iBasso DC-Elite | Hi-Res Balanced Portable DAC and Amp

For my first listen with dc elite I paired it with Thieaudio mk3. I played song after song. Genre to genre. I kept trying to find fault. Three hours later… It sounded great with everything. Clean crisp punchy. Dc elite has become my go to for everything. The hype is real!!! One of the best purchases I have made in my audio journey. If you’re on the fence take the leap. Blooms customer service is top notch! They go out of their way to take care of your audio needs and wants.

So I’ve been messing with dongles for awhile. My favorite that I owned was dragonfly red . I came across some reviews of the dc elite and decided to give it a chance. I will say it’s one of the decisions I’ve made. It blew me away first time I listened to it. The best I can describe it is the music is played just as it supposed to be nothing extra.i don’t feel I have to get something better that’s more expensive this fulfilled my need and im good with it. I used a aful p8 iem and it was outstanding if u have neutral iem or headphone it will prob do well with it.

So far it’s everything it was described to be. Far and above the Questyle M15i and Fiii KA13. I smiled when I saw candy in the box. I was reminded of Sweetwater purchases. Great service guys!

I have been using this dongle mainly with Hifiman Arya Organic, and sometimes with Ananda. I tested it with multiple sources (with and without power bank), with various amplifiers as well as its own amp (both Balanced and 3.5mm).
While sources and amps affected sound quite a lot, the characteristics of the sound I describe below still applied in most combinations. I find most of my complaints and likings are determined by the DAC part of this device.

Pros:
- Very clean sounding
- Very good timbre
- Pinpoint imaging
- More than sufficient power for my easy to drive planars

Cons:
- Lack of air (probably because of lack of treble extension)
- Bit too sharp sounding sometimes
- Seems to have more accent on upper mids than the lower mids

The biggest issue for me with this device is treble extension. It sounds too bright but also lacks treble at the same time (paradoxically). While the soundstage is quite big, it does not give the sense of space because there is no air, as if it removes echoes and reverbs from sound.

On the other hand, we get very well localized images, with precise position. The images are so well defined that you can almost see the sound. They seem to have density, as if they are tiny three-dimensional bubbles with their own mass.

The vocals are ridiculously clean and non-sibilant, but lack a bit of low-mid body and texture. Sometimes they sound majestic, but other times might feel too thin. If it had a bit more low-mids, I would call the vocals perfect.

The bass is tight and clean, with good punch. The quantity of the bass never felt too much, nor too little. Although with direct comparisons with warmer DAPs (Fiio M23 and Sony ZX300), sometimes more subbass would be desirable. But again, I would not read too much into this, since during long sessions of listening, bass quantity seemed perfect.

Overall, given the glowing reviews, I expected this to sound a bit better. Everyone saying it sounds better than any other dongle or DAP below 1000 USD set my expectations too high, but comparing to my other portable sources (Fiio M23, iBasso DX160, Cayin RU6), it is not clearly better than any of them, although I would not say it is worse either. Just better at some things and worse at others. While I still very much like this device, I am not sure if it justifies its premium price tag.

I’ve been using this excellent DC Elite dongle for a few weeks now. I love the sound this little powerhouse produces . I’ve decided to sell my ifi Go Bar Kensei. The iBasso to my ears sound more realistic and natural to me. The Kensei is an excellent sounding dongle that has plenty of power and settings to fool with. The DC Elite gets plenty loud for me and has a simpler plug and play functionality where I can just listen to awesome sounding music without adjusting the settings every song. You can’t go wrong with either but I’m sticking with my iBasso DC Elite.