xDuoo DP-10 All-Round Pure Digital Music Player – Now That’s What I Call Diverse And All-Inclusive
xDuoo DP-10 is a $999 USD Desktop All-Inclusive digital source media player with a Pure Digital Transport design, 5.5″ Touchscreen to control the player, with both Landscape and Portrait nodes, remote app for Android, iOS and Windows, Network Streaming and Wireless Lossless Casting and multiple digital Outputs, as well as expandable storage including USB Drivers, microSD cards and M2 NVME SSD support. Today we will review this player based on a Quad-core ARM Cortex A55 + 8 GB RAM Player and see how it compares to the market, including FiiO S15 (999 USD), Keces Ebravo (599 USD) and Matrix Mini-i PRO 4 (959 USD).
Introduction
xDuoo is a name I missed spelling in our reviews as this is our first review in a really long time exploring a product from the company, the most recent review having been the one exploring their TA-84 OTL Tube Amplifier, and XD-05 Plus DAC AMPs. xDuoo is a company that’s super popular with music lovers for their excellent resolution, build quality, and design of their products. They are sold through Linsoul, Amazon and many other HIFI and High-End shops.
As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases, and using the purchase links in my reviews helps me maintain this website and Youtube Channel. Audiophile-Heaven has no Ads and our Youtube Channel has no midroll ads, and our work is supported by Affiliate Links and Donations. Huge thanks to xDuoo for providing the sample for this review, in exchange for my honest opinion.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/4qfs5CP
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3bKglVP
Build Quality – Design
xDuoo DP-10 is a Pure Digital Music Turntable, with Streaming Media, Local Playback, Streaming Cast and Bluetooth Playback. It theoretically covers all playback scenarios that a digital transport / player could cover, including supporting local storage, hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, streaming, LAN, cloud drives, casting, bluetooth and CD. It handles all file types, online resources, being an excellent media center that will deliver all your music digital data needs.
DP10 is basically a front-end core, having all the resources dedicated for the digital output, with optimizations for unadulterated, pure source signals. This includes a hierarchical power supply, each mode circuit getting independent power via an ultra-low noise regulated LDO circuit. It includes a clock section with an ultra-low phase noise jitter-grade crystal oscillator for a more accurate and synchronized digital signal processing. It seems to be based on the Rockchip RK3568B2 chip, and it has a HD Touchscreen Display, with a 5.5″ display, intuitive controls in both the landscape and portrait positions.
Paired with a deeply optimized Android system, DP-10 offers responsive operation, taps and swipes, and smooth operating, as if using a flagship smartphone. Speaking of smartphones, we are in the era of mobility, and while no phone can ever deliver a good digital performance, they can act as a remote of DP-10 and offer full control for it, with remote apps available for Android, iOS and Windows PC computers. You can even use remote screen mirroring through all of them, to adjust playback, manage playlists and all the controls that xDuoo DP-10 has.
As we’re talking about Streaming and digital transports, you’ll be happy to learn that DP-10 features and installs all main global mainstream music platforms, with original sampling rate and bypassing the Andreoid SRC limit, being able to offer a pure lossless HD Audio and a Pure Sound. App list that DP-10 comes with includes
- Spotify
- Chrome Canary
- Apple Music
- Tidal
- Qobuz
- Amazon Music
- Presto Music
- Foobar2000
- Podcasts
- TuneIn Radio
- Jellyfin
You also will be able to use APKPure, and a couple of Chinese music apps, but it basically allows you to install most apps that you can dream of. It also supports Network Streaming Casting, with wireless lossless listening. This means that DP10 is compatible with DLNA, AirPlay, QPlay. You can stream music via LAN for lossless playback. LAN protocol support includes UPNP and SMB (Yay!). There is one Ethernet port at the back which has Gigabit speeds, supporting NAS, Network drives, with DSD decoded directly and no extra conversion taking place. DP-10 even supports cloud playback, Dropbox for instant listening.
