This is a review and detailed measurements of the JDS Labs Element III stereo DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $449.
As you see, the Element III has the treasured and much praised large rotary control which here, doubles as volume control and interface. For the first time, JDS has added a user interface and necessary microprocessor to control the unit. Here is the home screen:
Yes, the display is small but given the desktop usage, I did not have trouble reading it although it did get tougher with the setup screen:
Physical button is provided in the back to switch between headphone output and RCA:
And the trademark external AC transformer. In use the transformer got warm so it consumers some power. The unit itself also warmed up but nothing of concern.
One of the key and rather unique features of the Element III is auto-gain. It will switch from low gain to high gain automatically as you turn up the volume above 0.0 dB. I have this in my "daily driver" DAC and amp and very much enjoy using it. The implementation here though is relay controlled and I guess to keep that from chattering too much there is a dead zone between low and high gains. A bar graph shows up on top and you have to keep turning the rotary control until it switches to high gain (or vice versa to low gain). If you only occasionally go into one mode or the other, this is fine but if you get unlucky and have a headphone and listening practices that straddle the two gains, then it can be somewhat annoying. My suggestion is to have the option to eliminate this gap.
Also note that the transition from low to high gain is not glitchless. Depending on what you are playing, it may be smooth, have a tiny thump or static. It is not a major thing but is something you will notice.
In use, the Element III is quite enjoyable given that nice volume control and smooth feel of it. You want to just turn the volume up and down just for the sake of it.
Note: when I first powered up the unit, it defaulted to some slow filter that would not change until I switched inputs between toslink and USB. Then it was fine. My unit is an early production running an older firmware revision (2.06 vs 2.09). I am told this is fixed in production units (company verified by sampling a number of units randomly).
JDS Labs Element III DAC Measurements
Let's first test the DAC section by measuring the RCA output:
Company says they left the "SINAD race" and focused on good enough performance and added functionality. This level of performance shows that is indeed the case:
Distortion is well below -120 dB which means it is utterly inaudible (below threshold of hearing in all cases). So it is the noise that takes down SINAD some:
Again, we are at or below threshold of hearing. Performance could have been a bit better if the output was 2 volts as opposed to 1.88 volts.
Multitone shows the very low distortion for most the audio band:
IMD distortion test vs level shows competitive noise floor with devices that came out a couple of years ago but not today's state of the art:
There are regular spikes at 1 kHz intervals which is the USB micropacket size:
Fortunately levels are below -120 dB which once again, is below threshold of hearing so not an audible concern.
THD+N lands in the general area we have assessed so far:
Linearity is excellent:
Three filters are provided:
JDS Element III Headphone+DAC Performance
Let's measure again but now using the headphone output in low gain:
Sorry, I forgot to set the sample rate to 44.1 kHz instead of 48 kHz but that shouldn't impact the measurements. Performance is ever so slightly better than RCA out.
For sensitive IEMs, we care about low output level noise floor so let's measure that:
This is 3 to 4 dB better than last generation Element II:
But can't play with the products still in the performance race.
Where it can play is power availability:
My requirement here is > 100 milliwatts and we have 2.6 times that so you should be good with high impedance headphones. At the other extreme of load impedance, we still have good bit of power:
Varying the load impedance gives you the output for any of them:
Output impedance of Element III is very low per above graph. Can you tell how that can be determined from that?
Note that there is no clipping at or above 300 ohm which means any distortion you hear is that of the headphone transducer, not the amplifier.
Digital control of the volume translates into perfect channel matching down to incredibly low output levels:
JDS Element III Listening Tests
With my Sennheiser HD650 there was plenty of volume and enough to bring out some of the sub-bass performance of them. It did not manage to rattle my skull but it was powerful enough. Skull rattling did come when I played using Ether CX headphone!
With my everyday DC Stealth headphones there was enough volume to enjoy but the sound would get slightly distorted and run out of gain if you tried to play super loud at max volume. Most headphone amps will have trouble with this power hungry headphone so this is not unusual.
Conclusions
The Element III brings delightful functionality, look and general performance. Other than running out of power, it doesn't have impairments that would be audible. So they met their goal of fixing performance at a level and focusing on other things. Personally I wish it had targeted even higher performance but I can't say that I can justify this in the face of priorities they set.
