No matter what kind of product or brand you have, there are basically two ways to respond to other brands’ innovations: copy the features with your own spin on it, or ignore it and keep pushing forward with what you’re good at. With DX340, iBasso takes a third path of adding their own innovations alongside a number of features pioneered by other brands. Is the end result a standout player for the increasingly crowded under $2000 price range?
Build and Design
DX340 continues the trend of large, smartphone-like DAPs, coming in with a 6 inch screen, and about twice the thickness of your average phone. The build is a big upgrade over the previous generation DX320, and it looks and feels closer than previous iBasso players to being on the same level with Cayin and Astell&Kern. Along with a better overall build, it continues iBasso’s trend of providing more user-friendly access to service your device or replace the batteries at home.
In the package, you’ll find the device itself, a USB-C charge cable, a 12V DC power supply, a case, screen protectors, a burn-in cable, and some other odds and ends. If you’re familiar with iBasso’s MAX series DAPs, you could be forgiven for thinking that the USB-C and 12V DC are for charging separate digital and analog batteries like the DX320 MAX, but that’s not the case here. When plugged in, the DC adapter provides higher output power that expands the range of high-end headphones that DX340 can drive.
Out of the box, DX340 is equipped with iBasso’s Amp15, which sports 4.4mm and 3.5mm analog outputs, along with the aforementioned option to connect a DC adapter for more power. Like previous DX300 series DAPs, the amp cards can be swapped out, giving you a number of sonic options. Previous generation amp cards are even compatible with an adapter, meaning that at launch you already have a nice selection of possibilities. You can also do digital output via USB, Bluetooth, or the miniCOAX port.
If you’re looking for a reason to NOT like DX340, the best I can give you is that it’s a bit heavy and that the case can impede swiping down from the top of the screen or up from the bottom, but other than that, the physical design and package is excellent.
Using DX340
DX340 uses Android 13 for its main interface, and essentially works like a smartphone or tablet with some high-class audiophile gear under the hood. After the initial setup, you can either set up your Google Account with the device to use Google Play or get right down to business without an account on the ad-supported Aptiode app store. Of course, you don’t have to even connect DX340 to wifi or download any apps if you don’t want to. You can copy files over via USB connection to a computer or with a microSD card, and then use either the Mango Player or MangoOS option to just playback your existing files.
The screen and UI performance is excellent, with smooth scrolling and fast, snappy response in the OS and in apps. It might not quite match the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it’s more than enough for anything you’d want to do on a DAP.
iBasso adds a number of audio specific features to their players, in this case including DAC Gain, Amp Gain, and Harmonic options. The DAC and Amp gain control the base volume output level of the device, and while DAC Gain seems to provide a simple digital increase in volume, turning up Amp Gain provides some additional weight and body to the sound. The Harmonic option lets you select from five different versions of the custom 1-Bit DACs sound.
Sound and Performance
While the five harmonic filter options offer some difference in sound, for the most part the changes aren’t big enough to notice without really looking out for the details, and the core sound of the player remains the same. DX340 has a very natural, clean, spacious output with strong imaging. There’s a good balance between the sense of space and scale and the feeling of weight in individual instruments.
When selecting a harmonic filter, H1 (Original) is the closest in tonality to the DX320 MAX and the classic iBasso sound. H2 (Natural) adds a bit of warmth and bends the sound a little closer to Astell&Kern’s house sound. H3 (Even+) increases the even harmonics to provide a sound that’s smoother than H1, but not as warm as H2. H4 (Odd+) increases the Odd harmonics to improve the separation and resolution, but at the cost of sounding a little more dry. H5 (All) combines the H3 and H4 filters for a sound that offers the fast, technical performance of H4, but with a little bit of the smoothness and slight color of H3.
The balance between a weightier more tactile imaging and a more diffuse expansive sound can be tipped a little one way or the other with the Harmonics. H1 and H4 tend to improve the width of the soundstage more, while making the imaging feel more diffuse, while H2 and H3 feel more grounded and weighty, but not quite as spacious.
In terms of performance with different IEMs and headphones, DX340 handles a very wide range very well. The background feels clean and dead silent with all but the most hiss-prone of IEMs, and even then, any noise is only noticeable with particularly quiet passages on highly dynamic classic music and not on most other genres. Even without being plugged in, DX340 does pretty well with a broad range of headphones, but with the power adapter, it’s as good as many desktop options for high-end headphones. Basically, With the power adapter it’s perfect for the Dan Clark E3, but not quite up to task with the HIFIMAN Susvara.
Comparison: Astell&Kern SP3000M
We recently did a video featuring a comparison between a number of DAPs in the under $2000 price range, so I wanted to compare DX340 with something that wasn’t featured in that, to get another gauge of DX340’s sound. So I grabbed the Astell&Kern SP3000M.
In a lot of ways, these DAPs are about as far apart as you can get: SP3000M is small, light, and uses a proprietary, locked-down OS, while DX340 is big, heavy, and uses standard Android, but once you get past those practical aspects, you’ll find more similarities than you might expect. In terms of sound, SP3000 (and subsequently SP3000M) was already a touch more reference and less “romantic” than its predecessor the SP2000, and with DX340’s H2 Harmonic leaning slightly towards Astell&Kern territory, they almost meet sonically in the middle – but not quite.
Both DAPs have little dash of smoothness and warmth mixed in with their reference detail and accuracy, but SP3000M is still a touch warmer than even the H2 Harmonic. Where DX340 really challenges SP3000M though is in the soundstage. DX340 is one of very few DAPs that actually beat SP3000M in terms of the soundstage width and three-dimensionality. In the imaging though, SP3000M does a better job of balancing the sense of space with the sense of tactile, holographic presentation of instruments. DX340 always feels just a little more diffuse than SP3000M.
This really speaks volumes about DX340’s capabilities, because it’s really neck and neck with SP3000M in terms of detail and resolution – and can even exceed its soundstage in some cases – but really only comes up short by a few percentage points in the imaging. When you take into account the technical aspects of the player itself, iBasso again demonstrates the level of value that it can provide in its high end DAPs.
Final Thoughts
Of any player I’ve used, nothing else has felt like it matches the sound quality and refinement of flagship players like SP3000 along with the power and versatility of “powerhouse” players like FiiO M17 and Astell&Kern’s KANN series. The physical design, UI, hardware performance, and sound quality all display top of the line quality, making DX340 the best all-around player for the money on the market right now.
