A Thread Dedicated to Cirrus Logic CS43131

[mc.god]

Wow, it works!
JDS EL-Dac driver finally recognizes it in it's panel and here it is while playing in Fooobar2000 set to AsioDSD BRAVO-HD output:

I think it can be a useful info for anybody interested in a new cheap dongle.

Thank you again @CedarX

 

[CedarX]

Another potentially interesting CS43131 dongle: the Fiio KA11. It uses a Savitech SA9312L bridge upstream, a SGM8262 opamp with negative rail supply downstream, and has a de-pop circuit. It also supports Fiio Control Android app to switch filters and adjust a few settings. It sells for $30.
Not sure it is worth…. Certainly more power (if one needs it), but probably more noise as well… and the questions surrounding these op-amps—mostly the clipping behavior, see: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-face-in-op-amp-industry.6058/.

 

[kelp]

Another potentially interesting CS43131 dongle: the Fiio KA11. It uses a Savitech SA9312L bridge upstream, a SGM8262 opamp with negative rail supply downstream, and has a de-pop circuit. It also supports Fiio Control Android app to switch filters and adjust a few settings. It sells for $30.
Not sure it is worth…. Certainly more power (if one needs it), but probably more noise as well… and the questions surrounding these op-amps—mostly the clipping behavior, see: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-face-in-op-amp-industry.6058/.

I got an FiiO KA11 today. I like it for use with my Kiwi Ears Quintet.

I've been A/B testing it with my Apple USB-C dongle, and can't if some placebo or bad volume matching is making me like the KA11 more.

It certainly draws more power than the Apple dongle.

0.5W vs 0.089W so 5.7x more power draw. I guess it's doing something with it. It does get a little warm.

Apple first, with the white plug on the right. FiiO KA11 2nd with the black plug on the right.

 

[doc2c]

I got an FiiO KA11 today. I like it for use with my Kiwi Ears Quintet.

I've been A/B testing it with my Apple USB-C dongle, and can't if some placebo or bad volume matching is making me like the KA11 more.

It certainly draws more power than the Apple dongle.

0.5W vs 0.089W so 5.7x more power draw. I guess it's doing something with it. It does get a little warm.

Apple first, with the white plug on the right. FiiO KA11 2nd with the black plug on the right.

View attachment 346066View attachment 346067

Any way you can check to see if it has microphone pass thru (i.e support TRRS )

There's a weird bug on some Android phones (s23 and pixel 8 pro I can confirm) where if a DAC doesnt have mic passthrough, you get random clicks and pops when paying audio

 

[kelp]

Any way you can check to see if it has microphone pass thru (i.e support TRRS )

There's a weird bug on some Android phones (s23 and pixel 8 pro I can confirm) where if a DAC doesnt have mic passthrough, you get random clicks and pops when paying audio

I have a cable with a built in mic and tried it with the KA11 and the iOS Voice Recorder app. The cable mic wasn’t working.

Also someone from FiiO said they don’t support a Mic:

FiiOxJadeAudio KA1/KA11 Compact Portable DAC and Amplifier Discussion & Impressions Thread

www.head-fi.org

 

[CedarX]

Any way you can check to see if it has microphone pass thru (i.e support TRRS )

AFAIK, CS43131 has no ADC (it’s not a “codec”), so I doubt it supports a mic.

 

[mc.god]

Dongles with CS43131 that supports mic all use the ADC from another codec that they use as USB bridge too, most likely the CS46L41 like Meizu/Ugreen.
Dongles that use a pure USB bridge like Savitech or Comtrue doesn't have the ADC needed for mic support.

 

[doc2c]

I have a cable with a built in mic and tried it with the KA11 and the iOS Voice Recorder app. The cable mic wasn’t working.

Also someone from FiiO said they don’t support a Mic:

FiiOxJadeAudio KA1/KA11 Compact Portable DAC and Amplifier Discussion & Impressions Thread

www.head-fi.org

If you have an android phone, do you hear faint any clicking popping when playing lower res audio, like YouTube videos ?

 

[kelp]

If you have an android phone, do you hear faint any clicking popping when playing lower res audio, like YouTube videos ?

I don't have an android phone sorry. I only have an iPhone 15 Pro. No clicking and popping there.

 

[doc2c]

I don't have an android phone sorry. I only have an iPhone 15 Pro. No clicking and popping there.

I really appreciate you checking all of this for me. Thank you

 

[doc2c]

Dongles with CS43131 that supports mic all use the ADC from another codec that they use as USB bridge too, most likely the CS46L41 like Meizu/Ugreen.
Dongles that use a pure USB bridge like Savitech or Comtrue doesn't have the ADC needed for mic support.

So the Meizu and Ugreen Hifi Pros have mic passthrough? I actually found the Ugreen one on ebay , shipping fro Israel. Might grab that if it has mic input

 

[mc.god]

So the Meizu and Ugreen Hifi Pros have mic passthrough? I actually found the Ugreen one on ebay , shipping fro Israel. Might grab that if it has mic input

Yes, Ugreen HiFi Pro supports mic and has CTIA TRRS connector.
Can't say about it's quality since I only tested it once with smartphone, never used for real calls.

 

[MCH]

Unfortunately I have to deeply change my opinion bout the Jcally JM20.
Yesterday I mainly focused on checking technical aspects putting minimal attention to hearing aspect... blame on me.
This device seem seriously flawed in it's implementation:

• There is always a short scratching noise when start playing something, if you keep it playing then it's ok but as soon as you stop and it goes in muting, when you start playing again it's there again. Seems it doesn't like very much being awakened from muting state. You notice it a lot if you have system sound enabled on your OS;
• there is constant hiss noise in the background, at first you don't notice it since it goes immediately in muting state when reproduction stops and with standard music contents at normal volume you don't hear it much, but playing some sine test file at very low volume you can hear it very well;
• There are glitches every time you adjust the volume up and down, like a faint pop at every step. It only happens when controlling hardware volume since it is the same in Linux\Windows (UAC2) and Android in exclusive access, while in Android without exclusive access there are no glitches changing volume.

