This review is part of iFi Audio’s generous Nano BL Tour, where I am happy and proud to be selected as one of the reviewers for the European leg of the Tour. Therefore, a disclaimer is due here:
Disclaimer: the unit tested was a loaner from iFi, which means exactly this: I received it from iFi free of charge and returned it after the review. I have not been otherwise incentivized by iFi to write a positive review. And frankly – I didn’t need any additional incentives!
Disclaimer 2: the review contains a few very technical and detailed abstracts, that may be way too lengthy and detailed for a captivating reading, therefore, those abstracts will be titled as Geeky Tech Notes and will be hidden under spoilers, which you may or may not wish to open.
Background with iFi products
I have been for three years and I still am a happy owner of iFi’s original Nano iDSD (the fully-featured one, not LE!), that I’ve had enough time to put through its paces in both desktop and portable applications. I must confess I am absolutely in love with this little piece of genius engineering, although, as it is always the case with beloved partners, Nano iDSD wasn’t without its flaws. Needless to say I was eagerly awaiting for the opportunity to get my hands on the new Black Label incarnation of this tiny magic box to see what has changed and in what direction, apart from the obvious switch from “blonde” to “brunette” appearance. So inevitably, throughout this review I will be comparing the new BL to the original iDSD Nano.
Packaging and contents
The unit I reviewed was a brand-new, unopened retail unit (not a tour unit), therefore I can be confident that the packaging and contents are exactly what you’ll find on the shelves of retail stores/in boxes coming from online stores.
The packaging style is very similar to the original iDSD Nano that I own: you’re met by an outer sleeve with a colorful product picture and a wealth of both marketing and technical information. It even has a little special sticky black label (no pun intended… or is it? ) on the top of the box, showing off 4x Extra Power, Dual Mono Output and MQA Authenticated features. The sleeve off, you will find a typical iFi white tight-fit box (a bit “Apple-style”). Note the obvious difference between box dimensions of the original Nano and the BL: the latter is much slimmer, with roughly the same length and width.
Nano Black Label on the left, original Nano iDSD on the right
Great job by iFi on slimming down the box, given that the Nano BL has a lot of stuff included:
The most notable difference is the set of cables, which is logical given the change of physical USB connection on the BL compared to the original.
The BL comes with the total of 3 cables/adaptors:
- 1m/3ft long USB3.0 A Male to A Female cable. This one looks like the regular USB3.0 extension cable, and technically this is exactly what it is. It will be your main cable for charging the unit from any wall plug adapter/powerbank/computer port, as well as your USB DAC connection cable to connect the BL to a PC.
- A short (slightly less than 20cm/about 7in) USB2.0 A female to B Female cable. This will allow you to connect whatever existing USB A to B male cables you may already have in your desktop or portable setups.
- An even shorter single-piece solid A Female to B Female adaptor, which obviously has exactly the same purpose as the aforementioned 7 inch cable, but in a different form factor.
I will get back to this with a more in-depth analysis of connectivity options later in my review.
Unlike the original Nano iDSD, which included a regular, but decent, stereo RCA cable, the new BL bundles no analogue interconnects at all.
In addition to the set of cables and adapters, the BL also comes with a pair of rubber bands to “sandwich” it with a portable source – a smartphone or a DAP, however, the rectangular silicone spacer that came with the original Nano iDSD, is no longer included.
To finish with the packaging, I’ll mention the much discussed carrying pouch. Yes, it does have an opening at the bottom, and no, this is not a stitching defect, but a wise feature to run cables through.
I am personally not a big fan of soft-cloth carrying pouches, especially made of velour-esque materials. To say that this is a dust/debris magnet is a classical British understatement. Moreover, it offers only limited protection against scratches, but not more. Don’t get me wrong – this is perfectly fine, and very thoughtful on behalf of iFi to include the pouch free of charge, but I always want my beloved gadgets well protected. My original Nano iDSD has been kept in a small digital camera pouch that I got dirt-cheap in the local camera store, and, as you can see, after 3 years of heavy use it is still in a pristine condition.
Given that Black Label is black (what a surprise ), I’d strongly recommend getting something similar for your new toy, as the black coating may be even more prone to accidental bumps and scratches.
Exterior, connections and controls
I can’t agree more with Henry Ford who once said that “The car can be of any color, as long as this color is black”!
The Nano BL, with its high-grade matte-black finish and glossy black/orange markings is beautiful. Full stop! Front and rear plates are perfectly machined and beveled edges add to the overall impression of a quality product.
