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If the name Maktar doesn’t ring a bell to you, don’t worry, I was the same. On the other hand, NextDrive sounded much more familiar to me, and for good reason: we previously reviewed the Spectra and Spectra X, two superb dongle-DAC made for Android/PC and Mac users. Earlier in the year, I reviewed the NextDrive Spectra DAC with good marks. Today, I will be looking at their latest model, the Spectra X. This morning at DAC, Cadence announced the Spectre X Simulator, the latest version of its circuit simulation product. The short value proposition is up to 10X speed improvement, up to 5X capacity improvement, the same golden accuracy. So the same results as the old Spectre simulator, but faster, and on bigger designs. The Spectre X simulator allows massive parallelization of long simulation runs across up to 128 CPU cores, and across multiple machines. It can also be run in Cadence Cloud. Spectre X supports the same industry-certified device models and syntax. For mixed-signal verification, it is tightly integrated with the Xcelium Parallel Logic Simulator. More recently, I performed a direct EMIR simulation of a large 28nm memory design. This design was large enough to see significant performance gains from the Spectre X high core count simulation. With a 32 core Spectre X simulation, I was able to speed up the simulation by 7.2x down to an overnight run, with the same accuracy as Spectre APS. The following table shows the performance comparison:
XtraSOUND technology is advertised by the company that should help to achieve lower distortion and noise floor. Universal representation of undulator phase errors: T. Tanaka, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams 21, 110704 (2018) Build quality marks will be top notch here, no doubt, the more I play with it and handle it, the more I enjoy how nice it is to not have to move anything around in my portable setup. And yes, I do use this on my Android phone, and often.It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with Maktar or NextDrive. I'd like to thank Maktar for providing the sample for this review. This review reflects my personal experience with Maktar Spectra X2. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it. The purpose of this review is to help those interested in Maktar Spectra X2 find their next music companion. The Spectra X delivers on pride of ownership and good DAC implementation. On the headphone amp side, there is more power than ordinary dongles but we are talking about a price that is 20 times higher. The DACport runs circles around it on this front but is ugly as sin compared to Spectra X.
The NextDrive Spectra X is a powerful, good looking and robust device with a quite impressive sound performance, which will satisfy you If you are searching for a DAC/AMP adaptor with lots of driving power that offers a dynamic, musical and detailed presentation. I am able to boost up to about a +5dB before I start to hear distortions and feel them in my bassier models out yonder. For the price, that is a good response! But, I expect more weight and less physical slam factor, which raises up a fair deal as I slide that EQ bar up on the bassy end of the spectrum. The main highlight here is that for iphone, most TWS IEMs tend to sound rather poor, as Iphones do not come with LDAC or aptX, and products like FiiO BTR5 are rather useless here. In fact, there are very few DAC/AMPs for iPhones and that pair well with them, so Spectra X2 is one of the very few options iPhone users have if they're looking for the best sonic performance they can get on the go. Ich möchte gar nicht von Höhen und Bass reden, die sind ohnehin grandios, sondern davon, dass die Wiedergabe unglaublich "echt" klingt und als wäre man dabei.
Wigner Functions of SR: T. Tanaka, Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams 17, (2014) 060702
The upper midrange of the NextDrive Spectra X sounds quite balanced and shows an above average level of detail retrieval for a portable DAC/AMP adapter. Both female vocals and instruments such like violins, pianos or cymbals do show a pretty good level of extension. The NextDrive Spectra X is a pretty successful DAC/AMP adapter in terms of instruments separation and imaging. The soundstage is in general quite airy and spacious, with good level of width and average depth. This is a great DAC for starters who need an ultra-portable solution. Those who want a balanced and un-exaggerating experience down below. If you like purity factor in the bass this is a good option for you. MidrangeZusammen mit dem Kopfhörer B&O Play H6 ergibt sich ein unglaublich sauberes, detailliertes und dichtes Klangerlebnis. Ein Freund sagte neulich "Das klingt ja wie live!". Er hat Recht. The bass is punchy and articulate and it has a lot more depth than just using a headphone dongle. The soundstage is far wider and deeper which makes for a more grand listening experience and this is brought about via clarity in the top end. Bass extension is excellent and actually seems to outweigh that of the Dragonfly which also uses a Sabre Dac unit. The NextDrive Spectra X offers a pretty natural and linear bass response which is in general fairly detailed and controlled. The subbass area of the Spectra X shows a sufficient depth and extension with a fairly natural amount of rumble that is not overdone. The subbass character is ideal in for those who are looking for response with good clarity and control.
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