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Review – Acer A315-24P-R7VH AMD Ryzen 3 7320U Mendocino

Overall Build Impressions

The Acer A315-24P-R7VH is a fresh update to the Aspire 3 lineup that comes with the new AMD Ryzen 3 7320U (Mendocino) APU. The last Acer laptop I had was a Timeline AS3810TZ over 10 years ago and it’s nice to see how far they have come! This A315-24P is a budget laptop and you can definitely tell where they cut corners, but even compared to the previous generation Aspire 3 A315-23, there are some updates that make this budget laptop worth the upgrade. This laptop is very much plastic construction (1.69kg/3.7lbs)and there is noticeable deck flex, but the display hinges are sturdy and the display doesn’t flex too much (I’ve had worse). There is only one vent that faces the rear and vents in front of the screen when the display is open. There are four rubber feet on the bottom with two small nubs on the display that lift the rear of the laptop when you open the screen past 90 degrees. What appears to be vents on the bottom are not all cut out, only half of the slots are actually cut all the way through to allow airflow, the rest are just for design. The laptop ships with a Delta 45W power brick which is very compact and lightweight (8.4oz).

Screen

The screen is a 15.6” 16:9 1920×1080 IPS display from BOE in a matte variety. There is some bleed toward the top left edge but overall it is a pleasant display to use. Brightness is plenty even in a well-lit room and even though it only displays 51% of the sRGB palette, there’s no PWM dimming and it’s very easy on the eyes. I would definitely prefer a better display that could show 100% sRGB, but for a cheap laptop, this display looks a lot better than some I’ve used before.

Performance/Benchmarks

3DMark Time Spy v1.2 – 602 Overall, 526 Graphics Score, 3343 CPU Score

PassMark v10.1 – 2565 PassMark Rating, 9235 CPU Mark, 309 2D Graphics Mark, 1224 3D Graphics Mark, 2009 Memory Mark, 11524 Disk Mark

CPU-Z V2.0.1 – 401 Single Thread, 1965 Multi Thread

Cinebench R23 – 1035 Single Core, 4769 Multi Core

CrystalDiskMark v8.0.4 – 1203.26 MB/s Write, 1759.58 MB/s Read (SEQ1M Q8T1)

*Note – All Windows 11 Updates and latest drivers were installed prior to running benchmarks. The laptop came out of the box needing an hour or so of updates to get everything up to the latest along with switching out of Windows 11 S-mode and removing a decent amount of preinstalled bloat.

Temperatures

The Acer A315-24P comes with a very basic cooling setup with only a single fan (although high blade count) and a single heatpipe for the AMD APU. There is no cooling of VRM’s or any heatsink provided for the ram or ssd. Under load, the CPU hits the max 4.1GHz turbo and is able to maintain a steady 3.7GHz clock. The core temperatures reached 91C with a max of 27W going to the CPU package. The fan can get noisy under load, but most of the time it runs very quietly. The body of the laptop never gets very warm and it is no problem to use on your lap.

Power Consumption/Battery Life

Using my Kill-A-Watt, I measured the idle power consumption at the wall at approximately 4.5W. The draw on load during the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark was measured at a max of 39W during the CPU test for a few seconds before dropping down to a fairly steady 35W for the majority of the test. The power brick got slightly warm to the touch, but never excessive or uncomfortable. If you are charging the laptop, it will pull 30W while idle and charging. If you are using the supplied power brick and the laptop is charging while under load, it can pull just over 46W at the wall. I did test with a 65W USB C PD power adapter and I was able to see it pull up to 59W while under load and charging, so the 45W adapter shipped with the laptop might be a little undersized if you are really throwing a workload on the CPU and charging the battery at the same time.

Under light load (web browsing, etc), I saw the battery drop to 74% after 3 hours of screen on time, so I’d say an estimate of 12 hours is not unreasonable for battery life. Obviously, if you are putting more of a load on the system, that will drop quite a bit.

Internals

Looking at the internals of this laptop, you can see the only two upgradeable parts. The 128GB SSD is a 2280 format Samsung PM991a PCIe 3.0 NVME. The 8GB DDR5 is soldered to the board with no slots for expansion or replacement. Wi-Fi is handled by a Mediatek MT7921 card. One really frustrating thing about this laptop is that the M.2 NVMe doesn’t run at full speed. I swapped out the Samsung PM991a for an SK Hynix Gold P31 and both top out around 1780MB/s read (SK Hynix was faster writes at 1715MB/s). CrystalDiskInfo shows transfer mode PCIe 3.0 x2, not PCIe 3.0 x4. Confirmed in HWInfo64 as well, only slots available are a PCIe 3.0 x1 (for WiFi card) and PCIe 3.0 x2 for the SSD.