Don’t get me wrong – the original Nano iDSD made me have the same feelings of shimmering quality when I first got it in my hands, but there’s nothing I can do – BLACK is BLACK. I love it.
While it’s a pure question of personal taste, I was not overly happy with the overall change in the front and rear plate shapes. I really loved the complex multi-angled “raised eyebrows” shape of the original Nano and Micro series.
The new BL has a much simpler, more “boring” trapezoid face. I can see it being more comfortable in the portable set up, as it has less bumpy edges now, but to me it kind of lost that signature bold look of iFi Nano/Micro series. Other than this, the overall physical dimensions of the two units remain very close, with exactly the same chassis length and width. The BL has a slightly smaller overall length thanks to a very wise move by iFi of making the volume knob almost twice as short as the original Nano iDSD.
Bravo, iFi, you really nailed this one! While still offering perfectly sufficient grip for convenient volume control, the new BL does not have this unnecessarily protruding volume knob of the original Nano iDSD. Moreover, the new knob is also more visually informative, thanks to an orange mark against a black background – a step forward from barely visible silver mark on a silver knob of the original Nano iDSD.
However, both the original Nano iDSD and the new BL volume knobs could in my opinion do a much better job in portable use, if they were a little crown-shaped, as opposed to cylindrical.
This would allow much easier “blind operation” of the unit if in a pocket/pouch/bag, because with a little practice you’d be able to tell the dialed volume just by feeling the knob position relative to the unit body.
Geeky Technote on volume control
Adding more to the overall compactness of the unit, the new BL has no protruding RCA connector for SPDIF out on the back (although this one comes at a price of actually losing the functionality), and the filter switch is now a nicely recessed design.
Front controls and connectors
One of the headline features of the new BL is a totally reworked amplifier part, which now offers two 3.5mm connectors for your headphones, located in the left part of the front panel. The left one is marked as “iEMatch”, the right one as “Direct”.
While having two headphone outputs may sound better than one, I personally don’t think so. In a small portable package, where every millimeter and gram counts, having two basically identical headphone connectors with just some internal impedance-matching circuit that differ is a bit of a waste, in my view. I am not an audio engineer, but it seems to me iEMatch could well be a toggle switch feature, instead of a separate connector. The valuable space taken by the second connector could be then used to provide some more useful features, such as 2.5mm TRRS balanced connector (to complement 3.5mm TRRS connector which is already there). I don’t think a full-size ¼ inch (6.3mm) jack is that important in a device that is tailored for portable use, but even this would be a more useful feature than what we have now.
Between the pair of headphone output connectors on the left and the volume knob on the right now resides the main RGB LED which signals battery states, connection states and formats of tracks played. More on it later, but I wanted to highlight another perfect hit by iFi for moving the LED from the top of the original Nano iDSD to the front plate, where it really belongs. I loved how discreet and unobtrusive was the tiny LED on the original iDSD Nano, but its placement could feel awkward at times, especially if you try to stack several units in desktop use, or put your “sandwich” into a pocket/pouch/bag in portable use. In many normal usage scenarios you simply could not see or, at least, could not easily see the LED on the original Nano iDSD. This problem is simply inexistent in the new BL. Ideally, I’d personally prefer the old, smaller and less bright LED of the original Nano iDSD at the new Nano BL location, but this is probably asking too much.
Rear controls and connectors
The left corner of rear plate of the unit houses the 3.5mm stereo mini jack line out, which is a fixed-level 2v stereo output.
Geeky Technote on Line Out
Next to the line out is the tiny digital filters switch, which seems to be exactly the same filter switch as in the original Nano iDSD, but with different naming. It looks on paper that “Listen” on the BL is the old “Minimum Phase” on the original Nano iDSD, and “Measure” is “Standard”. To be frank with you, I have never been able to hear any difference beyond the autosuggestion between the two, neither on the original Nano, nor on the new BL, no matter what music I listened to with what headphones. If this sounds to you as a verdict that I am deaf or at least hearing-impaired, you might want to skip my listening impressions altogether
The right corner of the rear plate is occupied by the digital USB input, which represents another novelty introduced on the BL.
Unlike the original Nano iDSD, which had a traditional USB3.0 Type B Female (USB3.0 shaped, but USB 2.0 electronically, to be precise) connector for digital input, the new BL offers the recessed USB Type A Male connector. This smart move (as well as a few other feature differences that I will mention later) to me is a clear sign that iFi is shifting the positioning of the unit more towards the portable use rather than desktop use.