We only now speak of the outputs, but the output list includes all digital interfaces, USB, Coaxial, Optical, AES, HDMI and IIS. It supports data rates up to DSD512, PCM up to 768 kHz. The storage support list includes M.2 NVME SSD slot, with up to 4 TB drives supported, and USB port for flash drives or external HDDs, and a microSD slot with FAT32, ExFat and NTFS file type support. You can even connect DP-10 to a CD drive for USB Direct track playback. It copies CD songs to devices and allows you to rip the files from the CDs. File Playback list includes DXD, MQa, DSD, Ape, WAV, WMA, FLAC, DSF, DFF, AIFF, M4A, AAC, OGG, Mp2, Mp3, and even more. DP-10 has a rich and robust media library that allows for auto scanning and sorting of your music. You can sort by genre, album, track and find your music fast. It supports copying, deleting and pasting of songs, mobile app remote control and direct management.
For all your bluetooth enthusiasts, DP-10 also boasts high-end Qualcomm support 5.4, and it has aptX-HD, aptX Adaptive, LDAC and other codecs too. It supports both receiving and transmitting audio signals, and with a powerful Quad-Core CPU at the heart, Cortex A55, 8GB of RAM and 64 GB of ROM, DP-10 runs Android 14, and can be taken anywhere. It requires a 12V / 2A power supply (should be compatible with external USB batteries), display has a 1920 x 1080 resolution, which rounds up to higher than retina density, and you will not see the individual pixels any moment soon, and it has 1G Gigabit port support. It supports 2.4 GHz / 5G Dual-Band WiFi6 and will also work with 2260, 2280, 22110 SSDs. Finally, DP-10 has the most important outputs available, including USB output, USB1, USB2, USB3, USB4, Audio output for Coaxial, Optical, AES, HDMi HDMI II2, and Bluetooth too.
USB DAC – Subjective Usage
It took me about 6 minutes to figure out the DP10 and how to turn it on. You have to have the power DC input plugged in, and you also have to press on the power button on the right side of the unit. The idea of having the display a landscape display is brilliant, but having all controls on the right side of the display is excellent, with the exception that it is not a standard android 3 button layout and you have to keep in mind the 4th top button for accessing the xDuoo music app quickly. If you push your ear to the power PSU you can hear a faint noise, which can be fixed by using a different small PSU that could provide DP-10 with 12V 5A 60W power.
As xDuoo DP-10 is a cool running unit and only a digital interface, it does not grow hot, it is quite stable, but also has a max refresh rate of 60 Hz for the display. Pressing on the volume wheel quickly mutes the volume. Control and app for Android works well, it is super versatile, you can control all abilities of the DP-10. Using the on-screen keyboard is ok, a bit small for my fingers and for typing a review or long title names, but ok for short usage. Power Supply is made by Mean Well, one of the most appreciated companies for PSU design in the whole world.
Connection quality is extra solid for both Wifi and Bluetooth, but typing passwords is a bit hard as the keyboard is set to Chinese by default and it took me a while to figure that out. The display is incredibly sharp and detailed, while the UI is intuitive and snappy. For DP-10 to see my music, it has to scan the drive it is using, and I can confirm that it is fully capable of reading an entire 24 TB HDD Drive full of music, a combination of FLAC, Mp3 and other files, and it is fully able to decode those files. Scanning takes a long time though, as it adds metadata, cover art and everything carefully. Although I am really happy with the fact that DP-10 scans everything, I do not quite understand how it scans music, because it jumps between folders, from Emo to Technical death Metal, while scanning. Best practice would be to start a scan and let it finish so you have everything scanned. My collection is 720 GB in total, with 30.033 files in total, and it scans it in around 2 hours. I can hear my external HDD as it DP-10 demands the files from it, and it is a nice feeling knowing that it can fully control my SSD.
Youtube, Tidal and local music works, it can see devices on the local network, connect via SMB, and read those too, with no delay. Although the GUI moves a bit slow, as it pre-reads all metadata and files, there is no audio stuttering. I believe that this type of slower to react GUI but perfect audio with zero stuttering will be better for most music lovers. The tiny display is not quite fit to watch movies or watch youtube videos, but it is plenty for browsing. I prefer using my phone for browsing as it moves a bit faster. You have to connect your YT account for no ads. The Android system is not quite open, there is no play store and some apps are not available for DP-10. In fact, there is a list of apps that you can download, and you can try more from APK Pure, but it does not have PlayStore installed.
