[KmanChu]

The chip itself is only a tiny bit of the total sound signature. Their previous designs do have a more "organic" sound than other dacs at their price points (even the iDAC, which uses a Sabre.) They are not thick or slow sounding though.

Humm, that's weird, because the Sabre chip is used is used in many excellent DAC's such as the Benchmark DAC2, but i guess they wanted a rich, bass heavy sound , and not detailed and Analytical sound, which is OK.

 

[obsidyen]

How does it compare to GeekOut?
oh and btw, too bad it's not based on a Sabre 9018 chip, it would have been perfect.
Isn't Burr Brown inferior to Sabre?

 
No, it's the opposite. Sabre has a good amount of detail but it sounds digital and dry. Burr Brown chips sound more organic and natural. Unless you're a music producer who wants dry, detailed sound; Burr Brown is the way to go.

 

[roamling]

Germany won the the world cup 2014, completey off topic but very close to my heart.

 

[pearljam50000]

Can this unit be as good as desktop DAC/amp, or just a bit better than other portable units?

 

[maricius]

Can this unit be as good as desktop DAC/amp, or just a bit better than other portable units?

The quality of the product is up to the user and it isn't being sold yet so no apt comparisons.

At the least, my guess is that the micro iDSD will be comparable to the current TOTL portable DAC/amp such as the Cypher Lab products, Centrance M8, etc. and not yet up to snuff as compared to the $2400 Chord Hugo. However, my personal inkling is that they're comparable both as a DAC and as an amp to the Chord Hugo and thus comparable to desktop amps and desktop DACs. Obviously, the iDSD won't be as good as those $10k DACs but I doubt they're THAT much better.

 

[kugino]

Can this unit be as good as desktop DAC/amp, or just a bit better than other portable units?

sure, i think it can be as good as some desktop dac/amps. it might be a bit better than other portable units. it might also be worse. who knows? no one's heard it yet. 

 

[pearljam50000]

lol
OK i will wait for the reviews. ^_^
When is the final release date?

 

[jexby]

lol
OK i will wait for the reviews. ^_^
When is the final release date?

 
USA retailers should be shipping to pre-ordered customers on July 21/22.  
very much looking forward to this unit, and suspect it's replacing my HiFi-M8 for a variety of reasons.
(less IEM hiss, more power to HE-560, longer battery life, etc.)

 

[RadioWonder737]

The iDSD Micro is also made for Big Rig Systems...

See this page where they do a Jitter test... Quote: "So please go-ahead and make our day and put the micro iDSD in a "big, big rig." 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/711217/idsd-micro-crowd-design-user-card-uploaded-page-88/1200

 

[pearljam50000]

What's an "Octa-Adopter" unit?

 

[iFi audio]

Monday morning update: Those Pesky Bugs
 
Hi,
 
The software revisions following the power increase took a couple of days longer than expected to fully-implement.
 
Last week, we crunched through the night, every night, through the weekend and then some. There were some software bugs that needed squashing and they took somewhat longer than expected.
 
Just about everything in the micro iDSD is inter-related so we could not change the hardware without changing the software - for the battery recognition alone, there are a few thousands lines of code.
 
Here is a screenshot of some of that:
 

 
This gives you a small insight into how much of a pain it was to debug. Given we write our own code, we were the only ones who could sort it out!
 
The good news is that it has been sorted.
 
The bad news is that this added 3-4 days of delay so now, all retailers should have their units ~Monday 28th July (instead of 22nd July).
 
We hope you do not mind this but as soon we could give you a confirmed update, we have.
 
Plus, later on, we have a further update for nano AND micro iDSD owners on converting MP3 to DSD. To take advantage of Quad and Octa-Speed DSD.
 
ps. Congrats to Germany - worth winners! Thorsten, Paul and Mike are happy campers.

 

[kugino]

What's an "Octa-Adopter" unit?

seriously, dude, read the thread.

 

[RadioWonder737]

Not bad news,wonderful news... Congrats to all who debugged the code!

 

[pearljam50000]

How much mw@300ohm?

 

[ClieOS]

  Humm, that's weird, because the Sabre chip is used is used in many excellent DAC's such as the Benchmark DAC2, but i guess they wanted a rich, bass heavy sound , and not detailed and Analytical sound, which is OK.

 
You can make a BB's DAC sound analytical simply by the choice of components that handle the analog section after the DAC chip. It isn't really that hard to do and certainly you don't need a Sabre chip to do it. But by using a Sabre chip in the micro iDSD, we would have lost most of the hidden DSD features that iFi has dag up since the nano iDSD. That actually makes the Sabre DAC the inferior chip to use. Don't let the Sabre popularity fools you to think that it is the be-all-end-all. When it comes to TOTL DAC, the implementation is just as, if not more important than the chip itself. I'll agree with what iFi has mentioned before, that Sabre chip is very easy to implement (which contributes to its popularity since you can get relative good sound out of it for minimum effort / cost), but not always superior in sound.