Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP – The All-in-One Headphone Desktop Rig

With the new Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP, the Chinese company Shanling once again presents a solution that offers something quite extraordinary, a product that was developed together with Onix. They speak of a solution that sets new standards, namely a portable D/A converter and headphone amplifier in the field of personal audio devices and desktop audio.

This follows exactly the same concept as the Onix Miracle high-end streamer stack, a solution that meets the highest standards and was designed as a desktop audio solution.

Onix Miracle and Onix Mystic – Two brothers for different tasks

The new Onix Mystic XP1 is strongly based on the design of the Onix Miracle, according to the company Shanling, which, as already mentioned, developed these solutions in cooperation with the Taiwanese company Onix and manufactures them for Onix.

The company deliberately sets accents that are supposed to refer to the long tradition of the Onix brand, which goes back to the early 1980s, when Onix was founded by Tony Brady and Michael O’Brien in the southern English city of Brighton.

One thus deliberately adopts elements of the classic Onix look for this new generation of equipment. The unibody housing, made from high-quality aluminium using CNC machines, is sturdy and beautiful, especially in combination with the gold-plated volume control and the vintage-style OLED display with dot matrix.

But design is not everything, of course; first and foremost, the Onix brand solutions are intended to attract users with particularly high quality demands, in the case of the Onix Miracle in the desktop audio sector, and in the case of the new Onix Mystic XP1 in the personal audio sector, but in fact the boundaries are fluid here.

Foto © Shanling | Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP All-in-One Headphone Desktop Rig

Foto © Shanling | Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP All-in-One Headphone Desktop Rig

Foto © Shanling | Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP All-in-One Headphone Desktop Rig

Onix Mystic XP1 All-in-One Headphone Desktop Rig

As mentioned earlier, Shanling refers to the new Onix Mystic XP1 as an all-in-one headphone desktop rig, using an Ingenic X2000 platform from Ingenic Semiconductor Co Ltd as the basis. Signal processing is based on a pair of AKM AK4499EXs, the flagship DAC from specialist Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation, combined with a matching AK4191 modulator for the ultimate in resolution and natural tuning.

The fully balanced headphone amplifier uses Texas Instruments’ TPA6120A2 and has been optimised for use with full-size headphones, Shanling promises.

What’s also particularly exciting is that an additional Muses8920 circuit from Mouser Electronics Inc. is used here for the balanced line-out or pre-amp function, with this complemented by the company’s own Brighton I/V converter stage, the company is on record as saying.

For the connection with the outside world, USB is available, for example for the connection with a smartphone, tablet or computer, whereby a high-performance XMOS XU316 USB input from XMOS Technology is relied upon.

There is also an optical and coaxial S/PDIF interface and even an analogue input in the form of a 3.5 mm stereo mini jack.

Bluetooth 5.0 is also emphasised, as it supports the SBC, AAC and aptX codecs, as well as aptX HD and LDAC. For particularly convenient playback of your own content directly from your smartphone, the manufacturer refers to the Eddict Player App for Apple iOS and Google Android.

It is also possible to play back audio data directly from a microSD card, which should not go unmentioned.

For connecting headphones, the Onix XP1 offers an unbalanced 3.5 mm stereo mini-jack and a likewise unbalanced 6.3 mm stereo jack as well as a balanced 4.4 mm Pentaconn, which can also be used as a pre-out.

A few more numbers: The Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP measures 160 x 92 x 30 mm and weighs in at 583 g. It is able to process digital audio data with 32 bit and 768 kHz as well as DSD up to DSD512.

Integrated battery or optional power supply

On the road, an integrated rechargeable battery with 7,000 mAh provides a playing time of up to ten hours, whereby it is charged via USB-C interface.

For use at home and thus as a desktop audio system, however, a suitable power supply is also available, which ensures that significantly more power is available via the aforementioned connections for headphones.

The manufacturer states that the 3.5 mm stereo mini-jack and the 6.3 mm stereo jack provide 211 mW or 2.6 V at 32 ohms in high-gain mode, while the mains adapter provides 812 mW or 5.1 V at 32 ohms and 120 mW or 6 V at 300 ohms.

For the balanced 4.4 mm Pentaconn, the corresponding values are 750 mW or 4.9 V at 32 ohms in battery mode and 2,3609 mW or 8.7 V at 32 ohms and 480 mW or 12 V at 300 ohms.

Prices and availability

The new Onix Mystic XP1 High-end Portable DAC/AMP should be available in specialist shops soon. Unfortunately, at the moment we only have the international price, which is listed at US$ 1.499,-.

Getting to the point

Shanling has great ambitions to push the personal audio and desktop audio segments to the highest quality level, with the Onix brand playing an important role. After presenting the Onix Miracle high-end streamer stack, a particularly outstanding solution in the field of desktop audio, the new Onix Mystic XP1 high-end portable DAC/AMP, which is understood as an all-in-one headphone desktop rig, now follows.