For running some apps, you have to also install gapps and dependencies like PlayStore, and this process can be a bit tedious if it is the 1st time running Android with no PlayStore from the factory. For most DAPs I review, I don’t have to do this process manually, so it took me a while to figure it out. The time it takes DP-10 from when you press a button to when it reacts to that button is around 1 second, or more, if it is doing something intensive. Installing apps takes a couple of minutes per app, similar to a smartphone using a similar entry-level CPU and a similar amount of RAM. It is not a fast player, but it is optimized for sound for sure. You can engage some of the most beautiful VU Meters on the DP-10 if you click on the VU icon on the now playing screen.
Sound Quality
Pairings – I have paired the xDuoo DP-10 with multiple DACs, and it is seen and can feed every DAC. This is interesting because it sees Luxsin X9 and FiiO K17 equally well, it can drive iBasso D17, ddHIFI Eye3, FiiO k13 R2R, JDS Labs Element IV, and Cayin RU9. All USB ports can be used to feed a DAC or read external USB sticks and HDDs. It is incredibly awesome how it reacts like a mini computer, but with far more ports and versatility for Audio. In fact, the only real opponent I have is Khadas Mind 1, which is a mini computer with a similar versatility, but Mind 1 does not have the same number of ports nor same audio versatility, nor a display. This being said, Mind 1 can run far more advanced software, so it is built for an entirely different purpose than DP-10.
Overall Signature – We love to believe that a digital transport and digital source has no sound quality, the same way we like to believe that ethernet cables carry signals just the same, but reality hits you in the face when you place two devices side by side. DP-10 has an incredibly natural, revealing and organic sound, and it sounds quite a bit better than my computer when feeding the same DAC, to the degree where I would consider replacing my computer with DP-10 for audio media enjoyment. The only downside is the speed of DP-10, as it moves slower than a computer, and I am used to high-end PCs as a baseline experience. All in all, DP-10 will significantly improve the sound of a system in resolution, clarity and have a much lower noise, as long as the DAC AMP has no self-noise.
Bass – At the bottom line, DP-10 sounds full and natural, and with resampling engaged, it can sound rather smooth, lean and relaxed. Bass can have a ton of EQ applied with no sonic degradation if you use a specific app, but the xDuoo App does not have a complex EQ, and rather prioritizes lossless, pure playback.
Midrange – DP-10 sounds rich, natural, a bit smooth, a bit relaxed, but clean and enjoyable. It is an amiable type of sound that is natural, rich and musical, and works well for both male voices and female voices, guitars and synths too. It is fairly versatile and works really well with all music styles from EDM to Rock, but I find it especially magical with country music, pop, rock and more laid-back, relaxed music. It has a certain musicality and an organic way of presenting textures.
Treble – At the top end DP-10 seems rather transparent and neutral, but also a bit smoother and silkier than reference. It brings forward the air and relaxed parts of sound while leaving behind sharper and harsher edges. Makes all songs playful and fun, basically here is the only part where it is not quite transparent and instead it is smoother, more relaxed and laid-back than neutral.
Dynamics And Textures – Dynamic range seems to be extended compared to my PC computer, likely due to better processing and less sonic degradation, less jitter issues and much better buffering of each song. All micro stutters that can happen with a normal PC computer on kernel pause are solved, and music flows more freely. This is similar to Keces Mind 1, which has an effect like this, but DP-10 seems to make this more obvious. This creates smooth, lush, free-flowing textures and makes DP-010 feel particularly fun and natural, more natural, musical, magical and cleaner than any turntable and vinyl players I reviewed so far.
Loudness Saturation Gradient – there is no audible degradation regardless of the volume you’re listening at, and this seems to be a big part of why you’d use DP-10. This being said, it does take quite long for changes in volumes to register. My thinking and understanding is that because it has a huge buffer, it only applies changes to the volume after the current buffer is empty, so basically, once a song is playing, it always has 1 second of that song in memory, and if you change the volume, it takes 1-2 seconds for you to hear that change due to the way it is configured.
Soundstage – DP-10 expands a natural soundstage, blends music naturally, almost as if it has a bit of a crossfade effect. This seems to be the case regardless of whether you have the upsampling engaged, it always has this signature and creates an open sound, like what you’d hear in the most high-end jazz bar.
