Put your records through a robot with this distinctive desktop DAC

This little robot has come not to enslave humanity, but to make our music sound a bit better.

Designed to sit on your desktop, the xDuoo DM-01 is a combined headphone amp and DAC with tube amplification and an output of up to 1,500mW. That means it can drive headphones from 16 to 600 ohms.

The setup here is a hybrid tube/transistor architecture featuring a 12AU7 tube and a CS43131 DAC. There's support for Hi-Res Audio to PCM 32Bit/384kHz, DSD256, and MQA 8X, and the Qualcomm Bluetooth chip offers Bluetooth 5.4 with LE audio, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and LDAC. You can also use it as a USB DAC for your PC.

Is it one of the best headphone DACs? I haven't heard it, so I can't answer that. But I'm pretty sure it's the best headphone DAC that looks like a cute, retro robot.

xDuoo DM-01: key features and pricing

The aluminium casing doesn't have much in the way of ports – there's a headphone socket on the side and an aux out, USB in, and power socket for the 12V DC power supply on the back.

What looks like a display on the front isn't, it's just a place to put fun stickers. However, what look like cosmetic eyes do have a function – they change colours to indicate sampling rates and Bluetooth format, so for example, white means LDAC and blue is MQA.

The xDuoo DM-01 has already received a warm reception on the Head-fi forums, where poster AnyDave says, "I don't in any way need this, but....... I need this."

Vaporsynthwave agrees: "Much respect to xDuoo for bringing a bit of fun and whimsy to our often overly-serious hobby."

And at least one poster has already picked a name: "I'm buying it merely for fun," Cecala says. "I'll be calling mine Robbie."

The xDuoo DM-01 is available from Linsoul.com for £217.87 / $279 / AU$443.30.