Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp Review

Just how affordable can a digital front end be?

by Ed Selley
Hi-Fi Review

5

Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp Review
MSRP: £50.00

What is the Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp?

The Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp is a three input digital to analogue convertor with support for 24/192kHZ files and the ability to replay via a line out or variable output headphone socket. So far, so normal- we've seen a fair few of these over the years and it remains a solidly popular category. What does make the Lindy rather more notable is that it offers this functionality for an extremely reasonable (and extremely specific) £49.98. This is decoding for less than the price of few ill conceived minutes on Amazon.

This is perhaps the most graphic illustration of the fall in the price of digital decoding there has been for some time. The spec of the Lindy is competitive with what manufacturers were asking £400+ for only a few years ago and indeed the Lindy's specification isn't wildly different to products that still cost a great deal more. Is this the bargain of the year and a reflection that costs really are plummeting or have corners been cut to reach this point?

As such, what follows is not simply a review of the Lindy- although be under no illusions, we'll reach the standard conclusions about the merits of the USB DAC & Headphone Amp in due course. It is fairly rare that we encounter a product that is this cost effective in the course of our reviews so it seems only reasonable to see exactly what- if indeed anything- has to give to offer this functionality for the price of a good night out. In short, is this the baseline for truly acceptable performance and does this mean that everything above £50 is taking the mick?

Specifications

Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp
The Lindy is a three input DAC. You have the choice of an optical, coaxial or USB-B connection and these connections are made available to an RCA output or a 3.5mm headphone socket with volume control. Selection between the inputs is made by three position switch. The optical and coaxial connections on the Lindy offer full 24/192kHz decoding although as you might reasonably expect, DSD is not supported. The USB input is a 'Type 1' connection and does not use any form of dedicated driver. As a result this limits its sample rate handling to 24.96kHz. While this technically means that the Lindy is a bit behind the power curve, I imagine the overlap between people spending £50 on a DAC and people who must have 24/192kHz support is a fairly small one.

There is precisely no information on the hardware that Lindy uses to perform this task. More expensive members of the range tend to go with Texas Instruments for their decoding but as the casing of the USB DAC & Headphone Amp looks rather like opening it once will open it forever, I have decided against looking inside it. Given the small size of the Lindy and the power arrangements (more of which in a bit), it seems reasonable to assume that the DAC is doing the legwork for processing and output rather than there being a separate output stage or headphone amp in there.

More interestingly, what isn't on the Lindy is a power supply input. The USB DAC & Headphone Amp is powered entirely by the voltage on the USB connection and this runs to powering the optical and coaxial inputs as well. If you aren't using the USB connection, you can still power the USB DAC & Headphone Amp with the sort of power supply you might get with an Amazon fire TV stick. Lindy supplies a USB cable with the product but no charger so you'll need to budget for one or repurpose one if you aren't planning to use it with a USB connection.

Unusually at the price, the Lindy has a full size RCA output on it which is something that even rather more expensive rivals like the Chord Mojo can't offer. The headphone socket is a 3.5mm only affair but it is fairly unlikely that the Lindy is going to encounter too many quarter inch jack only models in the course of normal use. Both outputs are active all the time and the RCA output will not mute if you attach headphones. There is also no volume adjustment on the RCA outputs so the Lindy will not function as a preamp.

Design

Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp
Historically, Lindy DACs have been little flattened white cube arrangements, that while functional and inoffensive haven't been challenging for style awards. Given the rather frugal budget they have to work with, the USB DAC & Headphone Amp is actually a fairly smart looking piece of kit. The Lindy is a sort of aircraft wing shape with a gently curved top panel and a flat bottom. The materials used are unavoidably plastic but it looks perfectly OK and fairly businesslike as well.

On a more prosaic level, Lindy gets a few things right that many rather more expensive models don't. The USB DAC & Headphone Amp very clearly has inputs on one side and outputs on the other. The connections are well spaced out and easy to attach a variety of cables to at the same time. The Lindy does tend to move about a bit at the mercy of the cables it is connected to but given that it isn't (if you're using USB anyway) connected to a power supply, it tends to find an equidistant space between the input and output cables.

The only really discordant note on the USB DAC & Headphone Amp is the volume control for the headphone section. Small volume knobs are hard things to get right- if we take the Oppo HA-2 to be a really smart example of the breed, there are some rather less successful options out there too. The Lindy's volume control looks and feels cheap (although, in fairness, it is) and the fine adjustment is trickier than it needs to be.
Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp
On a more prosaic level, Lindy gets a few things right that many rather more expensive models don't

Testing

The Lindy has been tested in the main with a Lenovo T530 ThinkPad, Melco N1A NAS and a Naim ND5XS with XP5 XS power supply. It has mainly been connected to a Naim Supernait 2 integrated amplifier driving Neat Momentum 4i and Audio Note AN-K speakers. A mix of lossless and high resolution FLAC and ALAC has been used as well as streaming services like Tidal and Spotify.

