Today, Louis reviews the ONIX Alpha XI1, the company’s debut dual CS43198 Dongle DAC with up to 500mW of balanced output power. It is priced at $109.
Disclaimer: This sample was sent to me in exchange for my honest opinion. Headfonics is an independent website with no affiliate links or status. I thank ONIX and Shanling for their support.
Click here to learn more about the ONIX products we previously discussed on Headfonics.
Note that this article follows our current scoring guidelines which you can read here.
Today we will talk about a product from a company that has been around since 1979 but we only recently took our first look at their gear back in May of this year when Marcus reviewed the Mystic XP1 and most recently James’s impressions of the Overture XM5 DAP.
This time we will take on their Alpha XI1 dongle DAC amplifier, ONIX’s smallest component within its product lineup priced at $109.
Remember, this is their first shot at the dongle DAC segment, but with the strong support of Shanling, it looks as if they have done many things right.
Features
At the heart of the ONIX Alpha XI1’s dual-mono topology internal circuitry, you’ll find a pair of next-generation CS43198 DACs that feed dual high-speed, ultra-low-noise SGM8262 headphone amplifiers capable of producing up to 500mW at 32Ω.
That power output rating is on the 4.4mm connector. The 3.5mm side produces 180mW at the same 32Ω impedance. ONIX also lists an output impedance of 0.4Ω on the SE side, and 0.8Ω on the balanced output tap.
The 32-bit ARM architecture Alpha XI1 runs PCM at up to 32-bit, 768kHz, and DSD at rates of up to DSD256.
The XI1 works on Android, iOS, PC, and MAC gear. I can also confirm it is working on a Chromebook which wasn’t listed as compatible gear.
Design
The ONIX ALPHA XI1 honors the company’s tradition and uses its signature black and gold theme on this dongle. It’s one of the nicest-looking dongles I’ve seen and it shows off ONIX’s expertise in design. It’s a bit chunky but the design has some advantages.
For example, the body is surrounded by fins that act as heat sinks which is a benefit but it adds bulk to the unit, unfortunately, and to be honest, it wasn’t needed since this dongle runs cool most of the time.
The main body seems to be composed of a centerpiece made with anodized aluminum and two end caps that contain the I/O.
A gold-plated volume control and a multifunction button adorn the front side of the unit alongside the 0.87-inch Monochromatic screen with brightness and time off adjustments. The ONIX name is proudly in large gold letters.
The backside of the body has a black faux leather insert and that’s a design feature that took extra effort versus just going with a plain black metal back.
It gives this dongle an edge in the looks department but I hope it doesn’t suffer deterioration or for it to go the rubber coating route and get sticky after time.
I/O
The I/O consists of a USB-C input and two headphone outputs. Both headphone jacks are gold-plated as well, following the general color scheme. The USB port doesn’t have to be because the connector is countersunk into the endcap.
The usual suspects are aboard, a 4.4mm balanced tap and a 3.5mm single-ended output are both on one end of the unit and the other end contains the countersunk USB-C input port that can run on UAC 2.0 and 1.0 as well.
The output taps are controlled by either the source volume control or the Alpha XI1’s rocker-type 100-step volume control along with the two-position gain switch.
Eddict App
The ONIX Alpha XI1 uses the Eddict Player which I’m familiar with since other dongle DAC makers use this app as well. I still had it installed on my mobile device from a previous review of the Shanling H2 plus the UA4 within the comparison section.
The app has a decent music player with a 10-band equalizer and it has many hidden features. Once installed, to access those features, you have to go into the main menu on the top, left-hand side, and tap on the USB control, then on the ONIX XI1 icon.
Inside there, you’ll find specific settings that apply to the Alpha XI1, including six digital filters, font settings, backlight brightness, screensaver, and a couple of other features that can also be accessed through the front screen’s menu via the multifunction button.
Digital filters
My favorite of the six available digital filters on the ONIX Alpha XI1 was the slow roll-off or F1 because it seemed to clean up the bass response and produce the cleanest presentation overall. The low delay, slow roll-off filter is the best if you want extra forwardness in the highs.
The low delay, sharp roll-off was my least favorite because it seemed to remove some of the dynamics compared to the other five filters and it was too tame for me. You can use this filter to tame a shouty set so this filter still has some usefulness.
This set of filters alters the overall presentation in an almost subliminal way but they’re effective nonetheless, unlike some others that seem to be placebo filters.
Packaging & Accessories
ONIX Hi-End seems to like gold and black so much that those were the colors they used for the box color theme as well as the dongle.
The warranty booklet and owner’s manual are written on plain white paper and black letters. The owner’s manual contains lots of information although it’s small so please, read it when you get it.
The rest of the accessories consist of a four-inch dual-sided USB-C terminated cloth-wrapped cable and a full-sized USB adapter. That’s all she wrote.
Sound Impressions
Summary
The first thing that struck me from the overall sonic performance of the ONIX Alpha XI1 was the amount of detail that was being produced. We can speak about the ruler-flat response and overall neutral character later on.
The other character that stands out is the forwardness and it sonically reminds me of the iFi Audio GO bar dongles that have a high amount of gain and that in turn, gives its sonic presentation lots of presence, forwardness, and a high level of detail production is the result.
The ONIX Alpha XI1 also has a smooth character that some might mistake for warmth. Timbre is very accurate and remains so through the frequency spectrum.
There’s one aspect about most dongle DACs that irks me and that’s the long time they take to wake from mute at the first press of the play button and that causes a loss of the first second of a track but this one never skipped a beat. The Alpha XI1 is a well-tweaked piece of gear.
Staging and Dynamics
Here we have a dongle DAC capable of producing one of the largest soundstage in this segment of gear and one that is fairly accurate to boot. At times there was small amounts of conglomeration of elements within the staging but only when things got complicated and loud.
But overall, this dongle produces one of the best soundstages in the dongle DAC segment, again, at this tier and price range.
It provides ample dimensional information and together with the dongle’s high dynamic range, and natural timbre, which combined, creates a realistic representation of the input signal.
Synergy
Smartphone Battery drain
With a single dynamic driver IEM, I was getting around 10 minutes of playback time with the volume control at half point for every 1% battery drain from my phone. That’s very good. Of course, with a full-sized headphone, those numbers will dwindle some.
There’s another aspect that I like about the Alpha XI1 is that it runs cool all the time and that means it doesn’t waste energy converting it into heat. I’m sure they could have made the body smaller by omitting those cooling fins.
Power
The Alpha XI1 has a two-stage gain but the low gain is set too high in my opinion. It needs to be dropped down to half of what it presently is, which would make it more suitable for IEMs. It doesn’t create an issue with hiss which is good news.
The gain seems to be set very high in general and to be honest here, this is one dongle DAC that I would slightly hesitate to recommend for very sensitive IEMs.
However, that can be good for battery life since you don’t have to crank the volume up much and you can moderate the volume easily.
The balanced end power capability seems to supply enough power for many of the full-sized headphones within my collection. I was able to power up some hungry cans like the HIFIMAN HE400se and the Sundara.
Pairings
What can I say? I like this dongle with inefficient IEMs and full-sized headphones due to the high gain on the low-gain setting. IEMs like the ORIVETI OH700VB since they need decent power to function optimally, or the HIFIMAN Svanar at 60Ω.
It even likes headphones like the recently reviewed, dynamic driver-equipped Sennheiser HD 490 PRO Plus that sits at 130Ω. Heck, it could even push my Sundara and the HE400se to acceptable volume levels which is some feat for a dongle DAC.
