I don’t have the DC03 ATM to do a direct comparison but from memory I would dare to say that the two dongles are close enough.

iBasso DC05 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps iBasso DC05 Review - Top Audiophile Reviews Dacs | Daps | Amps

This is because the treble isn’t necessarily aggressive, but the midrange has that “iBasso house sound”, of being live, energetic and punchy. The DC05 features a parallel dual DAC chipset configuration with two high-performance ES9219C to achieve better SNR and THD. iBasso comes back to the entry-level to help music lovers enjoy their passion, DC05 being a 69 USD Dongle DAC/AMP with a Dual ES9219C DAC, and capable of decoding MQA up to 16X, and 140mW output power. I have greatly enjoyed my time with the DC05 and the truth is that from one point onwards the evaluation duties took a second place as I found myself sitting back, listening to my favorite tunes.All of those were easily driven by DC05, and I couldn’t notice any hissing or background noise with any of them, but I could notice excellent control, low distortion, and a good overall instrument separation with all of them.

iBasso DC05 DAC/AMP Dongle – Power For Androids iBasso DC05 DAC/AMP Dongle – Power For Androids

PRaT, Texturization, Detail, Resolution, Dynamics, Impact, and overall tonality are all revealed by those songs. It has up to 140mW output power rating at 16Ω of load, at 32Ω DC05 provides up to 93mW of power, which is more than enough to power your IEMs and low-power requiring headphones without trouble.The sound is actually fairly similar, and both are pretty peppy, pretty forward, lively and punchy, and also dynamic. Treble is extended, sounding lively and agile with excessive energy but without any disturbing sharpness. It is airy and clean with good levels of resolution and fine detail and scales quite well with better earphones that are highly resolving.

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If an item weighs more than 9 pounds, we won’t be able to ship to these addresses because of our current courier agreements.It is a somewhat different presentation, the DC03 is slightly more polite and laid back where the DC05 is more upfront, lively, detailed and a touch more clean with better overall layering and control throughout the whole range. The sound is crystal clear, crisp and tonally neutral yet pleasant and enjoyable with all kinds of music.

IBASSO DC05 Portable USB DAC/AMP - SHENZHENAUDIO IBASSO DC05 Portable USB DAC/AMP - SHENZHENAUDIO

From strong foundations our product range has rapidly expanded, being the first company to introduce new manufacturers and revolutionary products on countless occasions. I have tested the iBasso DC05 with their own ITX01, FiiO FD3, DUNU Falcon Pro and with the Sennheiser HD660S that did an excellent job in driving them with ease and headroom. The total frequency range is rated to be between 20Hz and 40kHz, enough to impress both humans and serpent people. DC05 features a premium Dual DAC chipset with two high-performance ES9219C DAC chips from Sabre Technologies.The bass of DC05 is enhanced a bit above what I would consider purely neutral, having a strong bottom end extension and impact. This may be partially the reason why I wasn’t reminded to review anything from DC01 and until now, as I understand the previous series had lower driving power. The dynamic range is excellent for such a dongle and the DC05 is doing a great job in presenting large scale works in a grand scale manner. Speaking of which, I’ve been using DC05 with a vast collection of IEMs for writing today’s review, including Campfire Holocene, Tin T3 Plus, Dunu Falcon Pro, IMR Audio Ozar, and Earsonics Corsa. If you have any feedback, suggestions, or problems with the courier of your shipment, please feel free to submit a support ticket via the "Contact Us" button below.