JDS Element IV DAC/Amp Review & Measurements

Review

For the full review and my thoughts on the sound watch the video below!

Watch the video

Design and I/O

The JDS Element IV is the latest in the Element line of compact DAC/Amp combo units from JDS labs, and whilst it might look very similar, it has some new features that elevate it from being a great choice for the money, to being arguably the best option for a DAC/Amp combo under $1000.

The device itself is a slim, all-metal construction that features a clean, matte-black aesthetic and one that will fit nicely into just about any desk setup. The large control knob on the top allows you to adjust both the volume control and the variety of menu options including fairly typical options such as the DAC reconstruction filter, but also some you may not have seen before such as the ESS harmonic distortion compensation parameters.

Personally I would recommend leaving the compensation settings at the defaults. I was able to very slightly improve THD by manually adjusting whilst measuring on the Audio Precision APx555B analyzer, but adjusting either option too far in either direction did make things worse. For this reason, and given as the stock settings were already incredibly close to the optimum position, they’re best left as-is. The ‘DPLL’ setting though can bring a small improvement in jitter performance when set lower. Setting this too low may mean the device can no longer lock to the input signal, and may need to be adjusted upwards again, but set this as low as you’re able to whilst still maintaining a reliable connection.

The Element IV is a DAC/Amp combo, offering USB-C and optical SPDIF inputs, as well as a pair of RCA outputs should you wish to use it as a standalone DAC with an external amplifier.

Being a single ended device, there are no XLR outputs for the DAC itself or the headphone amplifier, however JDS will upon request swap the 6.35mm output port to a 4.4mm pentaconn balanced port. Although this is purely for convenience and the device itself is single ended internally.

EQ

The big new feature on the Element IV is built-in EQ functionality, all of which is accessible via a web-panel.

The UI here is overall excellent, making it extremely easy not just to set up your own EQ profiles, but to import from other JDS users, squiglink or local files, and multiple profiles can be saved and swapped easily.

You can even set separate profiles for the headphone and RCA outputs!

I did find a few minor quirks with the UI as it stands currently, the most frustrating of which was that disabling an EQ band does not simply turn it off, but instead sets the gain value to ‘0’, meaning you are unable to simply turn it back on and instead have to manually adjust the gain back to where it was before. This makes AB’ing individual changes rather difficult and I hope JDS can modify this in a future software update.

Having EQ built into the device is something which I truly wish more products incorporated. It eliminates the need for software tools like EQ-APO that also come with downsides including forcing you to pass audio through the windows mixer, and the web-panel UI is in my opinion vastly easier to use than that of other devices which often have only on-board controls.

Overall, the Element IV packs quite a lot into a small, fairly affordable package, and in my opinion leaves me feeling that under even $1000 let alone $500, there are few other products that I would personally opt for instead, and hardly any I’d call a substantial ‘upgrade’ from the Element IV.

If you’d like to hear more about what I thought of the device subjectively, head over to The Headphones Show and watch the full review! But for now, how does it measure?

Measurements

Measurements Include:

• THD+N (SINAD)
• THD+N vs Output Level
• THD+N vs Frequency
• IMD vs Output Level
• Low Level Signal Output
• Reconstruction Filter/Upsampling
• Jitter
• Linearity
• Output Impedance
• Volume Matching
• Noise
• Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)
• Crosstalk
• Multitone

Additional measurements and test information available in the full report

Test Setup

• Audio Precision APx555 B-Series analyzer
• Measurement setup and device under test are running on an AudioQuest Niagara 3000 power conditioner.
• Element IV was connected via a JDS Synapse USB isolator unless specified otherwise.
• Element IV was warmed up for 6 hours prior to testing
• Stock power supply used for all tests
• USB input, headphone output used unless otherwise specified
• Tests shown are with a 32Ω load unless otherwise specified
• Exact analyzer/filter configurations for each measurement are detailed in the full reports
• CH1 (Blue) = Left, CH2 (Red) = Right

Full Measurement Reports

RCA Out (USB Direct)

RCA Out (USB Isolated)

Headphone Out 32 Ohm (USB Isolated)

Headphone Out 300 Ohm (USB Isolated)

Results

Dynamic Range (AES17): 119.5dB

SNR: 120.7dB

IMD SMPTE: -109dB

Noise Level RMS: 44uVrms (20hz-1Mhz), 1.8uVrms (20hz-20khz)

DC Offset: 1.7mV active, 1.8mV idle

Susceptible to intersample overs: Yes

Output Impedance: 0.22Ω Single-Ended (Headphone Output)

THD+N / SINAD

Disclaimer: SINAD should not be used as a figure to judge the overall performance of a product, it is a figure that combines several aspects of performance into one number whilst not including many others. It should be used as one factor among many when evaluating the overall objective performance of a device, and the type/structure of distortion can often be more important than the level of distortion/noise itself.

1khz 0dBfs Sine - RCA (DAC) Output:

Overall performance as a standalone DAC looks very good. Some amount of higher order distortion at very low levels, though this is fairly common on ESS designs.

1khz 0dBfs Sine - 6.35mm (Headphone) Output - 32Ω Load:

Performance through the headphone output with a 32 Ohm load is very similar to the DAC output itself. It seems that the amplification stage itself is overall very transparent, with the main difference being a little more ‘spray’ between 50hz and about 2khz at extremely low levels. The lack of any clear change when supplying higher current means the Element IV will be well suited to driving more challenging headphones such as planar magnetic options such as the Hifiman Susvara Unveiled.

