are the ones I am most familiar with.


The iBasso DX340 in its natural habitat...my bed.

For reference, out of the three dongles, the Chord Mojo 2 and iBasso DC-Elite were my favorite (quite a large performance delta when coming from the Hip Dac 3). The Mojo 2 has a wonderful sense of space, head stage, analog warmth and drive. The DC-Elite has noticeably less driving power, and so loves easy-to-drive headphones and IEMS. It has exceptional resolve, detail and clarity, along with PRAT.


Build and Usability
In regard to the DX340’s build and usability… I refuse to write up a review of the device itself, and want to keep this about the audio quality. That being said, I find the unit to be very heavy, well built and easy to use. I see this as more transportable than portable. I certainly can't fit it in my pocket and just use it at my desk or in bed. I have not had any noticeable issues with it, and I find the battery life reasonable, and the ability to change the gain for the DAC and Amp sections (along with the ability to drive the amp section with a 12v external power supply) to be a game changer.

Whether using sensitive IEMs, or relatively hard to drive full-size headphones, the DAP seems to have no issue. Adjusting the gain levels allows you to easily find usable levels of volume across the 100 digital volume steps. No issues there! (I haven't tried 300ohm cans yet but will eventually).


Sound
I have used the DX340 with several IEMs and headphones at this point. Stand out pairings include…basically everything I have tried it with. From the highly sensitive Campfire Audio Darkstar and Clara, to the ZMF Bokeh Closed, and later, the ZMF Caldera Closed (loaner), all sound exceptional. (Campfire IEMs have a very minor waterfall hissing on 3.5mm, but it doesn’t bother me. 4.4mm balanced is a no-go and too noisy).

Here are a few easy-to-digest bullets on how the DX340 SOUNDS.

• Resolution and Clarity – This DAP is highly resolving. There is a lot of information to digest in a song, and the amount of inner detail is sort of crazy. There is also a severe lack of any digitus or treble nastiness. With, say, the ZMF Caldera Closed, this was very apparent. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a combo as revealing and resolving as the Caldera Closed and DX340 (Balanced output on High DAC and High Amp with the optional 12v amp input). Drool-inducing.
• Headspace – The headspace / head stage is surprisingly wide and deep for a portable. The above-average ability to layer and image is cherry on top. Obviously these features are going to be more IEM and headphone dependent, but across the transducers I listed, head stage, layering and imaging have always been impressive and apparent.
• Tonality – The DX340 sounds very neutral to my ears across the board. It’s not warm, bright, wet or dry. It presents very deep sub bass (when it is present in a track) and extends very high into upper treble. There is a liquidity to the sound, and everything sounds ‘natural’ for lack of a non-audiophile term. Music sounds like music and I don’t find myself analyzing anything while listening.
• Speed – This is hard for me to explain. There is a great sense of speed with this DAP. This might be a side-effect of how much clarity there is and the fast and crisp transients. In very busy passages I have zero trouble picking out different instruments, sounds or vocals.

Portable / Transportable Dongle Comparisons

iBasso DC-Elite vs DX340: I listened to these two extensively over the past few months. In a nutshell, the DC-Elite is behind in resolution and clarity. There isn’t as much detail or plankton in direct comparison to the DX340. Inner detail is way ahead on the DAP. The DC-Elite has a warmer tilt with a bit of bloom in the bass registers. The DX340 presents bass and sub-bass with a lot of deft and control. Bass is tight and detailed but also hits hard when called for. I don’t think I’ve heard such well-controlled bass before. One big positive for the Elite: It is dead silent with Campfire IEMs. The DX340 has minor waterfall hissing.

If you want to go off of value-for-dollar, the DC-Elite wins here. For $350 or less used it gets very close to the DX340 in a lot of areas.


Mojo 2 vs DX340: I really, really love the Mojo 2. It has a nice, warm and thick sound to it with a lot of drive. It can stage and layer like crazy. However, the DX340 is just as good if not better in the imaging and layering abilities. DX340 stomps the Mojo when it comes to resolving power. There’s no contest. If you love the Mojo 2 sound, stick with it. The DX340 is far more neutral in its tuning.


TLDR
If you like DAPs, you have $1,700 burning a hole in your pocket and you enjoy a highly resolving, neutral sound, you will probably like the DX340. Personally, I’ve just finished selling all of my other portable gear and plan to stick with this DAP until something better comes along or I get bored. Lol.

