Introduction
Cards on the table first. A few snippets of information about myself and the equipment I’m familiar with/own.
I’m getting close to 60. This means that my hearing isn’t that of a 20-year old. At least I don’t think it is - seems perfectly fine to me.
I like a smooth, rich sound. I don’t mind a little reduction in the treble but at the same time I like a detailed and accurate bass - no extra ‘boom’ needed here.
I own (or have owned in the past) an embarrassing amount of bluetooth headphones and have been following their technical progress right from when they first started coming onto the market.
I have been into personal audio since around 1980 - first a Sanyo cassette ‘Walkman’ - progressing up to the Sony Walkman Pro D6 - then onto portable CD. My final portable CD players were the iRiver Slim-X and the Sony D-555. Then onto Mini Disc and finally with MP3 players (once the technology evolved sufficiently to replace these others).
Now I tend to do most of my listening from my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and occasionally from my Sony Walkman WM-A55. Nearly all my listening is now done using bluetooth headphones. I do however have the Sennheiser HD598SE, iBasso IT00 and Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10’s for wired listening.
When Jade Audio contacted me asking if I would like to review their KA1 Amp/DAC I must admit to hesitating for a moment as I’m almost exclusively using bluetooth headphones but I thought ‘what the hell - let’s give it a try’.
The reason for the preamble is to give you an idea of the kind of sound profile I like and also illustrate the short of equipment I'm used to listening to.
There's really not much to say about the external design of this dongle. It's a tiny metal box which is a lot smaller than it looks in pictures With what appears to be a fairly high quality USB lead terminating in a high quality USB type C connector. There's a small LED which shows when the unit is drawing power and also changes colour to show what format Your music is currently playing in. I've noticed that the unit does get a little warm when it's been running for a while, but it's nothing to worry about.
The first headphones I tried with the KA1 was the Sennheiser HD 598SE and I felt that the amp seemed to struggle to drive them to super high levels - but they did sound good. I then tried it out with the Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10's. This appears to be a match made in heaven. The KA1 easily drives them to very high levels without any distortion at all. The character of the sound appears to be very neutral, impactful and detailed.
There's no noise floor at all with this unit and it's as easy to use as simply plugging in your headphones - just using a different socket. Aside from some high resolution tracks taken from some demo sites on the web, most of my listening was done using the standard Samsung Music player with no additional audio ‘enhancements’ from the phone. Music was primarily high-bitrate MP3’s and some FLAC files I’ve acquired.
One of the first tracks I tried was Tom Sawyer by Rush. Whilst this may not be the finest recording in the world, it is one that I’m familiar with and therefore is an excellent test subject. Everything was there in spades. Volume was great - allowing some rather tasty dynamics into the mix that typically are missing when using the regular headphone socket or bluetooth headphones. For me, the difference wasn’t ‘night and day’ but definitely there on every single track I listened to.
I FLAC files I tried demonstrated clearly the upscaling the KA1 is capable of but I have to say that what really impressed me was its ability to resolve my lower resolution files is a most satisfactory way. I was also impressed with the way it handled streaming from Google Play Music - which isn’t renowned for offering the highest resolution possible.
It’s very tempting to say that the Jade Audio KA1 is a ‘solution looking for a problem’. My thinking being that if you’re an Audiophile wanting to get the best possible sound quality into your expensive in-ear monitors then you would surely use a dedicated MP3 player which already has the potential to offer better sound quality thanks to its more dedicated hardware and improved chipsets but that’s not what this device is really aimed at. The inexpensive device is simply designed to offer you clear and obvious improvements to the sound quality of your mobile phone whilst allowing you to continue to use your favourite IEM’s. I don’t think the KA1 is the best choice when using full-sized headphones but, again, I don’t think that’s what this device was designed for.
I like the neutral, detailed sound character of this device. I like the tiny form factor. I like its simplicity. Whilst I do think the unit could do with a little more output power, it’s more than capable of driving pretty much any wired IEMs out there. If you’re looking for a neat, cost effective way to improve your phone’s sound quality, don’t hesitate - in my opinion I think the Jade Audio KA1 is a real ‘gem’.