1khz 0dBfs Sine - 6.35mm (Headphone) Output - 300Ω Load:

300 Ohm performance is nearly identical to the DAC outputs themselves, again implying the amplification stage is overall extremely transparent.

1khz 50mV Sine - 6.35mm (Headphone) Output - 12Ω Load (IEM Simulation):

At a 50mV output into a 12 Ohm load to simulate a typical IEM use case, we get 87dB of THD+N, which puts the Element IV among some of the best sources for ensuring as low a noise floor as possible with IEMs. It measures about 5dB ahead of a Chord Mojo 2, and only about 5-6dB behind the absolute best measuring devices available at any price!

THD vs Output Level (Power)

The JDS Element IV provides up to 3W into a 32 Ohm load, and can deliver up to 10Vrms into any load that is 32 Ohm or higher.

The gain structure of the Element IV is also done in such a way that the 32 Ohm max output point aligns with the maximum volume setting on the device, meaning unless you are using a very low impedance load, you can turn it up all the way to maximum and be certain that you are not clipping or exceeding the capabilities of the unit.

THD vs Output Level (DAC outputs)

At around -35dB there is a small change in behaviour between the left and right channels, though only to a very minor extent. Besides this, THD vs output level was extremely consistent.

THD+N vs Frequency (96khz capture bandwidth)

(96khz bandwidth used on the analyzer. Don’t compare this directly to standalone audible band THD+N measurements as the measurement setup is not the same.)

THD+N vs frequency is completely flat at the DAC outputs. On the headphone output one channel saw a tiny increase towards the highest frequencies, but overall extremely consistent THD+N vs frequency.

IMD vs Output Level

IMD shows a small difference in behaviour between one channel and the other similar to what was seen in the THD vs level measurement. This behaviour was the same both at the headphone output and the RCA DAC outputs so it is likely caused by the DAC itself. However the differences were minor, and overall IMD was extremely low.

Low Level Signal Output

This test plays a very low level signal through the device to check for any unusual behaviour.

Nothing unusual to see here!

Reconstruction Filter (Nyquist/Oversampling Filter)

The JDS Element IV offers the standard choice of built-in ESS oversampling filter options. These were all quite standard and unfortunately none that could both keep everything under 20khz completely flat whilst also successfully attenuating fully by the Nyquist frequency of 22.05khz, though this requires more compute power to do than most products have available internally.

I would recommend using the “Fast Linear” filter if you are uncertain about which to choose.

Jitter

Jitter performance is quite good. Only a small amount of low frequency jitter visible. This is also slightly affected by the DPLL jitter rejection setting. The stock setting of ‘7’ did show slightly higher jitter, but you can turn it down to ‘1’ to improve performance if using the USB input. If using the SPDIF input, turn down the DPLL setting as far as you are able to do so without the device being unable to lock to the input signal.

Linearity

This test plays a 1khz tone through the device, and steps down the level in small increments. Linearity measures how accurately the actual output of the device reflects the intended output. For example, if the level was stepped down by 20dB, but the output of the device was 19.7dB quieter, there is a 0.3dB nonlinearity, which would show as a 0.3dB rise on the graph.

Thanks to the extremely low noise and distortion on the Element IV, linearity is extremely good.

Volume Matching vs Attenuation

The JDS element IV uses digital volume control, which means channel matching was perfect at all levels and there is no imbalance exhibited close to the lower end of the volume control range. Adjustments can be made in 0.5dB steps, and can apply to both the RCA outputs and the headphone output.

Noise

There are a small number of ultrasonic noise products visible, though all at an extremely low level, and in fact below what 16 bit resolution files would normally be able to capture.

There was a small improvement found when using the JDS Synapse USB isolator in conjunction with the Element IV, if you wish to explore the full differences between isolated and direct to a desktop PC, full reports for each both at the RCA output and the headphone output are available. Changes were generally very small, but given as the JDS synapse comes in at under $50, and measures as one of the cleanest USB sources I’ve tested, I’d recommend getting one both to ensure that the Element IV is performing to its absolute best, and because the Synapse can be used with any other DAC to completely eliminate any potential for USB source noise to cause any interference or performance degradation. Having this level of performance available at $50, rather than what would until recently have cost over $300 with an Intona isolator, is quite refreshing!

Crosstalk

Crosstalk performance varied depending on the test setup. The DAC outputs themselves showed overall very low crosstalk; remaining under -130dB until 3khz and under -110dB until 20khz.

The headphone outputs showed higher levels and this would increase as current demands rose. At full scale output, crosstalk was roughly -88dB for a 300 Ohm load and -68dB for a 32 Ohm load.

Multitone

No unusual behaviour observed in the multitone test, just a small rise toward 20khz as previously indicated by the THD+N vs frequency measurements. At the RCA DAC output though this rise was not present.

Conclusion

The JDS Element IV is an all round excellent performer, both subjectively and objectively, with some enticing features on top. There are some small nitpicks with the EQ user interface which should be improved upon over time, but the core performance of the device and everything that it offers is outstanding.

At this pricepoint, personally I’d say there’s little reason to want for more and the Element IV stands as my recommendation for a DAC/Amp combo under $1000