FWIW, and as noted, as a new owner of an Iris 12th, I did experience changes. I'm not sure if it's been from "burn-in" as we traditionally think of it, or merely thermal equilibrium being reached. What I mean is: I took delivery of my Iris Thursday Feb. 29. I connected all the cables & plugged it in and finished some work I was doing. Then, only 30 minutes or so after plugging in, I did an initial listen for about 90 minutes (I have a simple headphone rig). I was not impressed...but nor was I surprised.
Imaging was lackluster; it literally felt claustrophobic to me. But, as I said, I was not surprised by this. I was next able to give it a listen about 48 hours later...pretty large difference here. No deficiencies that I could detect. I want to stress that after that initial 90 minute listening session, I did *not* have music playing through my system; I merely left the Iris plugged in. Thus far, I have maybe 6 hours total of actual use, but it just stays plugged in.
..., I did *not* have music playing through my system; I merely left the Iris plugged in. Thus far, I have maybe 6 hours total of actual use, but it just stays plugged in.
Since the Iris has no on or off buttons or switches, once the unit it plugged in its powered. The only way to turn it on is to unplug it. It's designed to run 24/7/365.
And mine made an immediate difference when connected to my Teac UD-503 DAC. Everything just sounded fuller and thicker. Now if you're asking will the sound change over time as the unit burns it, pretty sure it will.
I also have it going to my Denafrips Pontus II 12th-1, but that too has to settle in since I got them at the same time.
FWIW, and as noted, as a new owner of an Iris 12th, I did experience changes. I'm not sure if it's been from "burn-in" as we traditionally think of it, or merely thermal equilibrium being reached. What I mean is: I took delivery of my Iris Thursday Feb. 29. I connected all the cables & plugged it in and finished some work I was doing. Then, only 30 minutes or so after plugging in, I did an initial listen for about 90 minutes (I have a simple headphone rig). I was not impressed...but nor was I surprised.
Imaging was lackluster; it literally felt claustrophobic to me. But, as I said, I was not surprised by this. I was next able to give it a listen about 48 hours later...pretty large difference here. No deficiencies that I could detect. I want to stress that after that initial 90 minute listening session, I did *not* have music playing through my system; I merely left the Iris plugged in. Thus far, I have maybe 6 hours total of actual use, but it just stays plugged in.
I have been using hdmi connection between Gaia and T+.
Recently tried cheap RJ45 cable out of curiosity. The sound is comparable but L/R channels are reversed. Is that normal?
I have been using hdmi connection between Gaia and T+.
Recently tried cheap RJ45 cable out of curiosity. The sound is comparable but L/R channels are reversed. Is that normal?
I would think any cable made with an RJ45 connecter would be wired according to the EIA-TIA standard, but I can't say that for sure. But there is a DSD Channel Swap option for exactly this situation, if your issue is with DSD.
O.K., so I've now had my Iris 12th since Feb. 29. I'm going to be using my desktop headphone rig over the next week or so (maybe 2 hours/day on average...which, for me, is **a lot** of usage compared to normal).
My only real "goal" with this setup is to have something I enjoy enough that I'll actually appreciate it when the time is right for me, while at the same time, doesn't feel like a big waste of my hobby $$ budget during the long stretches of time it will go with very little to zero use. As my friends & family will attest, I have zero problems with spending my money to fund a hobby. However, a major prerequisite is that I actually use the stuff I buy. I despise accumulating stuff that ends up sitting around, unused. Needless to say, I am not a collector...of anything.
I also very seldom do anything that approaches "critical listening" these days. It's been well over a decade since I've been engaged in audio to that level. I consider myself an educated audio consumer, not really an audiophile, but also not a "whatever earphone is touted by a consumer website/forum/magazine is good enough for me" kind of buyer. I joined head-fi as a teenager with a new-found interest in IEMs & headphones, coming from 2-channel speaker rigs (a love instilled in me as a youngster).
