The 9038SG3 from E1DA is a high performance USB DAC and portable symmetrical headphone amplifier combo. Compact and lightweight, it nevertheless incorporates excellent components to ensure excellent sound reproduction, marked by incredible precision and richness.

For example, its aluminium shell conceals a DAC ES9038Q2M chip supporting high sample rates up to 32bit 384kHz PCM and DSD256. The 9038SG3 works without battery and is powered directly by your playback device (smartphone, DAP...) but offers a particularly low power consumption. The input is on USB-C connector where the output is on a balanced 2.5mm jack plug (pinout Astell & Kern). The USB interface chip is a ComTrue CT7601 with 100% proprietary code to maximize Android and DSD compatibility.

The instrument's measurements are particularly good, with a wide frequency response from 10Hz to 100kHz, an SNR of -123dBA, a dynamic range of 123dBA, or a THD of only 0.0002% (@ 32Ω, 1kHz, -3dBFS). Under these circumstances, the distortion is almost indistinguishable from electronic noise.

Pinout Balanced Jack 2.5mm (Astell & Kern)

E1DA Tweak9038 App

E1DA's Tweak9038 application allows you to control harmonic distortion compensation, select a Nyquist filter, manage the Master Clock frequency and much more. Most of the parameters can be set dynamically depending on the hardware volume, audio data rate, etc. An ideal tool to adapt the sound reproduction of your DAC according to your listening and your hardware.

Test by MACFAY

In short it is a gold nugget. unfortunately exclusively devoted to symmetrical headphones. But for those who have it, there is no hesitation, it is quite possibly the best value for money right now.

A-A FFT Spectrum Analysis : -3dBFS, 32Ω

A-A FFT Spectrum Analysis : -6dBFS, 32Ω

A-A FFT Spectrum Analysis : -10dBFS, 32Ω

A-A FFT Spectrum Analysis : -20dBFS, 32Ω

Frequency response : PCM 32bit 384kHz

Output impedance 1mΩ 1µV

Crosstalk -126dB @ 1kHz 32Ω

Dynamic range AES17 32bit 384kHz 123dB(A)
SNR 123dB(A)

THD-N

No load = Blue curve
32Ω = Red curve