I am going to recommend the JDS Labs Element III. It is a well thought of product with excellent customer support.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
As you see, the Element III has the treasured and much praised large rotary control which here, doubles as volume control and interface. For the first time, JDS has added a user interface and necessary microprocessor to control the unit. Here is the home screen:
Yes, the display is small but given the desktop usage, I did not have trouble reading it although it did get tougher with the setup screen:
Physical button is provided in the back to switch between headphone output and RCA:
And the trademark external AC transformer. In use the transformer got warm so it consumers some power. The unit itself also warmed up but nothing of concern.
One of the key and rather unique features of the Element III is auto-gain. It will switch from low gain to high gain automatically as you turn up the volume above 0.0 dB. I have this in my "daily driver" DAC and amp and very much enjoy using it. The implementation here though is relay controlled and I guess to keep that from chattering too much there is a dead zone between low and high gains. A bar graph shows up on top and you have to keep turning the rotary control until it switches to high gain (or vice versa to low gain). If you only occasionally go into one mode or the other, this is fine but if you get unlucky and have a headphone and listening practices that straddle the two gains, then it can be somewhat annoying. My suggestion is to have the option to eliminate this gap.
Also note that the transition from low to high gain is not glitchless. Depending on what you are playing, it may be smooth, have a tiny thump or static. It is not a major thing but is something you will notice.
In use, the Element III is quite enjoyable given that nice volume control and smooth feel of it. You want to just turn the volume up and down just for the sake of it.
Note: when I first powered up the unit, it defaulted to some slow filter that would not change until I switched inputs between toslink and USB. Then it was fine. My unit is an early production running an older firmware revision (2.06 vs 2.09). I am told this is fixed in production units (company verified by sampling a number of units randomly).
JDS Labs Element III DAC Measurements
Let's first test the DAC section by measuring the RCA output:
Company says they left the "SINAD race" and focused on good enough performance and added functionality. This level of performance shows that is indeed the case:
Distortion is well below -120 dB which means it is utterly inaudible (below threshold of hearing in all cases). So it is the noise that takes down SINAD some:
Again, we are at or below threshold of hearing. Performance could have been a bit better if the output was 2 volts as opposed to 1.88 volts.
Multitone shows the very low distortion for most the audio band:
IMD distortion test vs level shows competitive noise floor with devices that came out a couple of years ago but not today's state of the art:
There are regular spikes at 1 kHz intervals which is the USB micropacket size:
Fortunately levels are below -120 dB which once again, is below threshold of hearing so not an audible concern.
THD+N lands in the general area we have assessed so far:
Linearity is excellent:
Three filters are provided:
JDS Element III Headphone+DAC Performance
Let's measure again but now using the headphone output in low gain:
Sorry, I forgot to set the sample rate to 44.1 kHz instead of 48 kHz but that shouldn't impact the measurements. Performance is ever so slightly better than RCA out.
For sensitive IEMs, we care about low output level noise floor so let's measure that:
This is 3 to 4 dB better than last generation Element II:
But can't play with the products still in the performance race.
Where it can play is power availability:
My requirement here is > 100 milliwatts and we have 2.6 times that so you should be good with high impedance headphones. At the other extreme of load impedance, we still have good bit of power:
Varying the load impedance gives you the output for any of them:
Output impedance of Element III is very low per above graph. Can you tell how that can be determined from that?
Note that there is no clipping at or above 300 ohm which means any distortion you hear is that of the headphone transducer, not the amplifier.
Digital control of the volume translates into perfect channel matching down to incredibly low output levels:
JDS Element III Listening Tests
With my Sennheiser HD650 there was plenty of volume and enough to bring out some of the sub-bass performance of them. It did not manage to rattle my skull but it was powerful enough. Skull rattling did come when I played using Ether CX headphone!
With my everyday DC Stealth headphones there was enough volume to enjoy but the sound would get slightly distorted and run out of gain if you tried to play super loud at max volume. Most headphone amps will have trouble with this power hungry headphone so this is not unusual.
Conclusions
The Element III brings delightful functionality, look and general performance. Other than running out of power, it doesn't have impairments that would be audible. So they met their goal of fixing performance at a level and focusing on other things. Personally I wish it had targeted even higher performance but I can't say that I can justify this in the face of priorities they set.
I am going to recommend the JDS Labs Element III. It is a well thought of product with excellent customer support.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/