Connectivity

On the left side of the laptop is a barrel plug for power (3.0×1.1mm), a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-C port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port. On the right side is a security slot, a second USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and a headset jack, along with two status LED’s. There is no card reader present.

I was able to connect the laptop to my Dell P2422HE monitor with the Type-C connection and got full functionality (DisplayPort, USB 3.0 hub, gigabit Ethernet, and 65W PD charging). Having the ability to use one connection to dock and power this laptop is really nice!

Keyboard/Touchpad

There is quite a bit of flex in the keyboard deck when pressing down, though it’s plenty usable. Compared to some cheaper Dell Inspiron laptops I’ve used in the past (3000 series from 5 or 6 years ago), it’s about the same, maybe a little better. Dell and HP business laptops are much nicer to type on with better feel and feedback. I’m used to mechanical keyboards with a Redragon K589 as my daily keyboard, so most laptop keyboards are a compromise to me anyway. The keyboard is not backlit and has a strange texture to the keycaps. The travel is very short, so it may take some time to get used to.

The touchpad is quite large and has gesture capability. The surface is not very low friction though, so it can skip a bit as your finger drags across the surface. It requires a bit of force to press the right/left click functions, so this can be a little annoying. The click is firm and quiet though with no rattle or bounce.

Webcam/Speakers

There is a very basic 720p webcam that is full of grain and noise. The white balance seems to be a bit off, as everything had a yellowish tint. It works in a pinch, but don’t expect much from it even in good light, much less when the lighting is dim.

The laptop has two down-firing speakers toward the front which have decent sound, with the exception of not much bass at all. Highs are clear and mids are present with no distortion noticed. They do not get very loud, but again, I’ve heard much worse at this price point.

Network Transfer Speed

This laptop comes with a Mediatek MT7921 tri-band Wi-Fi 6E card. I connected to my AX router and was able to sustain 55MB/s transfer from my NAS to the laptop from approximately 10ft distance through one wall. I am able to hit over 100MB/s with an Intel AX200 card in another laptop, so this card or the PCIe x1 connection seems to be hindering it’s full performance.

Final Comments

Overall, for a budget laptop, this is a nice machine. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not and gives you a lot for the price. I do wish the battery was bigger and the iGPU was more powerful but that’s AMD, not Acer. The NVMe slot being limited to PCIe 3.0 x2 is a really frustrating issue to me, though. At current MSRP, I feel like it’s a fair enough value, though if it dips to $250-$300, I think that’s a more accurate price for the performance you get. If you watch sales, you can get a much more powerful machine for around $400.

Amazfit GTS 4 Mini Review

First Impressions

I got the Amazfit GTS 4 Mini as an upgrade from my current GTS 2 Mini, as there were a few features that I really felt were lacking from the GTS 2 Mini. I also have a Samsung Galaxy Active 2, which I use a bit and can compare against the Amazfits I have. My impression of the GTS 4 Mini is that it is a very nice, slim watch with an excellent screen and great battery life. The UI has been completely overhauled over the GTS 2 Mini and seems a little cleaner and easier to read at a glance.

Screen

The screen on the GTS 4 Mini (1.65” 384×336) is slightly larger than the GTS 2 Mini (1.55” 354×306), which also increases the case size slightly as well from 40.5mm x 35.8mm to 41.8mm x 36.66mm. In daily usage, there isn’t much difference between the two as for visibility or readability, as both are quite good. The AMOLED screen on the GTS 4 Mini is definitely a major step up from the TFT screen of the Bip series (Bip 3 Pro). Text is very clear, brightness is easily visible in daylight outdoors, and touches are recognized well.

Notifications

Finally you can clear notifications from the watch and have it cleared on the phone, too! On the GTS 2 Mini, it does not clear it from the phone, so I have to clear from the watch, plus clear from the phone. I do like some notifications on my Galaxy Active 2 a little better, as motion alerts from my Wyze camera will actually show a snapshot of the video on my Galaxy Active 2 on the notification, where the GTS 4 Mini just shows the text of the motion alert.

