HiFiMan HM-101 Portable USB Sound Card

Picked this up to fix a problem with an old XP laptop with a noisy soundcard....didn't quite fix that issue (not the products fault) but does sound waaaay better than the built in headphone jack on my Latitude. Honestly this is without a doubt a great upgrade to any business class laptop and probably most consumer class laptops.So why the 3 stars? well the headphone jack is noisy, whatever amp they used they should have spent a couple extra cents. Luckily the line out port is quiet and the DAC has a nice sound that I find pleasing, and is plenty loud on my headphones. I havent quite put my finger on it yet but there seems to be some coloration in the tunes...maybe I'm just getting old and ears are giving out.All in all it's a keeper and a pretty good deal for the price, it really will work well for what I need it for. It sounds fantastic paired with my laptop and pushing tunes through my Rotel to my second fav speakers, and makes the headphones I have sound a little better. But in this price bracket there are USB cards with digital outputs plus the headphone jack, so your $20 buds sound better and you could offload the signal to a better DAC if you wanted. So I guess just pick what you need, it sounds great with all the headphones I have and even hooked up to a pretty nice rig for stereo, if you need a digital out or if your cans are hard to drive you might want to look elsewhere So it might deserve another star for sounding pretty good but you decide I guess. I'm not bashing it by any means.

Prior reviews state you hear things you never knew were on some of your favorite tracks. Well, it's true. The Hifiman USB DAC/Headphone amplifier delivers sound superior to most sound cards. I have a new Dell LS 702, supposedly tweaked for audio/video playback. This $39 matchbook sized piece of equipment bests the Waves Audio and the Soundblaster X-FI in my 2 week old system (I paid a pretty price too).Some of the vibrant audio must be attributed to the fact there is a headphone amplifier, I told myself. I have a Fiio Headphone amp, so I plugged it in and did some A/B testing vs. the HiFiMan, and whatever they have inside the Hifiman box is now my preferred listening method. I am anxious to pair the Hifiman up with some nice powered speakers to see how much of this difference disappears in full room audio vs. headphones.One thing that kept me from giving the product 5 stars is the slight bit of interference you hear during silence at beginning, during, or at the end of a particular track. This may be attributable to interference from the computer. I am going to use a longer length adapter cord to separate the little box from the computer a farther distance. With or without this distortion, I am sold on the Hifiman, and it being my first step into the world of DACS, etc. I feel it won't be long until I sink money into a more substantial product.My testing was with iTunes format files downloaded directly and tracks ripped from CDs using iTunes, both at 256kbps. Other reviews talk of the user playing lossless files, and filetypes that are foreign to me. I'm just an average Joe who enjoys good sounding audio, and know enough to spot the differences. Black Eyed Peas, Shania Twain, Pink Floyd, and George Clinton tracks were exclusively used for testing. In all tracks subjected to the A/B comparison, I was able to discern a notable improvement in fidelity, vibrance, and the ability to follow individual instruments whether it be drums, bass, brass,or background vocals. Like I said above, things appeared on these tracks that I never knew were there, whether it be a background vocal hook, the drummer's use of a cowbell, whatever.I am happy with this purchase, and think most of you out there would be also.

[The future of the computer audiophile is the USB/DAC.] My story: After getting some "good" speakers and going down that equipment hoarding route, I came across a revelation. It's all about the source (or rather the conversion of digital to hearable)! The last piece of equipment I picked up cued me to what I believe is the future of audio, for the masses: the USB DAC. I picked up a 10 year old Denon CD/DVD player with Burr Brown 1791 or something DACs and played some of my current CD's and CD's from MP3's. What was amazing is that some CD's were from not so great MP3 files. The Denon sounded so smooth, delicate and "REAL." I could not believe my ears. When I played the MP3's directly from my laptop, they sounded just average, compressed and scratchy, but when I played the burned CD on the Denon, it was like magic. With 8GB of music on my computer, I did not want to haul out all my CD's just to hear the sound quality. I wanted to play them directly. Well, now I am playing them to my headphones vs. speakers because I need the sound isolation to enjoy the quality. If you are playing music on speakers, you need a quiet space otherwise, how can you enjoy it? Anyways, this is where the USB DAC comes into play.The HIFIMAN 101 the cheapest one out there right now, coming from a respected line of audio equipment. I will say this: it is not as great sounding as my Denon CD player because I believe it uses a cheaper DAC, but it is noticeably better than the stock laptop output, but only if you have isolating headphones to enjoy the boost in quality. For me, the sound feels more detailed with a wider sound stage, but is lacking a little in the warmth/analogue smoothness of the creamy BB1791 (?). Sound from my laptop seems more compressed and narrow. Actually, it is a little difficult to hear the improvement over the laptop output because you need sound isolation, but I am now a believer in the USB DAC! Since music is becoming more and more digitized (web, MP3, FLAC, etc.) we need DACs to convert that music to our headphones or speakers. It's like we are in the digital stone age!!! (HAHA, pick up a decent CD player and find out for yourself- nobody wants them.)EDIT: A lot of the recent laptops from Dell, HP with 'Premium Sound' have better DACs than most older laptops. The Hifiman 101 only makes sense with an older less capable machine because with a better laptop, the difference in quality will be hard to distinguish.First, a prerequisite must do: Foobar + WASAPI (not wasabi) thing. If you don't get dramatically better sound, then you need this HIFIMAN 101. If you get better sound then be prepared to spend more to get more.

This works great when using with B&O Form 2i headphones, nice and clean sound

Attenzione, il prodotto corrispondente a questo articolo non è una cuffia ma un ampli cuffia portatile.Io l'ho preso al volo pensando si trattasse di un offerta volante a prezzo stracciato.Devo dire però che a parte l'errore iniziale , il fornitore si è reso molto disponibile a rimborsarmi.Spero cancellino l'errore prima che qualcun'altro lo acquisti.

installed this on my win7 PC(NEVER will get that monstrous 10, which is as clunky to navigate as a Ford Model-T)it's a beauty in every way

DAC USB détecté et opérationnel de suite sous mac OSXRempli bien son rôle avec une sortie son de bonne qualité.Branché sur ampli Luxman et enceintes vintages JMLab en sortie ligne et le petit plus il reste une sortie pour le casque.