Post by Owen Y on Oct 4, 2018 21:20:01 GMT 12
If I was dedicated to headphone listening to digital files (which I am not), I would seriously consider the Pro iDSD from Ifi Audio as a good-value one-box solution - a DAC, headphone amp and/or a preamp for active speakers or power amplifier.
At US$2499, arguably not bargain basement when converted to NZD, it may actually be stand-out value when you consider in detail what it offers, its versatility & how it compares to competitors:
- Employs 4 x Burr Brown DAC chips
- Upsampling DSD 512 - DSD1024
- WiFi/network playback
- Ethernet, USB A/B, XLR, S/PDIF (coax/Toslink) & BNC inputs
- micro SDHC card slot
- Built-in Spotify and Tidal support
- Truly balanced, 4-track, remote-controlled motorised ALPS volume control (ie a Preamp) or bypass-able.
- Headphone single-ended or balanced outputs
- Free Muzo app for smartphone control of music playback
- 3 x switchable Solid State, Tube or Tube+, output amplifier circuits.
- 5 x selectable digital & analogue filter options (Bit-Perfect, Bit-Perfect+, 'Apodising', 'Transient Aligned' or GTO ('Gibbs Transient Optimized') filters)
Darko does a detailed review, just published & finds that you can 'tailor' the sound of the iDSD Pro to taste and/or to sound like various other DAC devices on the market:
darko.audio/2018/10/off-the-dial-flexibility-and-value-with-ifis-pro-idsd-dac/
" I played with dedicated music servers as well as Ethernet-to-USB bridges from SOtM and Sonore with various power supply upgrades, and at best they could only hope to match the iFi playback engine in sonic excellence. "
" It’s hard to really nail down what such a device sounds like when its multitude of possible configurations gives way to multiple personalities. To achieve this level of versatility elsewhere, on both sound and features, we would have to drop considerably bigger cash on the Ayre, the Resonnesence Labs, or the dCS. That marks the iFi DAC as offering value in the extreme. "
Designer Thorsten Loesch at IFA Berlin:
At US$2499, arguably not bargain basement when converted to NZD, it may actually be stand-out value when you consider in detail what it offers, its versatility & how it compares to competitors:
- Employs 4 x Burr Brown DAC chips
- Upsampling DSD 512 - DSD1024
- WiFi/network playback
- Ethernet, USB A/B, XLR, S/PDIF (coax/Toslink) & BNC inputs
- micro SDHC card slot
- Built-in Spotify and Tidal support
- Truly balanced, 4-track, remote-controlled motorised ALPS volume control (ie a Preamp) or bypass-able.
- Headphone single-ended or balanced outputs
- Free Muzo app for smartphone control of music playback
- 3 x switchable Solid State, Tube or Tube+, output amplifier circuits.
- 5 x selectable digital & analogue filter options (Bit-Perfect, Bit-Perfect+, 'Apodising', 'Transient Aligned' or GTO ('Gibbs Transient Optimized') filters)
Darko does a detailed review, just published & finds that you can 'tailor' the sound of the iDSD Pro to taste and/or to sound like various other DAC devices on the market:
darko.audio/2018/10/off-the-dial-flexibility-and-value-with-ifis-pro-idsd-dac/
" I played with dedicated music servers as well as Ethernet-to-USB bridges from SOtM and Sonore with various power supply upgrades, and at best they could only hope to match the iFi playback engine in sonic excellence. "
" It’s hard to really nail down what such a device sounds like when its multitude of possible configurations gives way to multiple personalities. To achieve this level of versatility elsewhere, on both sound and features, we would have to drop considerably bigger cash on the Ayre, the Resonnesence Labs, or the dCS. That marks the iFi DAC as offering value in the extreme. "
Designer Thorsten Loesch at IFA Berlin:
DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com