Negatives

Some watchfaces aren’t fully developed. For example, the “Future Impressions” watchface has a lot of useful info, but the time shows “AM”, no matter if it’s actually morning or evening. This is basic watch functionality, why is this an issue???
Customization – There are 49 watchfaces currently and most of them cannot be customized to show the data you want. You are stuck with the color and whatever data that face shows. Samsung is much better about this, with most watchfaces letting you edit the Complications to show the data you actually want to see.
App Store – This is borderline for me. The GTS 2 Mini didn’t have any App Store functionality, but with the apps available for the GTS 4 Mini (Brush tooth guide, Color Blindness check, Water Time), this seems like a pretty worthless addition at the moment. Unless the selection drastically improves, this is useless.
Weather sync – Still no way to set the update frequency or manually refresh the weather. This is such a simple thing, why is this an issue?

Upgrade over GTS 2 Mini?

So, the main upgrades of the GTS 4 Mini over the GTS 2 Mini that I feel like are worth mentioning are:

Calendar integration – Finally I can see my calendar items! No calendar integration was a HUGE issue for me on the GTS 2 Mini and one of the main reasons I started wearing my Galaxy Active 2 more.
Battery – 270mah vs 220mah. Though with the bigger screen, this only results in 1 day more in the Typical (15 days vs 14 days) and Heavy (8 days vs 7 days) use patterns.
BioTracker 3.0 – The sensor array has been updated over the BioTracker 2 on the GTS 2 mini, but I don’t really see any improvement in day-to-day use. Compared to my Samsung Galaxy Active 2, both BioTracker versions are not quite as accurate.
GPS systems – The GTS 4 Mini supports all 5 GPS systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BDS, and QZSS). For me, this is a non-issue, but depending on what country you are in, this could be nice vs the GTS 2 Mini with only GPS and GLONASS. Both do a good job of tracking walks and runs on open trails, but both come up a bit short for me when mountain biking on off-road trails in wooded areas.

Overall

At the current price of $119.99 on Amazon, this is a hard recommendation from me. You can get a new open box Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 for $130 on eBay, or a Galaxy Active 2 for well under $100. The GTS 2 Mini regularly goes on sale and can be had for around $80 or less. While the GTS 4 Mini is a good watch overall, I feel like you could spend basically the same money on something with much better functionality, or spend a lot less on the GTS 2 Mini and basically have an almost as good experience.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Z6GMPC6?tag=tdb010-20

Acer Aspire TC-1760-UA92 i5-12400 Review

Overall Build Impressions

The Acer Aspire TC-1760-UA92 is a fairly small desktop computer with a budget build. The case is nothing much to write home about with no fans present at all for airflow. There is a large vented section on the side above the CPU fan and a mount on the rear for an 80mm or 92mm case fan, but the front of the case is completely solid with no venting at all. There are three expansion slots in the rear for PCIe cards. Ports are limited to a single USB 3.0 Type A and a Type C port on the front, one USB 3.0 Type A and four USB 2.0 (???) on the rear. At least there are two HDMI ports for outputs, but port selection is very limited on this desktop. There is a slim DVD burner on the front, which is getting rarer to see these days. Overall, this is a very lightweight, budget build that might be ok for light use for someone just needing a basic machine to browse the web or do finances on, but not recommended for more serious use or a younger user who might want to play a game or two.

Performance/Benchmarks

3DMark Time Spy v1.2 662 Overall, 572 Graphics Score, 6301 CPU Score

PassMark v10.1 3097 PassMark Rating, 16936 CPU Mark, 337 2D Graphics Mark, 1452 3D Graphics Mark, 2505 Memory Mark, 17972 Disk Mark

CPU-Z V2.0.1 680 Single Thread, 4961 Multi Thread

Cinebench R23 1703 Single Core, 10730 Multi Core

CrystalDiskMark v8.0.4 1808.77 MB/s Write, 2469.20 MB/s Read (SEQ1M Q8T1)

Windows 11 Boot Time 11.67s (from power off to desktop)

*Note – All Windows 11 Updates and latest drivers were installed prior to running benchmarks. I removed as much bloatware (Norton and some other applications) as I could before running any benchmarks.

