Under the hood.

In the heart of the DX180 design iBasso used quad CS43131 DAC chips from Cirrus Logic MasterHiFi series.  For the reference, DX170 only used two of these chips.  Also, iBasso implemented a fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 SoC 8-core processor.  Two versions of DX180 will be available, one with 4GB LPDDR4x RAM, 128GB ROM, and the other one with 3GB of RAM/32GB of ROM.  The DAP uses optimized Android 13 OS with impressive benchmark scores, matching AnTuTu 3D Benchmark results of other top-performing 660/665-based DAPs.  Also, in a relative comparison, DX180 3D benchmark performance is 240% higher than DX170.  When it comes to playback, it supports most of the lossy and lossless formats up to 32bit/768kHz and DSD512, including APE, FLAC, WAV, WMA, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, OGG, MP3, MQA, DFF, DSF, and DXD.

Another highlight of the design is the in-house developed FPGA-Master 2.0, their audio system controller which has been enhanced and updated to Gen2.  iBasso spent years developing and perfecting their FPGA-Master code to make it function as an audio system controller to offload SoC processing by directly requesting audio data, as well as syncing and generating all audio clocks to reduce the jitter.  The FPGA-Master 2.0 is also able to enhance the performance of quad CS43131 DAC chipsets by being able to run in synchronous parallel output mode or FIR 2x mode.  In FIR 2x mode, they implemented a precise control and adjustment of the DAC’s clock and data independently through the “delay parallel” of DACs to form a hardware analog FIR filter.

Furthermore, the DX180 USB-C port supports USB 3.1 standard and also includes a dedicated USB receiver for low latency USB-DAC mode.  The Wireless connection is covered by Bluetooth 5.0 with all the popular codecs (SBC, AAC, aptX HD, LDAC) and WiFi 802.11b/g/n/ac.  WiFi gives you a choice of dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz.  I found the WiFi signal performance to be very strong, with the SpeedTest app showing results of 192Mbps DL and 21Mbps UL speed.  Not sure if they implemented the same enhanced wifi dual antenna arrangement as in their flagship DX320 model, but DL/UL numbers were even better than on my Galaxy smartphone.

You will also find a 3.8V 3200mAh Li-Po battery which needs about 1.5 hours of charging and yields an excellent playback time, thanks to lower power DAC chips.  In my testing from 4.4mm BAL output in low-gain, I was getting a consistent 14.5 hours of playback time, and when I switched to high-gain, I was still able to play from 4.4mm BAL output for 13+ hours.  According to iBasso, if you are using Line Out output, which bypasses the internal amp section, you can easily get 30 hours of playback time.  I would expect similar if you are using DX180 as a digital source with SPDIF output to drive the external DAC/amp like D16.

One would think that for an entry-level model optimized for better battery performance, the output power will be scaled down.  But that was not the case with DX180.  Its 4.4mm BAL PO (1.1ohm output impedance) has a max output level of 6Vrms with a max output power of 690mW @32 ohm.  The 3.5mm SE PO (0.6ohm output impedance) has a max output level of 3Vrms with a max output power of 281mW @32 ohm.  The Line Out of corresponding ports was set to 4Vrms (4.4mm) and 2Vrms (3.5mm).  When you read further down, in the Pair-up section of my review, you can see there were no issues with my IEMs, keeping the noise floor dead quiet without any hissing with sensitive monitors, and having enough power to drive demanding headphones with plenty of overhead margins.

GUI.

Unlike other upper-end iBasso DAPs, DX180 doesn’t have a dual boot system where you can switch between Android and Mango OS.  Here you have Android OS only, and it comes with highly optimized Android 13, bypassing SRC at the system level.  As I was writing the review, I had to think for a moment whether Google Play Store was already pre-installed or if I had to side-load it.  In previous iBasso DAPs, I usually used the pre-installed APKPure app to get Google Play and then go from there.  With DX180, Google Play was already preloaded and ready to go!

I also noticed that DX180 comes with an updated version of the Mango app, v3.7.7.  A few things were updated since v3.4.1 which is used in their latest DAPs, and it feels like the interface is smoother and faster.  Of course, we are dealing here with 665 SoC and Android 13, thus performance improvement is expected.

