iBasso DC-Tonfa (black)

The DC-Tonfa is a USB-C DAC and headphone amplifier with a discrete R2R DAC, a type of DAC built from a ladder of precise resistors instead of a single chip. iBasso's 24-bit design uses 312 metal-film resistors in a fully differential eight-channel layout, plus a compensation network of 60 resistors that the FPGA uses to correct resistor tolerances. Two Accusilicon femtosecond clocks and an ultra-low-noise LT3042 regulator feed the DAC, which plays PCM up to 768 kHz/32-bit and native DSD512, with a NOS mode and four digital filters. Two TI op-amps and four BUF634A buffers deliver up to 800 mW per channel into 32 Ω from the 4.4 mm output and 219 mW from the 3.5 mm output, which can also send S/PDIF. A 0.96-inch OLED screen and an encoder control it, or use the iBasso UAC app on Android or a browser panel on Windows and macOS. It also works as a USB sound card for the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, and weighs 45 g.

• Discrete 24-bit R2R DAC, 312 resistors
• 800 mW × 2 @ 32 Ω (4.4 mm)
• PCM 768 kHz, DSD512; NOS mode and 4 filters