I struggle with audio descriptors, so please feel free to ask questions or share your own impressions! Personally, if I don’t enjoy a piece of gear I usually sell it within days, or weeks of the purchase. The fact that I haven’t sold it (and haven’t listened to my Yiggy A2 and Stratus combo for OVER A MONTH) says more in one sentence than the last 900 words.

 

Just how bad is bad? I'm kinda bound to 4.4mm for all my CFA IEMs and was hoping DX340 would expand on DCE's strengths, especially with the BA based units. Also, any baseline Sennheiser HD6xx comparisons? Thanks for breaking your "no DAPS" rule and giving some feedback, greatly appreciated!!!

 

Like, box fan by your head while wearing closed headphones bad. I can't recommend the DX340 if you need to use 4.4mm with your Campfire IEMs.

There is a trick. If you choose Line Out instead of Phone Out you bypass the amp module. Line Out can still be adjusted with all 100 volume steps. This way there is zero hiss with Campfire IEMs. However, I find the sound to be lacking compared to using the amp out.

I MIGHT try to buy an IEmatch to play with but I've heard the impedance on the 4.4mm unit from iFi is pretty high.

I'll do some listening with JAR 650 this week and report back. Unfortunately no access to a stock HD6XX at the moment.

 

@RestoredSparda could you give any impressions if you happen to use the line out to 2ch. @Merrick added briefly in your comments about it but it would be nice to use as an aio, though I might just settle with a d16 because I don’t need the dap part and it works with sensitive iems. I found out that sometimes the best dac for iems don’t necessarily scale to the desktop space. It wasn’t about volume more so than it couldn’t fill the space well. We don’t necessarily hear the top octave in iems I guess. The Sony daps in particular translated pretty poorly.

 

I don't currently have a 2 channel setup. But, I'll try and find some cables to plug it into my Stratus and assess it as a DAC only.

I've read elsewhere that the D16 is very similar to the DX340 but I haven't had ears on one.

 

I agree with everything @RestoredSparda said, excluding the comparison to the Mojo because I've never heard one. The DC Elite comparison is spot on. I don't use my DC Elite much anymore.

My main pairing with my 340 is the Astrolith. The resolving power of DAP and IEM together can literally be information overload at times. I've gotten more used to it, and it's gotten better with burn in as the headspace opened up and became less dense and closed in. I've also used it with the Darkstar, but didn't like the hissing. Astrolith has no hissing. It also pairs wonderfully with my ETA O2 and Ada, and really shows off how resolving and tonally strong both of those headphones are. I don't have any hard to drive or high ohm cans to try it with.

While there is no digititus. it does have an edge to the presentation. This is most evident with the Astrolith which has so much treble energy to begin with, but it's not just in the treble. I notice it even in drum hits and other sounds in the mids. It's not harsh, it's just got a fast leading edge to the notes that give it a particular nervy character. My Yggdrasil sounds soft in comparison which, if you know the Yggdrasil, should give you some indication of how this sounds. I want to stress that this is not fatigue inducing, and I have listened to this for many hours straight without issue.

I bought a 4.4mm to dual XLR adapter and I don't like it in line out mode with my Ragnarok. It sounds too edgy. Definitely bad synergy with the already sharp Ragnarok. It induced fatigue within 15 minutes of hearing that combo. The Yggdrasil sounds so much better in that setup. I haven't tried it line out to anything else because no other headphone amp I have would be able to resolve all the information the 340 is putting out.

The 12V mode increases technicalities, opens up the sound stage, and really lets the DAP shine. It sounds very good without the extra power, and it's not like my sensitive headphones need more power than the amp provides on its own, but the boost is audible to me. It also will run off mains power once the batteries are charged, so I set the battery limit to 80% and generally leave it charged to reduce cycles. It does still vacillate between 75-80% which is either a battery longevity feature or an artifact of the battery percentage being an average of the two batteries in the device. If you don't know, this has one battery for the player and a battery just for the amp.

The other aspect I want to highlight about the 340 is that it's the closest I've come to analog sound reproduction other than excellent R2R. Instrument timbre is very realistic, combined with a solid note weight that gives heft to the sound. It sounds meaty and vivid, but because of the speed and clarity it doesn't sound slow or murky.

It's a f'ing brick of a device though. I imagine it would break my toes if it ever fell on my foot. They made the chassis out of stainless steel and while I like the look of the body, I hate stainless steel in portable electronics. I'd much rather have aluminum or titanium, and iBasso has made DAPs out of both of those materials before. Some people have said it helps give the chassis rigidity to reduce vibrations, but I suspect it was done to make it feel premium because people stupidly equate weight with cost.

