audirect today announced the hilidac Beam 2, the successor to its highly successful audirect Beam. Measuring 49 x 15 x 6.85mm, the new DAC/Amp is 15% bigger than its predecessor and maintains its weight at 12g. The 15% increase in size can be attributed to the addition of a 2.5mm balanced jack for balanced output.
Sporting a single ES9281C PRO chip from ESS featuring dual ES9218PC DACs which allows the left and right channel to operate independently. This, coupled with a dual opamp configuration ensures a True Balanced design for the DAC/Amp. It is also equipped with a two Ultra-Low Femtoseconds Phase Jitter Crystal Oscillators, which according to the manufacturer provides best-in-class audio performance at 119 dB DNR and 0.0003% THD + N.
The hilidac Beam 2 is the company’s 4th generation portable DAC/Amp solution, supporting sampling rates of up to 32bit, 384KHz as well as up to DSD128 via DoP. In partnership with MQA Ltd, Beam 2 is an MQA-enabled DAC/Amp which can connect to MQA music source and complete the final unfold of an MQA file. This aims to allow one to experience the abundant music details of the artists’ original master recording.
Standard accessories in the box include a Type-C USB to Apple Lightning cable, a Type-C USB to Type C USB cable, for connectivity between the DAC/Amp and the source which can be your iOS or Android device or PCs running Mac OS as well as Windows 7 or 10 with a Type-C USB Port.
Available in five colours; Black, Blue, Gold and Red, the hilidac Beam 2 is scheduled to be released in Jan 2020 and is expected to retail for USD 119.99.