Honestly i didn't expect all of this seeing the very good measurements shared above, this is not a bit near the perfect dark background of the Ugreen dongle, and even for so low as 22€ it ended up being not worth the money in my opinion, unless there is some kind of trick to solve all of that, but I doubt.

hey @mc.god i just received the Jcally JM20. As promised i checked and i cannot replicate any of the glitches you have.
I use HiByMusic in exclusive mode (hardware volume control) with CD ripped FLAC files and i don't have any noise on start playback nor on changing volume.

I bought this to replace a Meizu Hifi non pro because i was having dropouts with the Meizu, specially in exclusive mode, and with the Jcally so far so good, i have not heard the first dropout yet.

Some additional power consumption data vs Meizu in case someone finds it interesting. Take the "no music" figures with a grain of salt, as i found them very variable, if taken, for instance, after playing music vs just connected.

	JCally / Truthear Zero Blue	Meizu / Truthear Zero Blue	JCally / sennheiser HD 600	Meizu / sennheiser HD 600
No music, headphone connected	220 mW	220 mW	220 mW	220 mW
No music, no headphone connected	220 mW	105 mW	-	-
44.1/16 1kHz tone 0.98 amplitude max vol	1.19 W	1.10 W*	315 mW	284mW
192/24 1kHz tone 0.98 amplitude max vol	1.21 W	1.12 W	320 mW	280 mW

* Meizu+ Zeros: i wasn't wearing the iem while doing this test (obviously) and even like this, at max volume i could literally hear the distortion harmonics at higher frequency, that would only disappear lowering the volume 3-4 notches. could not hear this with the sennheiser nor with the Jcally + either headphone.

As someone also described, the jcally is always on, even with no headphone plugged, while the meizu goes to some sort of standby status where the power consumption falls to roughly half.

In general and for the moment, i think the jcally is an improvement over the meizu, as it solves the dropouts only at the expense of a very slight higher power consumption. the cable also looks much more robust, but that isn't difficult vs the meizu...

 

[mc.god]

hey @mc.god i just received the Jcally JM20. As promised i checked and i cannot replicate any of the glitches you have.
I use HiByMusic in exclusive mode (hardware volume control) with CD ripped FLAC files and i don't have any noise on start playback nor on changing volume.

I bought this to replace a Meizu Hifi non pro because i was having dropouts with the Meizu, specially in exclusive mode, and with the Jcally so far so good, i have not heard the first dropout yet.

Some additional power consumption data vs Meizu in case someone finds it interesting. Take the "no music" figures with a grain of salt, as i found them very variable, if taken, for instance, after playing music vs just connected.

	JCally / Truthear Zero Blue	Meizu / Truthear Zero Blue	JCally / sennheiser HD 600	Meizu / sennheiser HD 600
No music, headphone connected	220 mW	220 mW	220 mW	220 mW
No music, no headphone connected	220 mW	105 mW	-	-
44.1/16 1kHz tone 0.98 amplitude max vol	1.19 W	1.10 W*	315 mW	284mW
192/24 1kHz tone 0.98 amplitude max vol	1.21 W	1.12 W	320 mW	280 mW

* Meizu+ Zeros: i wasn't wearing the iem while doing this test (obviously) and even like this, at max volume i could literally hear the distortion harmonics at higher frequency, that would only disappear lowering the volume 3-4 notches. could not hear this with the sennheiser nor with the Jcally + either headphone.

As someone also described, the jcally is always on, even with no headphone plugged, while the meizu goes to some sort of standby status where the power consumption falls to roughly half.

In general and for the moment, i think the jcally is an improvement over the meizu, as it solves the dropouts only at the expense of a very slight higher power consumption. the cable also looks much more robust, but that isn't difficult vs the meizu...

Thank you for the feedback.
I mainly tested the JM20 on pc as I rarely will use it with smartphone, but I can confirm what you experienced: in Hiby exclusive there are no start noises and i only have pops on changing volume playing sine wave or sweep test files, nothing with real music. In this scenario it surely plays very well, so if your Meizu gave you all that quirks surely it's a nice improvement.
In other Android audio players with no exclusive mode it behaves just like on pc as described in my previous post so mostly ok, except if you use some mic cables that will give you the constant hiss.

 

[192kbps]

JM20/30 &Topping HS01
from @August

 

[August]

JM20/30 &Topping HS01
from @August
View attachment 346993View attachment 346994View attachment 346995

The isolator used is the hs02.

 

[MCH]

The isolator used is the hs02.

August, thanks for the measurements. Can you explain what is what? I can't find any indication in the screenshots

 

[August]

August, thanks for the measurements. Can you explain what is what? I can't find any indication in the screenshots

In order, sinad=114db, dynamic range=68.1+60db, and j-test at 48k sample rate.
Data were measured using @IVX's apu.

 

[MCH]

In order, sinad=114db, dynamic range=68.1+60db, and j-test at 48k sample rate.
Data were measured using @IVX's apu.

thanks. device is JM20 or JM30? (it is unknown to me if they are the same thing or not)

 

[August]

thanks. device is JM20 or JM30? (it is unknown to me if they are the same thing or not)

jm30，It started because the @staticV3 measured jm20 piqued my interest.By comparing it to my measurements, it's reasonable to believe they are roughly the same design, and different looks.