I do tend to agree with that and there is some legacy history there. Dongles were the cheaper devices, the development money went to portable with batteries and bluetooth. I think the gap has closed, but still, the self-powered devices, Q5K, Go Blu, Shanlings, Fiio, etc all tend to be very nice portables. Or safer pics than trying to sort out the multitude of dongles. As you would expect, the devices are a bit bigger, more room on the board for more functionality, and not constrained to usb power limits as you are seeing play out on Onix alpha. And for the same reason, older dongles were more constrained on power pre-usb c, now you see alot more development on dongles now that more power is available without a battery. It is definitely evolving right now.
No, outside of the two hype reviews, I haven't read an impression that really had me dying to hear it. I do have the 7hz Artemis39 which like DT03, ESS chip that is along the lines of what I like. I have no idea, maybe its the best thing ever.
@@PaulWasabii soundcheck39 gave onix alpha a first negative review so the hype did not last long, what about ka17 will you review it ? it has a ESS dac inside and all are positive reviews (unless i missed a negative review)
