iBasso DX240 Flagship Digital Audio Player with Full 16x MQA Decoding - BLACK (Box opened)

The iBasso DX240 is a reference digital audio player built around ESS’s flagship ES9038PRO DAC, iBasso’s own FPGA-Master clocking and a swappable amplifier card. It runs Android 9 for streaming apps and iBasso’s Mango OS for pure music playback on a fast Snapdragon 660, plays PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit, native DSD512 and full 16× MQA, and comes with the AMP1 MK3 card fitted. It also takes iBasso’s AMP1 to AMP8 cards, so you can change its sound and outputs.

Flagship ES9038PRO DAC

The ES9038PRO is ESS’s flagship DAC chip and a favourite of high-end desktop DACs, with a dynamic range of 132dB and THD+N down to −122dB, and it is known for its micro-detail. It has four DAC cores per channel, where the earlier ES9028PRO had one, so in DAC cores one ES9038PRO equals four ES9028PROs. iBasso has used ESS flagships in the DX100, DX200, DX220 and DX220MAX, and spent more than two years researching and tuning this one for the DX240.

FPGA-Master: one clean clock

iBasso’s in-house FPGA-Master is the audio system controller. It requests audio data directly from the processor, which is key to reproducing the signal intact, and it generates all audio clocks from two NDK femtosecond oscillators, so everything runs from a single, fully synchronised clock source with jitter reduced to an extremely low level.

Swappable amplifier cards

The supplied AMP1 MK3 card has a 2.5mm balanced headphone output with up to 878mW into 32Ω (6.2Vrms), a 3.5mm headphone output with 281mW into 32Ω and a 3.5mm line output. Each of iBasso’s AMP1 to AMP8 cards, first made for the DX220, has its own sound signature, and the DX240 is compatible with all of them, so you can find the one you prefer.

Snapdragon 660, Android and Mango OS

An eight-core, 14nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage makes the DX240 quick: iBasso quotes an AnTuTu score of about 180,000, against about 50,000 for the DX220. The efficient chip also helps the battery last around 11 hours.

Two systems share the player. Android 9 runs streaming apps. Mango OS is iBasso’s Linux-based system made only for audio playback: it switches off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to cut interference and keeps processor and memory use to a minimum, and the Snapdragon’s graphics make it almost as smooth as Android. Android normally resamples music to 44.1kHz or 48kHz; the DX240 bypasses that system-wide, in Mango and in third-party streaming apps alike, so hi-res music plays at its own rate.

Screen and build

The 5-inch Sharp 1080p screen has an on-cell touch panel, very narrow borders and high contrast. The body is aluminium alloy with a curved frosted-glass back that sits comfortably in the hand, and the 4,400mAh battery charges in about 2.5 hours with QC3.0 or PD3.0 fast chargers.

Good to know

• This is a single open-box unit, with the full manufacturer warranty; its condition is shown above.
• In the box: DX240 with AMP1 MK3, USB-C cable, coaxial cable, burn-in cable, clear TPU case, screen protector, warranty card and quick start guide.
• iBasso no longer makes the DX240. Its current eight-DAC player is the DX260 MK2.