Temperatures

As I mentioned earlier, the Acer TC-1760-UA92 does not have any fans mounted in the case, relying only on the fan on the CPU heatsink to move air around. Due to a low PL1 TDP of 65W and a PL2 that doesn’t seem to go over 80W, temperatures are kept in check, with a maximum temp of 79C observed during benchmarking. Idle temps are around 31C and the system is quiet in most all use cases.

Power Consumption

Using my Kill-A-Watt, I measured the idle power consumption at the wall at 10.5W. The draw on load during the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark was measured at a max of 97W during the CPU test for several seconds before dropping down to a fairly steady 60W for the majority of the test.

Internals/Hardware

Looking at the internals of this desktop, you can see a lot of cost cutting. The motherboard is a custom layout with two ram slots (occupied by 4GB and 8GB Micron DDR4 3200 CL22 sticks in an odd 12GB total dual-channel setup), a single M.2 2280 NVMe slot with a WD SN530 512GB SSD, an M.2 for WiFi populated with the Intel AX201NGW card, two PCIe expansion slots (x16 and x1), and two open SATA ports for drives. The Intel H610 chipset is used here, so PCIe support is limited to PCIe 3.0 only. There is no cooling whatsoever on the VRMs, and the heatsink is a custom basic aluminum downflow unit. There is a free fan header if you wanted to add an 80mm or 92mm fan to the rear of the case. The power supply is a custom 300W 80+ Bronze unit from LiteOn that supplies two 12V 16A rails. Upgradeability is next to nothing on this machine, so don’t count on being able to add much of anything later. Most parts are replaceable, but if the motherboard or power supply goes out, there is zero chance of being able to replace with off the shelf parts, with second hand eBay from other broken machines being your only potential source.

Network Transfer Speed

The Acer TC-1760-UA92 comes with an Intel AX201NGW dual-band Wi-Fi card. I connected to my AX router and was able to sustain 70MB/s transfer from my NAS to the desktop from approximately 10ft distance through one wall.

Accessories

The Acer TC-1760-UA92 comes with a very basic thin wired keyboard and wired mouse in the box. While they are functional, they seem cheaply made. The keyboard is very flexy and does not provide a very stable platform. The mouse feels ok, but these are two items I personally would be upgrading from the start.

Other Notes

The front I/O only gives you a single USB 3.0 Type A and Type C port, headphone jack, and microphone input. The spot for an SD card reader is a plastic filler piece; there is no reader behind, so just something to be aware of. There are mounts for up to two additional hard drives and screws and vibration dampers are included to mount one. There is even SATA power run to the bracket and a spare SATA cable included in the box. If you want a second SATA hard drive, you will have to get your own power cable or SATA power splitter, as there is not another plug available as it ships.

Final Comments

At the current price of $583 on Amazon, I’d have a hard time recommending this machine. For around $400, you could build a machine with standard, off-the-shelf parts that would allow you to upgrade or replace components if needed, and be much higher quality to begin with. For someone just needing something basic, this desktop might be ok for a couple years, but looking at the quality, I’m not sure I’d trust it much longer than that. If this desktop goes on sale for around $400, I think it could be a good budget system for someone needing a basic PC.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V1LKTPH?tag=tdb010-20

ISDT 608AC — QC Issues

The ISDT 608AC is a popular 6S ac/dc Li-Po charger. With AC input, it is limited to 60W, but in the field you can charge 200w with a xt60 power cable. It has several modes: Charging, Storage, Destroy, and DC Power Supply. Firmware updates are easily applied with the micro-usb port. I liked it enough to buy a second unit — and then things went wrong.

Charging mode has worked great as expected. I’ve been using it with a HGLC balance board for my larger batteries and a 1s series board for my whoop batteries.

But after flying my quads, I need to use the storage mode on each individual battery; that’s where the second unit came in. However, the discharge function on the 2nd unit stopped working in less than 6 months, so storage mode will work only on batteries under storage voltage. This also renders the destroy function inoperable for damaged packs.

The DC Power supply has been quite useful. I’ve used it with a low current limit to test powering up my quad after my questionable soldering repair. I’ve also used it to power a Matek ELRS Receiver to flash firmware before installation. It could even be used to power a TS100 soldering iron on the bench.

