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DAC Chip: Undisclosed
PCM 16bit – 48kHz, SNR: Undisclosed, Power: Undisclosed, USB Type-C Male, 3.5mm SE (Microphone: YES), Metal Chassis & OFC Cable

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Listening Equipment: Etymotic ER4SR, HZSOUND Heart Mirror, Moondrop Aria, FOSTEX T40RP MK3, VE Monk Asura 2.0 VE Monk GO. Source: USB 2.0 Xiaomi Redmi Mi9T (Deezer HiFi)

LISTENING EQUIPMENT USED IMPARTED HUGE INFLUENCE TO SOUND IMPRESSIONS & RATING

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💚PROS

• Balanced neutral organic timbre
• Moderate and well controlled dynamics
• Gentle Treble with equally gentle decays
• Mildly intimate Mids with neutral tonality, realistic vocals
• Mild Mid-Bass with equally soft Sub-Bass responses
• Decently sized Soundstage and depth
• Good speed and transients (depends on pairing)
• Great with Lo-Fi and poorly recorded sources
• Works great with iOS via MFi certified adapters
• Synergize best with fast and technical IEMs/HPs
• Good Macro and Micro details when paired with technically adept IEMs/HPs
• Drives FOSTEX T40RO MK3 at 90/100 for good listening level

💔CONS

• Slightly fuzzy and slow paired with warm IEMs/HPs
• Dynamics gets less vibrant with slow less technical IEMs/HPs
• Slightly Left/Right focused
• Amazon only release
• May suffer from QC issues, if you are lucky you get a great copy, with $9 there has to be a compromise since this is not a bespoke handmade unit, it is an assembly line product, probably with near zero QC (just like tons of other ultra budget Dongles)

VERDICT

NGOKGA Type-C. With a very basic spec of 16bit-48kHz, not surprisingly this Dongle is very modest sounding, not trying to overdo anything. Clean analogue and organic timbre tonality. Dynamic range reach and depth highly dependent on how competent the paired IEMs/HPs are.

Surprisingly sounds great paired with FOSTEX T40RP MK3 Magnetic Planar (91db). I was shocked that it makes decent sound at all. In contrast the AudioQuest Dragonfly Cobalt struggled to sound decent with this merciless FOSTEX. While not being outright wholesome or meticulously refined, it was enjoyable despite needing the volume to be cranked up to 80-90/100. No signs of things falling apart despite the heavy load. Timbre and dynamics coherence remained stable.

Equally great sounding paired with Etymotic ER4SR and HZSOUND Heart Mirror. Being natively fast, resolving, transparent and technical, the ER4SR and Heart Mirror compensated for any mildness of NGOKGA for a balanced sounding output which is flat neutral yet still musical. So does with Aria, yet again I was pleasantly surprised to hear how well balanced Aria is with this NGOKGA – both the IEM and Dongle I regarded as mildly warm and yet the output is neutrally balanced! what trickery is this?!!!!. Not gonna complain though. It is assuredly enjoyable and welcoming.

However does not seem to synergize well with VE Asura 2.0. It was fuzzy and a bit subdued overall with this Mids focused earbuds. It seems that this Dongle can be quite unpredictable with what I paired it with. Hitting the right or wrong synergy can drastically alter the results. A little better results with VE Monk GO but nothing spectacular either. I believe this NGOKGA is not optimized for open backed Earbuds. I was not impressed with the earbuds pairing.

⭐⭐⭐($8.99)

Best Pairing: Technically competent IEMs/Earbuds under 100Ω

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