SteelSeries GameDAC Gen 2 Hi-Res Audio Amplifier – ESS Sabre Quad-DAC – AI Noise Cancellation – 360° Spatial Audio – Hi-Res Certified – PC, Xbox, PS5, PS4

great sound on x box series x with IEMs and USB mic
Since I use an Xbox series X options that let me use my USB mic and my own pair of IEMs are slim. I’ve been using the turtle beach option but after a year of just dealing with terrible audio quality I started trying to find other options which led me to this. First off the audio sounds night and day better than turtle beach device. The ESS DAC it has in it I think actually sounds very good along with the amplification. The built in mic button is perfect so far. Only issue I had initially was a ground loop noise with my mic but that’s not a fault of this device just a result of both this device and the mic sharing the same power source (the Xbox). Adding a ground loop isolator inline with mic completely got rid of that noise so it’s a non issue. In regards to the sound delay I can’t perceive it at all. I pretty much only play COD though and at least with that game it has only improved my experience. It could be more pronounced in other games or I simply just can’t perceive it so your milage may very.If you’re looking into this device I think you should try it and if you happen to notice or be bothered by any sound lag that may or may not happen than you can send it back. Personally I’m thrilled with it as it does everything that I hoped it would.

Works great!!!
It’s works great for MW, especially with the sonar. The dac gives a better sound quality with directional sound and clarity. Just make sure you purchase the 3 band 3.5mm headphone jack, so the mic works. Headphones I’m using the on are the Steelseries 9x pc

Absurdly overpriced for what it does… but it gets the job done.
Due to Microsoft’s harsh restrictions on unlicensed third-party USB audio devices, I had to choose the GameDAC Gen 2, as there were just a couple options for routing audio from my Xbox to my Hi-Fi system via USB. It’s a decent option if you want to extract audio without needing an expensive HDMI extractor that supports VRR and other features.This DAC works well on Mac for Hi-Res music, which is a nice bonus. However, I noticed a noticeable hiss when there’s no audio and the amplifier gain is turned up, which is disappointing at this price point.As for latency, it’s not that perceptible like some reviewers say unless you’re playing competitive FPS games, which is what this DAC was designed for. It would be nice if they fixed this problem in a future update.Overall, at this price point, it is competing with higher-quality DACs from brands like Schiit and iFi, which offer better performance for a similar cost. I’m giving it 3 stars because while it gets the job done, the price is just too steep considering these issues.

Meh – Faulty Unit? Or are all of them the same? We’ll find out.
Bought to get sound from everything sitting in my office setup, including an Xbox. That part works well. However, volume knob doesn’t control Line Out volume… So if you have speakers hooked up, they’re pegged at LOUD and also has the added benefit of disabling the volume control of the speaker. Only works on headset I/O port. Faulty? Don’t know because the manual is garbage. Going to order another to find out. Will update after testing.Updated March 7, 2024. Yep – These units do not work as advertised. Received the replacement, brand new unit, updated firmware, same issue. The volume knob does not control volume levels on the Line Out port. So if you’re using these for anything other than a headset, they are trash.

I used a Soundblaster X G6 with older gen consoles (PS3,PS4, Xbox One X) since they had optical out and the SBX surround processing gave me almost wallhack-level positional audio cues (via optical connection and dolby digital decoding since a USB connection with consoles wasn’t great for the HRTF accuracy) for FPS games (Apex, OW2, WZ2 etc).Since Xbox series X|S and PS5 don’t have optical outs, AND Xbox X|S doesn’t support unlicensed usb audio devices, AND I need mic input, I picked this dac/amp. I use it with DTS headphone X (sold separately via MS|XBOX store). It’s insane how much more accurate DTS headphone X is over SBX G6 for positional accuracy at any setting…to my ears, even over Dolby Atmos headphone (performance mode) for almost every game I’ve played.Compared to just using the 3.5mm input on the Xbox controller, the Steelseries Gen2 sounds clearer and richer (not muffled). This makes it easier to discern between all the footstep / gun sounds happening in FPS games. So even if you just used the controller input jack with DTS headphones, you can hear directional cues but it’s tougher to discern distance because the sound is so muffled without using this dac. But with this dac, I found it much clearer to discern multiple separate sounds from multiple directions (especially when paired with headset with good soundstage like the HD560s or PC38X or )If you pair this dac with a virtual surround HRTF like Dolby Atmos or DTS headphone X, you’ll get that EXTRA advantage in sound stage and CLARITY VS just plugging your headphones into the controller. I use Sennheiser HD560S (120 db impedence) with this dac and it’s got more than enough power for it. You can pickup a modmic or even cheaper are the cable mic boom cord for Sennheiser headphones ($20).I honestly did not think it was possible to get close to the soundstage/directional cue/clarity I had with the SBX G6 (SBX effect over Dolby digital). You can already get a positional sound advantage just using Dolby Atmos or DTS headphone but if you pair that advantage with a dac like this (if you’re on Xbox X|S), you will think that your ears were just cleansed of ear wax and you’ll almost always have the preemptive advantage over anyone who just uses the controller jack without HRTF.

Very happy with everything