Electronically, this is still the USB2.0 asynchronous digital input, just like on the original Nano iDSD. However, the use of a recessed male connector now allows users to connect the BL to both Android and iOS devices with a lot less cable clutter.
iOS connections
As you all know, in order to get true digital USB audio out with current generation of iOS devices, you need to use Apple’s Lightning to USB camera adapter (and special software, and some luck – but more on this later).
This adapter has a USB Type A Female socket at the device end, where you’re normally supposed to plug the regular USB Type A Male end of the cable connecting your camera to import pictures. (Yes, Apple officially says that this connector is only for importing pictures from compatible digital cameras. He-he ) With most other USB DACs/Amps, this is exactly what you’ll have to do: plug the Type A Male end of your normal USB cable into this Apple adapter.
What you can do now, with iFi Magic (or shall I say clever thinking), is have this regular USB cable disappear! Instead, you simply plug the Type A Female end of your Apple adapter right into this rectangular hole with rounded corners, where it fits just perfectly.
Sorry for the fingerprints on the dirty iPad screen
Geeky Technote on Apple USB adapters and USB Audio Out
Side note. Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter is not just straightforward wires with different connectors: they do have some Apple’s proprietary digital circuitry inside, so the result is only guaranteed (sort of
) with original adapters.
Android connections
In order to connect a USB DAC to an Android device, you need to use the so-called USB OTG (or On-The-GO) cable. This cable is a lot simpler than the Apple adapter, and is in fact just straight wires with different connectors, but wires are soldered in a specific way so that the cable conforms to OTG specs.
Typically, an OTG cable will have a micro USB (or, with recent smartphones, USB Type C) connector at the phone end, and then a USB Type A Female socket on the other (device) end. And while technically very different, both Apple adapters and Android OTG cables share physically identical USB Type A Female connectors at the device end, meaning both of which can be plugged directly into the new BL, without any additional cables or adapters.
A typical Android USB OTG adapter (left) next to Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter (right)
This is where the new “recessed USB Typa A Male” connector of Nano BL really shines in its full glory: all you need to have is a standard USB OTG adapter (Micro USB or USB Type C at the phone end, depending on your device), which you can plug directly into Nano BL.
I can’t stress enough how much more convenient and compact this is, compared to, for example, the original Nano iDSD. This is the mess of cables you’d normally have to live with when using Nano iDSD in portable mode:
In order to make the portable package with Nano iDSD nicer and more compact, I ordered a wonderful custom-built copper litz Micro USB to USB Type B OTG cable, which worked perfectly, but required quite an additional investment.
With the Nano BL, this is not necessary. Of course, those of us who fancy aftermarket custom cables, could still bother ordering a custom-made higher-quality OTG cable with typical USB Type A Female connector, but the ability to use almost (and this is an important “almost”!) any commercially available USB OTG adapter is a huge plus.
However, a special note must be made here: while Apple’s original Lightning to USB Camera Adapters are all exactly the same in terms of physical dimensions, unfortunately, USB OTG cables are offered by hundreds of different manufacturers, and the size of the outer plastic shell of the female connector can vary quite significantly. Being more of an Android guy rather than Apple person, I have quite a selection of different OTG cables, and I was able to find both those that fit perfectly, those, that fit with a very tight squeeze, and those, that just won’t fit at all.
From left to right: perfect fit, barely fits, does not fit at all.
Therefore, if you plan to use the BL in an Android-based portable set up and you’re planning to use the USB OTG cable directly plugged into BL’s USB socket – take the BL with you when you shop for the OTG cable to try the fit, or be prepared to do some sanding off of the plastic shell. Do NOT force the connector into the socked – you risk to bend/damage the contacts. The connector must enter without any excessive force.
Note the striking size difference between the bundled USB cable Type A female connector and the worst-case Android USB OTG connector – it is well over 1.5 mm!
I wish iFi made this square opening just another half-millimeter larger in each direction – this would have solved a lot, if not all, of the physical compatibility issues with all sorts of cables and adapters.
As you may have noticed, gone is the SPDIF RCA output of the original Nano iDSD – yes, the new BL omits the Digital-to-Digital Converter (DDC) functionality altogether. Whether to lament it or not strongly depends on your intended use. If you happen to own and cherish one of those older-generation coaxial SPDIF-only DACs – then you’ll lose the ability to hook it to your PC via USB to SPDIF conversion offered by the original Nano iDSD. If not (my case) – this omission is nothing to regret about. Obviously, the DDC is a lot more “desktop” rather than “portable” feature: I can hardly imagine when you could need to have an SPDIF output in a truly portable scenario. Yet another sign of iFi clearly wanting the BL to be perceived as a portable solution in the first place.