Comparisons
xDuoo DP-10 vs Keces Ebravo (999 USD vs 599 USD) – Keces EBarvo is a uniquely specific product, it is built like a tank, looks and feels awesome, but it is mainly made to feed Tidal to a DAC, via AES Ebu, Coax or Optical. This makes DP-10 far more versatile as DP-10 can read files from SMB drives, hdds, microSD cards, and basically any medium you can think of, online or offline. DP-10 also has far more outputs, being able to control USB DAC aMPs, and it is basicall perfection for a streamer or digital transport, but sonically, Ebravo sounds more bassy, sharper in the treble, more transparent and can bring out more resolution and details in both treble and bass. DP-10 sounds smoother, more relaxed, cleaner and less aggressive, it is not quite as linear, bass is lower in emphasis, but vocals are sweeter, guitars sound magical, more musical and more fluid, while treble is silkier and smoother. Both have large buffers and work well with music, no stutters, no self noise, and no issues. Both can use LPS for an improved sound, and both are generally top when it comes to being a streamer, but DP-10 is more versatile, and pricier too.
xDuoo DP-10 vs Matrix Mini-i PRO 4 (999 USD vs 959 USD) – Matrix mini-i PRO 4 feels more like a DAC AMP with extra steps, and it cannot be a digital transport, it only has analog outputs, but it can receive light streaming, and it is in the same price range. Here, Matrix is only a DAC AMP, and can even be controlled by DP-10, and feeding signal to Mini-i from DP-10 makes it sound smoother, more musical in the midrange and more enjoyable, but Mini-i PRO 4 can work without DP-10, can read external HDDs, optical, coaxial and USB signals, and it can be fed via an ethernet LAN cable. Overall, Mini-i PRO 4 is great for a versatile DAC AMP with XLr line outs, and headphone outputs, while DP-10 is far more versatile as a digital transport, but does not have any analogic outputs. Very different devices, DP-10 is much better at doing the digital transport part and streaming, but it does only that.
xDuoo DP-10 vs FiiO S15 (999 USD vs 999 USD) – FiiO S15 is basically the only device that poses a real threat to DP-10, and the only reason DP-10 wins is due to it being so much cuter. S15 has a similar design, faster CPU, being built on the Snapdragon 660 and runs Android 12, using an AK chip, with AK4191 + AK499EX at the heart, and has a larger 7.84″ display. Both DP-10 and S15 can read SSDs, USB HDDs, SD cards, and can output SPDIF, Coaxial Optical, while S15 can output Balanced XLR Line outs and 2 RCA Line outs. The differences are that S15 has a large display, but at the front, which makes it very awkward to use S15 the way you would use DP-10, DP10 is great for controlling other DAC AMPs, while S15 is more of a DAC and less of a digital transport, and DP-10 has a better app control remote integration and better SMB integration. The buffer size of DP-10 is higher, which makes it more laggy when playing files from the memory, and S15 is an excellent idea but applied in a way that less people will use it as a streamer and more will use it as a desktop DAC. Apps run faster on S15, everything happens almost instantly, but the way that display is integrated makes it far less likely to be used for most tasks, as you have to sit in an inconvenient position to use it, or to type on it.
Value and Conclusion
Digital transports and xDuoo DP-10 in particular is so popular that I had people ask me about it far before I had the unit in my hands, and people pre-ordering it here in Romania, so I would say that the company priced it really well relative to the market, and that they offer a very strong value. Package includes the DMP, or digital media player, Type-C cable and the power delivery, which is plenty for its purpose, but less than xDuoo does for their DAC AMPs that can use and require more accessories.
At the end of the day, xDuoo DP-10 is currently the fastest, most reliable and most versatile pure digital transport and media player that I have reviewed this year, with all others included, it is excellent sonically, and although it can be a bit slow for its software, it surely sounds perfect, no stutters, pre-loads everything before you play it, so your actual music experience is excellent.
PROs
- Modern and Industrial design with excellent display
- Lots of inputs and outputs, versatile and ergonomic
- Can use chinese and ENG keyboards
- Can install apps from APK Pure, and you can run most music apps really well
- SMB, External HDD, Internal SSD and USB Stick support
- Cover art support
- Online software update is supported
- Beautiful and intelligent
- Sonically, it is incredible, and reliable
- Excellent wifi speed, Bluetooth connection strength, large volume wheel on the side that I like, and it does not get hot
- Overall excellent value relative to the market
- Power Supply provided by Mean Well, a highly reputable manufacturer
Cons
- Software is a bit slow, everything takes a bit to happen and install
- Installing complex apps requires complex dependencies
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/4qfs5CP
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3bKglVP
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Full Playlist used for this review
We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5
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