Setup, Customization, and Performance

Desktop Setup

Given the xDuoo TA-22 is a DAC/headphone amp/preamp all-in-one unit, the number of wires that go in the back is fully dependent on how you plan on using it. I suspect most readers of this review will be using it primarily as a USB DAC for input, although the other inputs can be quite handy with non-desktop sources, such as a CD player, a phono stage, or even a TV. I personally sought the USB DAC application in addition to the Bluetooth input functionality for when I just want to play something off my phone at home. This means using the provided USB cable and Bluetooth antenna in addition to the power cable itself. I realized immediately that the power cable is shorter than usual at ~1.5 m so I had to dig out my own longer cable that's rated for similar specs. Turning on the unit using the switch on the back lights up the display as expected but also the xDuoo logo and product name to the left end up backlit. It's somewhat annoying that the backlighting is orange whereas the display elements are in yellow!


If there's no input then the display will simply read "UNLINKED" until you have something connected. Pressing the volume button allows you to toggle between the various possible input modes and does the same if you have multiple headphones connected or even plan to use the line-out feature as a preamp. This means you will be pressing that thing quite a lot and it's not the smoothest button in the world, with a slight scratchy action. Thankfully the rotary part works just fine so you can use it to control the volume of the outputs from 0-100, which is separate from the volume on your connected device itself. Press and hold the volume button for ~2 seconds to access the menu whereby you can now choose the gain level (low/medium/high) as well as different filters that you can play around with for the slightest of changes to the sound signature in the higher frequencies. The display then defaults to showing the input, output, playback rate (as applicable), as well as the filter and gain level for a quick visual indicator in use.


Given this is a tube amplifier too, there are a few things you need to be aware of. In particular, the two 12AU7 tubes glow and are hot. They look cool in the dark but are easily overwhelmed by the lights up front where the orange and yellow clash so much. A calibrated FLIR thermal camera also shows the chassis itself does its job despite the hot tubes to where you can still easily hold the sides for support when connecting/disconnecting cables.


Using the xDuoo TA-22 with Windows 10 or 11 doesn't require any additional drivers, with Windows recognizing the device automatically. We see that the default firmware provides PCM playback options up to 32-bit, 384 kHz in addition to DSD256. The USB decoder comes in handy here, and all your favorite players will recognize the device in WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) mode accordingly. There should be equivalent drivers pre-configured in newer macOS builds too, but I am not familiar enough to speak on this front. The TA-22 also allows Bluetooth pairing with phones/laptops/desktops and even supported TVs with Bluetooth 5.1 and SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX Low Latency, aptX HD, and LDAC support, which is enough for hi-res wireless playback from a matching client. I had no issues pairing it with my phone in LDAC mode as seen above.


If you have a device that doesn't accept UAC 2.0, or simply want to try other options, then you can find USB audio device drivers on the xDuoo firmware downloads page where the latest version at the time of testing was v5.0.0. Installation is trivial as seen above, and these drivers now allow you to make the most of the TA-22 within the Windows operating system.



What these drivers do after installation is create a new output device in Windows, also providing access to what I am pretty sure is just a re-skinned XMOS USB DAC Driver Control Panel. This indicates the use of an XMOS USB decoder in addition to the AKM equivalent for optical/coax inputs, and xDuoo confirmed there's an XU208 inside the TA-22. You would only really use it in newer Windows builds if you want to have the TA-22 as an ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) device. Set the format to your choosing and choose the buffer size based on latency requirements. With that done, go to your media player of choice. I demonstrated above with JRiver again and set the audio player to the same output. At this point, you can implement further tweaks, but those are player dependent. These drivers also provides 16-bit playback support if that is relevant to you.

Audio Performance

This is a good segue to summarize the capabilities of the xDuoo TA-22 with its dual ES9038Q2M mobile flagship-class DACs that give you support for everyone's favorite controversial audio topic in the form of MQA on-device rendering. More important to me is the 32-bit 384 kHz PCM and DSD256 playback support over USB as well as 24-bit 384 kHz and DSD128 playback over optical/coax to further indicate this isn't using an expensive desktop-grade DAC. It doesn't really matter to the vast majority of people, especially anyone in the market for a device in the price range the TA-22 operates in, but still something to be aware of. The TA-22 also claims putting out a max of 1.5 W per channel off the 1/4" output and 3 W off either balanced outputs. This is in high gain mode but that's still plenty of juice to drive pretty much any set of headphones on the market. Indeed, xDuoo also mentions the TA-22 is fine for headphones of impedance from 16-600 Ω while not specifying how sensitivity also plays a role here. Seen above is the TA-22 driving a $5000 set of dynamic driver headphones in the form of the excellent Focal Utopia, and I'd generally suggest pairing it with dynamic driver headphones that are more lenient on any possible higher output impedance, since xDuoo refrains from sharing that information. The Focal Utopia worked well enough to showcase what it can do with a nice set of tube amps but also I was immediately able to discern what the TA-22 does vs. something like the Feliks Audio Envy—a Class A transformer-coupled beast that costs even more than the Utopia does.

Part of this is because the xDuoo TA-22 isn't a pure tube amplifier but rather the tubes are used as a preamp for voltage gain with a Class A buffer with a solid state transistor output for current gain. This is a hybrid configuration that has become increasingly popular to give you some of the associated charm of tubes without compromising too much on the signal integrity itself, although I've found it ends up being middling in most regards and not the most impressive in either direction. We saw before how the TA-22's own rated measurements can be bested by solid state sources that cost far less and I can also tell you that sources in the same price range sound more resolving to me. The Yulong Aurora, for example, handles layering better, as does the TOPPING E50/L50 stack, and the FiiO K9 Pro ESS made the TA-22 sound like it had a weak filter that was somewhat muffling the sound. So those purely looking for the cleanest and non-colored sound would do better going with solid state sources. Where the xDuoo TA-22 comes in handy is when you acknowledge this and wish to purposely add in some color and warmth to the sound. In particular, lower order harmonics for string instruments and drums sound slightly more emphasized here which can add in a sense of engagement and even come off, dare I say it, more musical. There's also clearly some emphasis in the mid-bass too, so that's perhaps another reason to go with dynamic driver sets with better sounding timbre, and I found it worked well with the Sennheiser HD 6XX to even open up some of that cramped soundstage. It's not the most tube-y of sounds but does give you that taste so you can then decide whether to commit fully or not. The same applies for when you want to use the TA-22 as a preamp whereby the tube preamp stage does the same thing with line out/speakers too.