Why did I buy the Iris? It was a convergence of two things: (1) an issue I decided just to throw $$ at instead of taking time to investigate and (2) a cancelled one day golf meet-up with a couple friends. The former gave me a rationale to buy, and the latter meant my hobby fund had a bit of surplus I wasn't expecting.
The Iris does seem to solve/fix an intermittent issue I previously had: I only bother with PCM audio, my library is probably 80% 16-bit and the remainder 24-bit of varying sample rates. I had noticed since putting together my humble rig, that *sometimes* when listening to 24-bit/88.2 KHz and greater, at the beginning of each track in an album, I'd hear a scratching sound/artifact; almost like a record scratch, but not exactly? It was weird and off-putting. It seemed like it would happen for each song of an entire album, but not every album of the same sample rate even if it was next in my playing queue. I know…weird, right?
I assumed there was an issue with the transcoding of the music files (purchased from place like Bandcamp & Quobuz), or maybe a hardware issue (USB input of my DAC? USB cable?)…but I couldn’t grasp what it might be for sure because it was so inconsistent, other than the fact that it only happened with albums of 88.2 KHZ or greater sample rate, but not all of them…or even most of them.
Anyway, long story (not so) short, since introduction of the Iris, no more scratching sound artifact for any of the 88.2+ KHz music I’ve listened to thus far. I know…maybe I could’ve fixed this issue with a cheaper solution like a decent USB cable (I use a $10 USB-C to USB-B direct from my MacBook Pro because finding USB-C cables from a maker I trust hasn’t been super easy, especially a cable that’d cost less than a pair of mid-fi headphones).
An additional subjective sound impression/observation: it sure seems I hear improved imaging, I think because of a very dark background with the Iris in the chain. But again…not entirely sure if it’s because of the Iris specifically, or because of my DAC’s coax input being different than its USB input. Maybe any DDC would’ve yielded the same results.
All that said, the Iris 12th during my ownership seems like a very nicely built device. If you have the cash and the inclination, it’s worth a shot.
In a nutshell what the Iris does very well is clean up noise coming from your USB port, thus providing a much cleaner digital signal. The result is a darker background allowing for much cleaner playback. It has definitely improved the signal coming from my Teac DAC. Also have it hooked to my Pontus II 12th-1.
Per what it's doing for my Teac DAC, it's well worth the money. And I was using an AudioQuest Jitterbug (then $60 bucks) with the Teac before that. The Iris trounces it.
I have the Gaia connected to the Terminator by an expensive Tubulus HDMI cable.
Out of curiosity I tried a cheap 1m RJ45 cat7 cable from the local computer shop. The sound is really good, in some ways preferable to the HDMI. The HDMI to me sounds more focused and a little darker while the RJ45 sounds lighter and more airy. The difference is slight.
Shocked!
I buy a denafrips iris 12th DDC and I have some popping sound after I use the DDC,
Now my setting is ROON rock > hqplayer desktop > Rpi4 hqplayer naa > usb> denafrips iris DDC > i2S> Pegasus DAC
Sometime have one slight popping sound during playing music. If only connect the DAC is no problem.
If use the DDC but not upsampling and don’t use any filter have no popping sound.
I try to change the hqplayer buffer time to 100 or 250. It still have popping sound…
All of the I2S mode I have been tested.
I buy a denafrips iris 12th DDC and I have some popping sound after I use the DDC,
Now my setting is ROON rock > hqplayer desktop > Rpi4 hqplayer naa > usb> denafrips iris DDC > i2S> Pegasus DAC
Sometime have one slight popping sound during playing music. If only connect the DAC is no problem.
If use the DDC but not upsampling and don’t use any filter have no popping sound.
I try to change the hqplayer buffer time to 100 or 250. It still have popping sound…
All of the I2S mode I have been tested.
I experienced something similar. In my case I decided the cause was my computer (Apple MBP M1) did not have the power to do the computing needed with HQplayer and Roon using some of the more computing heavy filters.
Also I believe I2s has a maximum of 705.6k so HQplayer needs to be kept within that limit when using I2s from the Iris to the dac.
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