HIDIZS DH80S Review (DAC & Amp)

In person, the DH80S looks a lot more compact and beautifully made:

It comes in a number of other colors from red to blue which is nice. The other side has a leatherette finish of sorts. Here are the outputs and simple to navigate controls:

HIDIZS DH80S Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard:

This is excellent performance for a portable DAC, ranking almost as good as our top tier desktop DACs:

Dynamic range at full output is also very good but not so at 50 mv output:

The 50 mv is almost too low to be right. I adjusted the levels on the unit itself to get down to 50 mv.

Jitter test is also very clean and much better than majority of "thumbdrive" sized DACs:

The filter rolls off a bit early though:

Multitone shows off its very low distortion:

I can't run sweep tests like IMD due to software incompatibility of my analyzer with this class of USB audio devices. So let's move onto power tests of the headphone starting with 300 ohm load:

The height of the graph is likely not correct due to the incompatibility with the device I mentioned. But maximum power is accurate and here we have a lot of it for the class:

Same story at 32 ohm:

Sweeping for load we get:

And unbalanced output:

Headphone Listening Tests
I started my test using Sennheiser HD650 using unbalanced output. Here there was enough power for everyday use but this headphone could definitely use more. So I switched its cable to balanced and now we were talking! Dynamic range was excellent as was detail and overall fidelity. No, it is not desktop class in that it won't make your skull resonate but for practical use, you have the power you need on the go.

I then switched to Ether Drop CX, again using balanced output. I was pleased to get enough power to get loud and enjoyable. It would get distorted though if you maxed out the volume on this tough load.

Conclusions
The DH80S is well built and featured. I like the manual tactical buttons, up down volume control, and flexibility and power of balanced output in addition to unbalanced. Distortion and noise at full output is extremely good for a portable device. The only low point was the noise level at 50 mv output. Not sure if that is an instrumentation problem or device. Assuming the latter, very sensitive IEMs may be noisy.

I am happy to recommend the HIDIZS DH80S for a portable DAC and Amplifier. With inclusion of battery it will not suck power from your source, allowing for plenty of playback time.