Performance via line out

Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp
It is unclear exactly whether the Lindy has enough components in it to justify running it in but the sample was given a few days on the end of an old R61 ThinkPad with a pair of Grado headphones to tick over for a bit. Having done so, it was plonked between a £3,500 digital source and a £3,000 amplifier via cables that cost more than it does. What happened? Well, the Lindy works without fuss or bother. The USB input connects with fuss to the various sources here and the other inputs are noise free and utterly stable.

More than this, the Lindy sounds pretty good. Perhaps most significantly, it manages to perform across a wide variety of music and formats in a way that is pleasingly refined and pretty believable. This isn't really the time or place for hyperbole but in some minor aspects of behaviour- specifically around the way it handles the top end of bright or poorly recorded material- the Lindy's implementation of filters- benefitting from technology readily available in 2016 is less fatiguing and more natural than considerably more expensive pieces of equipment from the turn of the century. If there was ever a product to prove that good digital has plummeted in price, this is it.

There are limits. The Lindy doesn't have the bass weight of the (vastly more expensive) Naim ND5XS. If you A/B switch between them, even allowing for the Lindy actually being fractionally louder, the Naim has the ability to generate deeper, tighter and simply more convincing bass with the same material. There is also a reduction in the scale and soundstage. Listening to something like Leftfield's Bad Radio with the Lindy feels like there is fractional compression being applied robbing it of some scale and energy.

This is hardly a revelation, you can after all have over seventy Lindys for the price of the Naim. The more interesting question is how much further down the pricing structure can you go before the Lindy holds its own? Running some tests against a Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS which is now available for £70 is interesting. The DacMagic is USB only and hampered by only having a 3.5mm output. Perhaps as a result, the Lindy manages to do a much more convincing job of keeping the Cambridge Audio honest. The bass response of the Lindy is still a little light compared to the DacMagic XS but the scale of the performance is much more in keeping with one another. When you consider that the Lindy sports more inputs and costs less money, it starts to make a good deal more sense.

In fact, the first product available for comparison that really has consistent clear water between it and the Lindy is the Chord Mojo. Given that the Chord is still eight times the price (and while it has the same connectivity- the connections themselves are not as good), it reflects positively on the Lindy that it competes on an even footing considering the price disparity.
Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp
If there was ever a product to prove that good digital has plummeted in price, this is it.

Performance with headphones

Selecting a pair of Audio Technica ATH-MSR7 headphones as a partner for the Lindy- it is more expensive but not unduly so and is easy to drive. Unfortunately, while decoding has plummeted in price, the business of driving a pair of headphones well remains something that is as much engineering as software. The Lindy manages to sound reasonably controlled and there is a reasonable amount of detail in the mix. Where the problems reside is that the Lindy never manages to shake the feeling that it has been stripped of dynamics and power. Bass response is light and there is a sense that the scale of larger pieces has been pulled in. If you wind up the volume to compensate, the Lindy tends to harden up and sound thin and a little aggressive.

This means that comparisons to other pieces of equipment are less favourable than via line level. The DacMagic XS sounds sweeter and punchier than the Lindy and manages to generate higher listening levels despite also being USB powered. By the time that you wheel out the Chord Mojo, the differences are not small. At any given volume level (and using the same pair of Audio Technica headphones), the Chord sounds, bigger, more refined and simultaneously more exciting.

Conclusion

Pros

  • Lively and engaging sound
  • Decent selection of inputs
  • Doesn't need a power supply

Cons

  • Limited performance as a headphone amp
  • No 192kHz support on USB
  • Not exactly pretty

Lindy USB DAC & Headphone Amp Review

So what do we draw from this? Is the Lindy good enough to make costlier products looks superfluous? Judged as a line level DAC, the Lindy does a very good job of looking stupendous value. It sounds controlled, tonally convincing and more often than not, a surprising amount of fun. It offers excellent connectivity and while it isn't built like a Swiss watch, it is finished to a more than acceptable standard. As a quick and effective way of getting a computer talking to an existing system, the USB DAC & Headphone Amp is really rather convincing.

Given the more complex task of driving headphones, the Lindy is not such a complete solution. In this regard, even at the competitive price, it faces some stiff competition from products at similar price points. Where the Lindy hits back is that excellent connectivity. This is still a very compelling product at the low price and one that could be a superb choice depending on your requirements.

Scores

Build Quality

.
.
.
7

Connectivity

.
.
8

Ease of Use

.
.
8

Features

.
.
.
7

Audio Performance

.
.
.
7

Value for Money

.
9

Verdict

.
.
.
7
7
AVForumsSCORE
OUT OF
10

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