One other issue I’ve had is the first unit has a very noisy fan. I am fine ignoring it for now, and eventually I’ll swap the fan out myself. But when I tried contacting ISDT about the failed discharger, they didn’t even respond…

Review – Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 i7-12700H

Overall Build Impressions
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is very sleek and lightweight 14” laptop with a 16:10 screen and an aluminum case. Compared to my Dell Latitude E5470, it’s about .75” narrower, basically the same depth, and a bit slimmer. The Amazon listing says the color is “Atlantic Blue”, but the actual color is “Dark Green”. Either way, the color is very subtle and more of a dark grey-blue-green. As for the design, there are quite a few vents on this laptop with a large vented section on the underside, two rear-facing vents, and a large vent on each side. Port selection is somewhat limited with only 1 USB Type A on each side, a micro-SD slot and 3.5mm headset jack on the right, a full-size HDMI and a single USB C/Thunderbolt 4 port on the left. There is a barrel power connect on the left as well, but the laptop ships with a 90W USB Type C power brick, so unless you have a power brick from another Dell, you are limited to the Thunderbolt 4 port for power.

Screen
The screen is a 14” 16:10 2240×1400 display in a matte variety, or as Dell calls it, ComfortView Plus. There is some bleed toward the upper edge when viewing a black screen with the brightness all the way up, but when viewing any content, the black level, contrast, and colors seem quite good. There is display scaling set to help with normal viewing as the screen is 188PPI and native without scaling makes everything a bit too small for me. Not all applications look the best with scaling applied, so you may run into some situations where text looks a bit fuzzy or menu/window sizing is a little off.

Performance/Benchmarks
3DMark Time Spy v1.2 2021 Overall, 1784 Graphics Score, 8268 CPU Score
PassMark v10.1 4013 PassMark Rating, 23248 CPU Mark, 393 2D Graphics Mark, 3216 3D Graphics Mark, 2941 Memory Mark, 29877 Disk Mark
CPU-Z V2.0.1 697 Single Thread, 7059 Multi Thread
Cinebench R23 1786 Single Core, 14095 Multi Core
CrystalDiskMark v8.0.4 4963.91 MB/s Write, 5275.61 MB/s Read (SEQ1M Q8T1)
*Note – All Windows 11 Updates and latest drivers were installed prior to running benchmarks. The laptop came out of the box needing an hour or so of updates to get everything up to the latest.

Temperatures
The Inspiron 14 Plus comes with a dual-fan setup with large intake vents and several exhaust vents. Temperatures are kept under control mainly with a 45W PL1 setting. While plugged in (not on battery), CPU Package Power hits 80W under load during PL2, at which point Package temperatures hit 95C. After Tau time runs out and it drops to the 45W PL1, temperatures drop down to 76C under load. The bottom of the laptop stays relatively ok, though the section to the rear does get quite warm to the touch. The keyboard deck is never too warm (a problem with my Precision 7560). If you are doing anything intensive, make sure you have the intake/exhaust clear and place on a hard surface, ideally on a desktop and not a lap. The fan noise is kept to a minimum and is not a distraction during most all usage.

Power Consumption/Battery Life
Using my Kill-A-Watt, I measured the idle power consumption at the wall at 8.5W. The draw on load during the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark was measured at a max of 93W during the CPU test for a few seconds before dropping down to a fairly steady 49W-52W for the majority of the test. The power brick got warm to the touch, but never excessive or uncomfortable.

Internals
Looking at the internals of this laptop, you can see the only three upgradeable parts. The SSD is a 2230 format WD SN740 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVME drive with a small copper heat spreader attached. There is only one DDR5 SODIMM slot available to upgrade the memory, as 8GB is onboard. The slot is filled with a Samsung DDR5 4800 stick from the factory. Wi-Fi is handled by an Intel AX211NGW card.

Keyboard/Touchpad
There is quite a bit of flex in the keyboard deck when pressing down compared to my Dell Precision 7730 and Precision 7560, though it’s plenty usable. Compared to some cheaper Dell Inspiron laptops I’ve used in the past (3000 series from 5 or 6 years ago), it’s much improved, though their business laptops are nicer to type on with better feel and feedback. I’m used to mechanical keyboards with an EVGA Z15 as my daily keyboard, so most laptop keyboards are a compromise to me anyway. The keyboard is backlit which makes it much nicer to use in dim lighting. The power button in the top right corner doubles as a fingerprint reader, though I have not set up Windows Hello to try that out.
The touchpad is quite large and is a Precision Touchpad with gesture capability. The surface is low friction and tracking is very good. I have had some issues with taps not registering, though, and the click point for the right/left click is not very well defined. This is pretty standard for clickpads like this, though, and this laptop is better than most with a firm, quiet click and no rattle or bounce. I prefer my Latitude and Precisions with separate left/middle/right mouse buttons below the trackpad and wish Dell would bring this back to the Inspiron line.