It dual boots Android and Mango OS. Mango OS sounds better but has an annoying bug where the last track of an album (and I assume a playlist) will cut off abruptly shortly before the actual end of the track. I'm hoping they fix that with a firmware update.

I bought it to be a long term portable device. I appreciate that even when the Android version becomes defunct, I can use extend the life with Mango OS, and it's so technically adept that I wouldn't feel the desire to upgrade for a long time. I also knew I'd be able to customize the sound with the swappable amp cards iBasso makes. I have an Amp 14 from the DX320 which has a nutube in it and tried that out. It wasn't nearly as resolving as Amp 15, the stock amp on the 340, but it did provide a unique presentation that had some of that tube vividness and musicality. Would be good for less critical listening. iBasso has also announced three upcoming new modules, Amp 16 has a pair of NOS tubes, Amp 17 uses Gan transistors, and Amp 18 is also transistor based but some way that's different from Amp 15 or 17. I'll get at least the 16 and will see what people think of the 17 and 18. I feel like the combo of Android, with its multiple options for music players, Mango OS, and the amp modules make the 340 a very versatile platform that can keep me interested for a long time, and while it's a very expensive DAP, it's downright cheap compared to some of its competition in the flagship DAP space.

 

Awesome impressions @Merrick! You totally nailed what I couldn't put words to...

"The other aspect I want to highlight about the 340 is that it's the closest I've come to analog sound reproduction other than excellent R2R. Instrument timbre is very realistic, combined with a solid note weight that gives heft to the sound. It sounds meaty and vivid, but because of the speed and clarity it doesn't sound slow or murky."

 

Yeah, I can't fully articulate how true to life the timbre is. Drums have such a sense of body and weight and reverberation to them, I catch myself stopping what I'm doing to just hone in on the sound sometimes. I do want to eventually test this as a DAC with other, more synergistic amp pairings because I think with the right pairing this could serve as a desktop DAC. I do know iBasso is working on a desktop DAC/amp and I'm guessing they'll use this topology, although apparently they're also working on an in house R2R!

 

Yes, for sure! I'm very interested in hearing their desktop dac when it releases. That's it. You've convinced me to go buy a 3.5mm to dual RCA to try this with my tube amps. I'm curious now.

And I agree on the stainless steel sort of sucking. It's heavy, it's sharp and it scratches easily.

 

I do like the leather case that comes with the player, and have kept it in that.

 

I just got the IEmatch 4.4 today. Ive been listening to the CA Clara with the 4.4. Duet cable and the IEmatch.

No more hiss and the usable volume range is a huge bonus for dialing in the volume. No negatives I noticed. I'm using the Ultra setting.

It's also nice to be able to use medium and high amp gain settings on the DX340 with sensitive IEMs. It shouldn't matter but I find the DAP sounds much better on medium and high amp gain compared to low. More drive, impact and presence. Not sure why.

Update: I did more critical listening at night time and after some back and forth it's pretty apparent the iematch is removing some fine detail and air. The bass also seems a bit muddy compared to straight out of the DAP. Dynamics seem a bit reduced as well. Funny how I don't notice these nuances during the day and multi tasking.

I think I may just deal with the mild hiss and stick to 3.5mm output.

 

I had and stopped using the IEMatch for the same reason. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of thing.

 

IEM Match reduces damping factor just like inline resistors. No free lunches.

I'm a big iBasso fan and love my tweaked DX240. The 3 series is just too large for my personal portable needs or I'd be all over it.

 

Just curious, but to folks who've had the opportunity to somehow compare: how's using an IEMatch fare against pairing with a source that just has a higher output impedance by design? I went with a dongle/LDAC receiver that has 1.2R/2.8R out of its 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs respectively because I do feel like the Campfire Andromeda variants do benefit from being plugged into a not-near-zero impedance source.

... Immediately thinking that that's going to be an impossible thing to fairly test because you'd just have to compare two of the exact same DAC/amp combo with and without an IEMatch in-line to eliminate as many variables as possible. Basically curious as to whether it's just a matter of impedance matching/damping or if there's something worse about *adding* something in-line between the transducer and the actual amp stage.

 

@Lyander it just sounds worse…period. I’m sure I posted about it very long time ago when it first came out.

 

x3 on ieMatch sounding worse...