Outboard DACs

According to the marketing materials accompanying Exposure’s latest product launch, ‘a great DAC is at the heart of almost every modern hi-fi system’. Few audiophiles would argue with this statement, but it’s perhaps something of a surprise coming from this particular UK brand. After all, an onboard DAC isn’t offered as standard in Exposure’s integrated amplifiers, and the new model on test here is only its third ever outboard converter, following the 2010S2 launched some 14 years ago, and the subsequent 2010S2 DSD upgrade, retired in 2019.

Has there been a single defining hi-fi story in the last 20 years? Some might say the rise of streaming services deserves to be the subject of Chapter One when the history books are written. Others may argue for the unexpected resurgence of the vinyl format, or the birth of multiroom audio. And then there’s the arrival of ‘disruptor’ brands that have challenged the status quo with units – typically focused on digital playback – that combine leading-edge functionality with affordable pricing. The likes of Eversolo, FiiO and WiiM all fit this category, and so does Topping, manufacturer of the D900 DAC.

Sentimental audiophiles might think Musical Fidelity’s M8 range is rather left out in the cold, stuck between the brand’s high-end Nu-Vista models [HFN Mar ’23 & Aug ’25] and thought-provoking remakes like the A1 [HFN Jan ’24] and B1xi amplifiers. Since Pro-Ject’s Heinz Lichtenegger took over the wheel of the brand, the series has received only piecemeal updates, starting with the M8xi ‘super’ integrated [HFN Jul ’20], then the M8xTT turntable [HFN Dec ’23] and M8x Vinyl phono stage [HFN Mar ’25], and now the ‘dual-mono’ M8x DAC.

Swooping down into iFi Audio’s ever-expanding line-up, the £1699 iDSD Valkyrie stakes its claim as the new flagship portable. The brand typically excels at offering oodles of functionality at very reasonable prices, although the £3749 iCAN Phantom desktop headphone amp [HFN Sep ’23] shows it also has form when it comes to high-end head-fi. Nevertheless, and despite boasting a lot of familiar iFi Audio features and technologies, the iDSD Valkyrie is a very different beast – not least because it boasts a gargantuan 20,000mAh battery for extended mobile use.

On recent form, the £13,500 dCS Lina DAC X could almost be considered ‘conventional’. Following on the heels of the Lina headphone amp system [HFN Nov ’22], and the massive – and massively pricey – multibox Varèse player [HFN Feb ’25], complete with separate mono DACs and the option of an SACD/CD transport add-on, the Lina DAC X looks dangerously like any number of models from rival companies, from its proportions to the inclusion of a front-panel rotary volume.

Underestimate the new generation of Chinese hi-fi manufacturers at your peril, because we’ve come a long way from cheap knockoffs of famous products, inexpensive music players and the like. Just as in the electric car industry, where Chinese companies are showing they have the skills and technology to match the very best, so it is in hi-fi, where brands including Eversolo [HFN May ’25] and FiiO – whose latest product, the £829 K17, we have here – are proving they can develop and innovate.

Hegel is fond of its idiosyncratic product names. In 2023 the Norwegian brand felt confident in christening its new CD player the ‘Viking’, ignoring a model number altogether [HFN Sep ’23]. In the same year it also launched the P30A preamp and H30A power amp [HFN Jun ’23] – separates also known as the Conductor and the Orchestra, respectively. 2024 saw the arrival of the H400 integrated amplifier [HFN Oct ’24], aka the Streamliner due to its networking features, and now we have the new D50, a DAC that Hegel says is ‘affectionately named the Raven’.