After opening the Mango Android app, the view of the embedded song/album artwork, if one is available, looks very sharp (no pun intended) on the DX180 Sharp 5” display.  If embedded artwork is not available, a default image is displayed.  The main playback screen has a more logical layout where you swipe the artwork display left/right to skip between the songs, and access song search and file management from a shortcut in the upper left corner and settings from a shortcut in the upper right corner.  Another useful feature I appreciate is in the lower right corner of the artwork window where you have a 3-dot shortcut to bring up the Now Playing list of songs to scroll through.

Below the artwork, you have track info (bit/rate/format) and a time scrub bar to advance through the song which you can tap anywhere to skip.  Below it, you have a shortcut on the left to provide more detailed info about the song (including adding to the playlist or deleting), and another shortcut on the right to switch between playback modes (play in order, repeat list, shuffle, repeat current song).  Play/Pause and Skip next/prev buttons are big enough and located at the bottom.

To access music search and track management, you click on the shortcut with 3 horizontal lines in the upper left corner of the Mango playback screen.  From there, you swipe left-to-right to view All Music, or sort by Album, Artist, Genre, Playlist, or Now Playing.  You can also select file management from internal or external storage and access song search.  Any song you long press will give you an option to Play, Next Play, Add to a playlist, or Delete.  You also have a setting (3 vertical dots on the right) to select sorting options for the displayed list.  With this latest Mango app update, the navigation takes a minute to get used to, and then you quickly realize it is more logical than in the previous version.  Plus, all the way at the bottom you have a small area to see the currently playing song and to control its playback with the play/pause button.  Tapping on it takes you back to the main Playback screen.

In the Settings Menu, you have access to Gapless (on/off), Gain (low/high), Play mode (order, loop, shuffle, repeat, folder play), EQ (on/off, brings you to Graphic/Parametric EQ screen), L/R Balance, 2 Digital filters (D1-D5), Media Scan, Unplug Pause, USB DAC, Bluetooth DAC, Display settings, Sleep timer, and System info.

Notification bar swipe down is also helpful where besides the usual WiFi, Bluetooth, Auto-Rotate, and Theme shortcuts, you can also change PO/LO, switch between 5 Digital Filters, change the gain, FIR setting (2x/NOR), and SPDIF turn on/off SPDIF output from 3.5mm port.

EQ.

DX180 offers a traditional Graphic EQ (EQ) where frequency bands are fixed, and you only adjust the gain with a slider.  You also get Parametric EQ (PEQ) where you have more control over which frequency is being adjusted, the bandwidth of the frequency being adjusted, the type of filter used to adjust the frequency, and of course the gain of the adjustment.  This EQ is part of their Mango Android app, not system wide.  Here are my observations while testing EQ and PEQ.

Graphic EQ (EQ)

• When enabled, the volume is dropped to create extra headroom for band adjustment (to avoid clipping).
• Relatively clean 10-band EQ adjustment (33, 63, 100, 330, 630, 1k, 3.3k, 6.3k, 10k, 16k frequency bands).
• Whenever you adjust a band, you can see it being shown graphically above the EQ sliders, great visual feedback.
• 5 genre-specific presets are included where each one could be adjusted further and reset to its original state.

Parametric EQ (PEQ)

• Includes 6 custom preset settings.
• When enabled, volume doesn’t drop.
• While adjusting, I didn’t hear any distortion.
• Each preset setting has 8 assignable filters/frequencies to shape the sound where a different color on the screen represents each one.
• Filter types: low pass filter, high pass filter, band pass filter, notch filter, all-pass filter, peaking filter, low shelf filter, high shelf filter.  To me, the peaking filter was the most useful.
• Each filter has: Fc (center frequency, from 33 to 16k), Gain (-20 to 20 dB), and Q factor (0.3 to 20) where a smaller Q makes the bandwidth wider, and a bigger Q makes the bandwidth narrower.
• Fc and Gain could also be adjusted on the touch screen by dragging the pointer left/right and up/down.
• The sound is adjusted/updated in real-time as you move the filter peak and frequency.

Page 3 – Sound Analysis and Pair up.
Page 4 – Comparison, Wired/Wireless Connection, and Conclusion.