NuForce DIA Silver Desktop Headphone Amplifier and DAC

Very hapy

I purchased the Dia to drive my in-ceiling speakers from my squeezebox which has its main outputs busy on some powered speakers. The two are a great combination. Very impressed with the build and sound quality of the Dia.

Tiny powerhouse of crisp audio

I bought this almost a year ago, but wanted to wait to get a good use it for making the review.

I chose this item specifically for the optical digital input, compact size, and advertised audio quality. I've installed it into a wall cavity, connected it to ceiling mounted airport express, and connected in-ceiling Polk speakers.

It's compact size allowed to sit into a small multimedia cavity in the wall but still easily accessible for access.

It's auto power off capability allows for us to use Apple airplay with the Airport Express to play music in the house centrally.

The audio quality is superb, crisp, and powerful for its compact size and is capable of driving the Polk speakers to fill the whole house with music.

Very good

this is compared to a T Amp and a Gainclone amp (ta2020 and lm3667) sound wise its bass is sharper and has more stab and pace than both, the detail is as good as the t amp, the power is far greater than the tamp.

down points are volume control is a little too quick, setting one is comfortable on my inefficient desktop speakers, the next level up is LOUD. nothing between these two settings, also i find when i press down on the volume once it continues to lower until it turns off or if i press up once it slowly keeps increasing. this seems defective. i found if i change the volume to where i want it then turn off and on again it stays where it is and i can live with that pain.

the noise the amp makes if fine for speakers but i use it to drive stax headphones and the included switching psu introduces a noise that annoys, i switched to a high quality meanwell switching supply and the noise was still there, then i tried a regulated linear CB radio psu (13.8v) and it stopped ALL of the noise entirely, also the slightly lower voltage (12 min 15 max) seems to lower the volume slightly giving more use to the volume control. this was a massive upgrade and i feel it has solved the very slight noise issue the product had, in the future i will build a linear regulated 12v 6a supply for it.

this amp was bought because of it features (2 optical and coax in to feed my WOO WEE stax energiser and Monitor Audio Studio 5 speakers) it does this job better than my ta2020 and my gainclone after i had added a better power supply. (which i only felt i needed when using the headphones) if you don't plan to use headphones this is a great product, if you throw more money into it you can improve it further.

the volume changing problem is however a pain.

oh sonic electronix had this item in stock and the cheapest on the net, im from the uk so it took about a month to arrive because of customs, which also raised the price to that of the retail product in the UK, however if i lived in america i would use this site A LOT more, as it stands i pay the same for a months wait.

For Real Audiophiles

This amp has been a great addition to my beyerdynamic headphones. I have the T70p. I find it so funny when I see all the hype around headphones and how they look, and people spending a few hundred on headphones that sound like a tin can, and have no depth and clarity to them whatsoever. For my particular taste, I like the closed back headphones, to help out with the isolation. I get to use my headphones quite a bit, but in my work environment I cannot be disturbing others. This Amp has EVERYTHING I need to really bring out the full capabilities of these well engineered headphones. It was a step up from my FiiO-E7. I have been reading alot about some of the different amps that were available for my type of set up, and everyones reviews were about as confident and pleased as can be. And so I have become one as well. This is the icing on the cake. Incredible sound reproduction out of them. perfectly compliments my headphones, and my music.... (sigh) my music is beautiful. I could not be more pleased. Everyone who has tried it looks as if they did not know that such clarity could be found. 100% Perfect! Worth every penny.

Good value for its price

My 2nd Nuforce unit is a DIA. It has the dac built in which makes it simple and straight forward for users. I find it a little bright but listenable. Bass is better than expected and overall control tight. I would recommend to anyone looking for a simple no hassle 2 or 2.1 desktop setup. Should have the cables supplied to ease startup.