QT- Hidiz S9 Pro

disclaimer: Hidizs sent the S9 Pro for review.  I have no financial interest in Hidizs or any of its distribution partners.

Every company these days seems to be clamoring to make two products, one is a dongle to add a headphone jack to smartphones and tablets, and the other is a TWS in-ear for those who want to do the same without the cable.   Hidizs has taken a different road than most by offering a miniature DAP (AP80 Pro-X), a DAC/amp (DH80s) and a true dongle S9 Pro, all with similar specs.   Those who want a separate DAP so they don’t have to take a phone on the canoe trip will like the AP80, those looking for the advantages of a dongle with its own battery will find the DH80s to their liking, and those looking for all the sound with as little of the size as possible will like the S9 Pro.

 

Unboxing / Packaging:

 

Build:

The S9 Pro is roughly the size of a pack of gum at 2.5 inches long x ¾ inch wide x ½ inch tall.   It uses an aluminum shell with glass faces front and rear.  The Hidizs logo on the front of the S9 Pro doubles as the LED indicator that shows the bit rate of the source.   The nose has a 2.5mm and 3.5mm port and the tail has a USB type C port.   Fitting the ports on the S9 required a slight bump to the shell so an aluminum block is raised on either side for roughly the first ½ inch of the shell.   This block provides an anchor point for the provided belt clip so the S9 Pro locks into place for more secure carry.

 

Internals:

While the exterior is fairly basic and simple, but it hides some serious firepower inside.    The S9 Pro packs a ESS9038Q2M DAC, the 2-channel mobile version of the 9038 series of Sabre chips.   This is coupled to Sabre 9602 amplifiers that provide up to 100mW of output power in single-ended mode and 200mW in balanced.    In my testing this was more than enough power for most in-ears and efficient over-ears like the Campfire Cascade and Grado 325i.   For headphones that need more power, check out the DH80s as it offers a bit more oomph.

File support is very good with 32/768k PCM support, native DSD512.  It does not mention MQA support anywhere in the documentation so those who dislike MQA can rejoice while those who need MQA will want to look at the DH80s.     The indicator LED shines green for PCM files up to 96 kHz, Blue for 176/192, Red for 352/384, and White for 705/768k.  For DSD, yellow indicates 64 or 128 while Purple indicates 256 or 512.

In addition to file compatibility, the S9 Pro will connect to about anything with support for Windows 10 and 11, Android, Mac OS, iOS, and iPad OS including support for Apple Lossless Audio.    I had no trouble getting the S9 Pro working with a wide variety of sources including a Samsung S21 and tablet, and iPad and iPhone13, a windows 11 laptop, and a Mac Pro laptop.    It was plug and play with all of them and didn’t require any extra setup although some older versions of Windows may need a driver to function and windows 11 only supports up to 32/384 with the MS driver.   Hidizs provides a windows driver to allow the use of the dongle to its full capacity for those with files that exceed 32/384.  My collection has very few files above 192 kHz with the majority being 44, 96, or 192 kHz FLAC.

Sound:

Sound quality was very good in my tests with only a slight hint of the ESS hump in the lows.   Detail level is good with enough micro-detail to keep things interesting and enough power to provide good dynamic range.   The S9 pro is best matched with in-ears and I found it paired well with the Campfire Andromeda, Ultimate Ears Live, UM Mest, and Sennheiser IE900.   Much like its sibling, the DH80s, the S9 Pro is largely transparent and does a good job of acting as gain on the wire without adding its own color.

 

Thoughts / Conclusion:

One of the big advantages of the S9 pro compared to some of its competitors is its low power draw.   All of the dongles draw power from their source device so will drain the source battery more than using the source by itself, but some use much more power than others.   The S9 pro, used roughly 14% of the S21s battery when used in single ended for an 8 hour workday. Admittedly the meter I use to test battery consumption uses some power as well so this is likely to be +/- a point or two.

There is an awful lot of competition out there with every maker looking to differentiate themselves either with features or prices. Hidizs has done some of both with the S9 Pro.  They priced it like a budget model, but the dac chip used is closer to the top end models, and with both single-ended and balanced outputs, it fits neatly somewhere near the middle of the market feature wise.    Right now the S9 Pro is on sale for just over $100 USD making it an even better deal.