LINDY USB Digital to Analog Audio Converter and Headphone Amp (20376)

This was my first step into the world of headphone amplifiers and to be brutally honest it is probably the biggest bang for my buck that I have ever spent.(Build) Yes its completely made of plastic but its construction is fine and the ports and knobs all work as they should and considering the price I paid I have no complaints about build quality.(Features) It has quite a lot of inputs for a dac amp of this price. Usually you dont get this much choice unless you spend around £200+ It has USB, Optical SPDIF, Digital Coaxial and then at the front you have the headphone out 3.5mm and Left and Right RCAs for conecting speakers. Jack of all trades.(Sound) Im actually very impressed with the sound quality of the Lindy. It was my daily work horse for over 3 years and it even had enough juice to power my AKG K702s with ease and these are notoriously hard to drive. I never had to go past half way on the volume knob, EVER! The sound produced is extremely detailed and has a very wide immersive soundstage. I used it for both music and gaming at which it excelled.Overall this is easily the best value for money audio product that I have ever bought. Its still going strong after over 4 years use and the fact that I would never sell it even after upgrading my equipment over the years is a testiment to just how much I love the little Lindy DAC AMP.

It's difficult to say how much of the nice sound quality from my computer is down to this DAC and my M-Audio AV42 speakers. I went from using on-board sound from a Gigabyte Z77 UD3 motherboard to a pair of Logitech Z3 2.1 speakers to this setup and the improvement in sound quality is amazing. So it was about £45 for this and £99 for the speakers.In terms of the power there is absolutely plenty for a room of 20 feet by 14 feet. The bass delivery is excellent and the projection of sound from what are really near field monitors is very good. What is most pleasing is how much more depth there is to the sound. By that I mean I feel like I am no longer listening to compressed sound, where there is a limited the range of frequencies that can be passed on from an on-board sound card and software DAC to a pair of computer speakers. Now I am listening to songs and hearing bits I've been missing all this time.As I say it is difficult to know which of the two products to give most of the credit to but it is more likely a case of without the other each would face a bit of a bottleneck in terms of sound quality.It wouldn't have to be this DAC and/or it wouldn't have to be the AV42 speakers but using an external DAC and monitor speakers I can enjoy a huge upgrade in terms of sound.

Got this as a solution to a problem - my Dad needed to use headphones for his TV (Samsung 2014 H7000 40"), as he's got a touch of hearing loss and this necessitated the volume on his soundbar (Q Acoustics) to be turned up to 'medium nightclub' levels. The problem was that the sound is routed from the TV optical out into the soundbar, which bypasses the headphone out on the TV. This solves that nicely. Optical now goes to the Lindy, line out to the soundbar and headphones on the separate headphone output. Sound quality is perfectly reasonable (haven't noticed any real difference from the soundbar - but obviously that's subjective) and plenty of volume and crisp sound to the headphones (Sennheiser HD65, if you're interested). It can also use USB as a power source, so it's running off one of the spares on the back of the Samsung. I think this hits that good price point where you need quality, but not fussy audiophile quality. Recommended.

I am now using two of these handy little devices, one with my laptop and one with my hi fi system. The first feeds into a pair of Logitech 2.0 X-140 speakers using the USB connection provided. Very easy to install and noticeably improves the quality of mp3 files (iTunes) from laptop. A green light (setting 3) shows when it is working.The second required some technical advice from others, but briefly I use an optical connection from my CD player to the Lindy input. I power the Lindy from the mains through USB adapter (1 amp current). The line out uses a standard pair of jack plugs from the Lindy into the amplifier.. When on, (setting 1) it shows red. The difference in sound is less striking, but still worth making the effort to install.

I've purchased Lindy stuff in the past, and been satisfied. The DAC was purchased specifically to convert a CD player optical output to RCA for an amplifier without an optical input. The sound quality from optical to RCA output was disappointing - a noticeable deterioration on the original CD RCA output. I haven't tested the USB input so I can't comment. Tempted to return it, but will probably keep it as a spare for computer use.