Webcam/Speakers
This laptop does have a physical shutter on the webcam for privacy, which is nice to see making its way onto the Inspiron lineup. Dell finally introduced a 1080p webcam to the Inspiron making a nice upgrade from the standard 720p that has been used for many years. The sharpness still isn’t quite up there with a standalone 1080p webcam, but lighting is handled well and the two microphones do a good job of picking up clear audio.
The Inspiron 14 Plus has two down-firing speakers toward the front and give a very filling sound, with the exception of not much bass at all. Highs are very clear and mids are present with no distortion noticed.

Network Transfer Speed
The Inspiron 14 Plus comes with an Intel AX211NGW tri-band Wi-Fi card. I connected to my AX router and was able to sustain 60MB/s transfer from my NAS to the laptop from approximately 10ft distance through one wall.

Final Comments
This is a very nice laptop and seems like a very solid choice, with a few personal quibbles. I think the chassis would be a little better suited to something like the i7-1260P (28W, TDP Up of 64W) where it could run in the higher performance TDP setting longer. Putting an H-series 45W, even with the TDP Up limited to 80W, it drops down the 45W very quickly and performance does suffer. The i7-12700H can be configured up to a max TDP Up of 115W, which is way more than this chassis can handle, so there is some performance left on the table with this processor that other laptops are able to make more use of. That said, as a whole, this laptop is very nice and would be a great choice for someone needing a powerful, compact laptop with an excellent screen. Amazon had this laptop for $1105 during Prime Day 2022, and that seems like a fair price to me. Dell currently lists this laptop for $1399 direct and at that price, I would probably be looking at other options (Latitude 5420/5430 for example).

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-Plus-7420-Laptop/dp/B09YBS4TVK?tag=tdb010-20/

1More Triple Driver

After a long break I’m back — with a review of the 1More triple driver IEM.

Most everyone knows about these and how highly rated they are. I thought I should give them a try based on reviews — and that was a mistake.

These are nice comfortable units. I do have a dislike for any IEM without a replaceable cable. But the selection of tips, the packaging, and even the cable is all very nice. I gave up after 30 seconds or so, and let them break in for 4 days straight. I hoped about 100 hours of playback would see an improvement.

It isn’t that the sound is horrible, but it does not live up to the reviews and promises. The bass is strong, and the mids are a bit muddy to me and the highs roll off. The sound stage could use some improvement as well; it is all very dull and dreary. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from my first multi-driver IEM.

Something seemed familiar; I dug out old IEMs to compare it to. Surprise — they compare to my old Logitech UE500s. After quite a bit of A-B comparison, they sound almost perfectly identical. I’m not sure how a triple driver can match an old cheap single driver so well. It doesn’t seem possible and I wouldn’t have believed it. This is not at all what I was hoping for and it really felt like false advertising to me. Could it be a defective unit? I don’t know, but I’m not willing to gamble on their products again.

Micca Origin+

I recently bought the Micca Origin+ to keep on my desk and free my Fiio X3 for portable use again. This is a USB powered DAC with pre-out and headphone out — both 1/4 and 1/8 jacks! (The volume knob controls the output from the pre-out which is perfect for my powered monitors.) On the front are 2 switches, one to select gain and one to switch between pre-out and headphone out. Being able to leave both headphones connected and monitors on has turned out to be quite nice.

On the back there is also an optical input should you wish to hook up another device such as a Playstation or Xbox, a switch to select optical or usb mode, and a dc power jack that is only needed when using an optical input without usb to power the device. (One day I’m going to run an optical cable from my home theater amp and use this at the couch for late night concerts and gaming.)

The build quality is excellent, the switches have a great feel, and the volume knob is solid. The sound is very neutral — I almost miss the warm tint from the Fiio x3 with the flat Mackie HR824 monitors.

Downsides? The driver installation is a pain because of the unsigned drivers. (Great instructions are included) Because of this, it isn’t something I’d ever throw in my bag to take with me to work or with one of my laptops. (Granted I have a Fiio x3 for portable use.) If you use desktop speakers with a separate power amp with volume control, you may prefer line-out over the pre-out.

This is definitely one of my best audio purchases and highly recommend.