DAC / AmpOverreview

TANCHJIM Space

A quarter-sized dongle that benched like a desktop DAC — and then had to survive its own firmware updater.

33 sourcesUpdated
$90Typical US price

Score aggregates reviewer opinions across topics.

TANCHJIM Space

The short version

What to know.

A roughly $90 USB-C dongle with balanced and single-ended outputs and its own volume buttons. Sources agree on the basics: it is quiet enough for sensitive IEMs, it drives IEMs and easy headphones comfortably while hard-to-drive planars run out of headroom, and the price looked low for what it measured. They split on four things. Most listeners hear nothing added, but a sizeable minority hear a tint — and cannot agree whether it is warm, bright or U-shaped — while two owners with lab-grade interfaces could not reproduce the review bench's distortion figures. A minority report cellular interference on some phones. The volume buttons are widely liked, while the volume curve and early firmware's habit of forgetting settings are not. And the shell is praised while several owners bricked their units with the official firmware updater.

About this product

The original 2022 Space with both 3.5 mm and 4.4 mm outputs. Not the cheaper Space Lite (3.5 mm only), nor the later Space II and Space Pro, which are different designs sold under the same family name.

The Space was Tanchjim's first DAC/amp: a machined-aluminium dongle about the size of a thumb joint, with a clear window over the circuit board, a pair of Cirrus Logic CS43131 converters inside, a 3.5 mm single-ended and a 4.4 mm balanced jack on the end, a detachable USB-C cable, and two volume buttons on the side that also switch between low and high gain when pressed together. Tanchjim rates it at 4 Vrms balanced and 2 Vrms single-ended. It launched at the end of 2022 at $89.99.

A company best known for its IEMs got an unusually loud welcome for it in 2023, when Audio Science Review's bench put it level with good desktop DACs. Owners have since spent two years arguing about whether those numbers reproduce on a laptop, whether it has a sound of its own, and whether the official firmware tool is safe to run. It has since been succeeded by the Space II.

A good fit for

  • IEM listeners who want balanced output and hardware volume in a tiny package
  • Buyers who prioritise measured cleanliness over a deliberate house sound
  • Phone and laptop use with easy-to-drive headphones

Think twice if

  • You run power-hungry planars and want real headroom
  • You are uneasy about flashing firmware with a Windows-only tool
  • Your phone spends a lot of time on LTE and your current dongle already struggles with interference
  • You want an at-a-glance display of gain, filter or sample rate

The reviewer consensus

Agreement &
disagreement.

5 / 7topics divide opinion
powerfeaturesnoisetransparencyergonomicsbuildvalue
2 Mostly agree5 Divided opinions

Common ground4

  • Drives IEMs and easy headphones comfortably from either jack
  • Quiet enough for sensitive IEMs
  • Measured performance well beyond what most dongles managed at launch

Points of contention5

  • Whether it has a sound of its own — and, among those who hear one, whether it is warm, bright or U-shaped
  • Whether owners' benches on ordinary computers match the review's distortion figures
  • Whether cellular interference is a problem — it depends on the phone and network

A closer listen.

7 topics · 5 divided
Left: criticalRight: positiveTighter lines: more agreement

Power

Leans positiveMostly agree
Reviewer sentiment13 supporting sources
CriticalNeutralPositive

Band: opinion spread · Dot: weighted average

Ample for IEMs and easy headphones, borderline for demanding planars. The bench figures are healthy for a bus-powered dongle, and nearly every source agrees on where the line falls: sensitive and ordinary IEMs, an HD 650 or a Sundara are fine; a Dan Clark Stealth, an Audeze MM-100 at high volume or a HiFiMAN HE-R9 on the single-ended jack reach volume without much to spare. Whether the balanced jack really delivers its rated 4 Vrms cleanly is disputed between benches.

“These are very healthy numbers for a dongle.”

Amir Majidimehr, Audio Science Review

“The Space has no problem pushing every IEM that I test and even pushing my Sundara on both 3.5mm and 4.4mm port”

littlenezt, Head-Fi review

“Not quite substantive enough to drive harder-to-drive gear to optimal listening levels”

Kevingzw, The Headphone List

Measured

Audio Science Review (2023): 142 mW balanced and 54 mW single-ended into 33 Ω; 43 mW and 11 mW into 300 Ω; 2.05 Vrms single-ended at full volume. The balanced output clipped at maximum volume, so it was measured one step down at 2.9 Vrms. L7Audiolab's bench of a pre-production sample measured a clean 4.07 Vrms balanced; an ASR member measured 3.9 V on his own unit. A member reading of the review's impedance sweep puts the output impedance near 0 Ω.

vs. listeners — The 4 V ceiling is disputed between benches rather than between listeners: Audio Science Review's balanced output clipped at maximum volume ("an amplification/power limitation and not a faulty DAC," per the reviewer), while L7Audiolab and one owner's bench reached about 4 V cleanly, and another member suspected the review setup. Either way the practical advice is the same — stay off the last step or two of the volume control with hard loads.

Link to this topic

The hardware

Specifications.

Checked

Design

Form factor
Dongle
DAC
Cirrus Logic CS43131 ×2 · Delta-sigma
PCM
768 kHz / 32-bit
DSD
DSD256

Output

Gain settings
2

Connection

Digital inputs
USB-C
Headphone outputs
3.5 mm, 4.4 mm

Tanchjim rates output by voltage rather than power: 4 Vrms balanced and 2 Vrms single-ended on high gain, half that on low gain. Manufacturer-published figures, not measurements · from tanchjim.com, cosgz.tanchjim.com, hifigo.com (archived).

Follow the evidence

Sources 33

1–6 of 33 sources

Read with context

Limitations & method.

As of

What to keep in mind 5

  1. A read of where reviews and owners land as of October 2026, nearly four years after launch — the Space has since been succeeded by the Space II, and the big Western retailers no longer stock it.

  2. Most published reviews used units supplied by Tanchjim or a dealer; owners who bought their own are where the firmware and build complaints come from.