The DacMagic XS is a great feat of engineering. Everything just works straight out of the box, and the sound quality is superb with pretty much all headphones. It runs in-ears to mid-level high-end headphones with great clarity, but cannot run power-demanding headphones like the HiFiMAN HE-500s well, although it is clearly not meant to. You can also easily pick up minute details with ultra-resolving in-ears like the UE In-ear Reference Monitors.

Clarity with the DacMagic XS is on par with the ODAC and AudioQuest Dragonfly, which is to say that all three are completely transparent. The DacMagic XS has a small edge as it is USB 2.0 capable and Cambridge Audio actually took the time to develop a driver that works and lets you adjust latency parameters. The XS can handle pretty much any sampling frequency you throw at it without re-sampling.

Its price is slightly higher than that of the AudioQuest Dragonfly, but we feel that its other features of convenience, like a good driver and volume control buttons, more than make up for the difference in price.