This closes the section on external controls and connectors. All other sides of the unit are free of any connectors/controls etc. The “belly” has four pre-installed small silicone bumps which provide good grip for the unit sitting on the desk, and some protective clearance between BL and the phone/DAP, if used in a portable “sandwich” set up. Note that the original Nano iDSD also came with preinstalled silicone feet, but those were much larger and taller, making the entire portable “sandwich” noticeably thicker, than in case of Nano BL.
Since this is a loaner unit which I am supposed to return in impeccable condition, there will be no disassembly/teardown, sorry.
Test equipment and music
Sources
In desktop mode, the BL is fed by the digital signal from a dedicated music PC running Windows Server, via a NEC-based PCIe USB 3.0 card. I installed the most up-to-date USB Driver package from iFi, v.3.20.0. The playback software is Foobar2000 v1.3.17, packed with foo_out_asio v2.1.2, foo_dsd_processor v1.1.0 and foo_input_sacd v1.1.0.
In portable mode, the BL is connected to Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, non-rooted, and running latest stock FW. The playback software is the latest version of USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP)v.3.8.5 and/or Hiby Music v.3.0.0 International build 5481. I have also tested the iOS playback using an iPad Mini 4, running the latest iOS 11.2.2 and Onkyo HF Player (full license) for bit-perfect hi-res USB Audio output tests, although I do not primarily use iPad as a portable music source.
The Nano BL was tested with three different firmware binaries: the original 5.2 Limoncello, the 5.2A “DSD256 DoP” variation, as well as the 5.3C RC2 MQA-enabled. More on this later.
Headphones
Full size: AKG K501; AKG Q701; Audiotechnica ATH-A700; Audiotechnica ATH-ES10; Sony MDR-7506; Philips Fidelio X2
IEM: Etymotic ER4P Custom eartips + recable.
Compared to/paired with:
iFi Nano iDSD USB DAC/Amp
M2Tech HiFace USB DAC
Ray Samuels Audio RSA Predator USB DAC/Amp
Laconic HA-04AF Tube Headphone Amp
Genelec 6010 Near-field studio monitors
Test music
While I have listened to a large variety of music during burn-in, I will base my listening impressions for this review on a playlist of test songs that I try to use in whatever equipment listening tests, in order to have more comparable results.
Format compatibility and audible differences between formats (or absence thereof) was tested using the excellent selection of hi-res samples offered by 2L – a Norwegian record label. The advantage is that I truly compare apples to apples: 2L offers the same track, packaged in a variety of different formats (FLACs ranging from Redbook to DXD, DSD from 64 to 256, and even MQA-encoded files) all coming from the same highest-quality studio master source. In my compatibility tests I used the Mozart Violin Concerto in D major KV 218, I. Allegro, performed by Marianne Thorsen & TrondheimSolistene and mastered in hot and fresh MQA remix of 2016.
Sound signature and sonic qualities were tested using a selection of my favorites tracks, mainly coming from big audio companies’ or record lables’ test/demonstration disks. The track list is below:
Basic operations
PC operation
BL is recognized by Windows-based PCs as a USB Audio device and appears under “Sound, video and game controllers” as “iFi (by AMR) HD+ USB Audio”.
I used the supplied USB3.0 Type A Female to Type A Male cable for connection to my PC. In fact, any USB Type A Female to Type A Male extender cable would work, no matter USB3.0 or USB2.0, because electronically the USB input on the Nano DL is USB2.0.
However, this is not the only cabling option. The Nano DL includes two adapters that allow you to use any USB2.0 Type B terminated cable to connect to your digital source. USB Type A to B cables are quite common among higher-end aftermarket USB cable manufacturers. The USB Type A end would usually go to the source – a PC, or a network player/streamer, and Type B would usually go to the DAC. This is not a rule nor a standard, so other variations also occur.
As I mentioned earlier, both included adapters do exactly the same thing and only differ in shape and length. In my opinion, including both of them is a bit of a redundancy. Moreover, unlike the original Nano iDSD, which had “USB3.0-shaped” Type B socket (with the cutout for the raised part of USB3.0 compliant cables), both included adapters would only physically accept “square” USB2.0 Type B cables. Technically, USB3.0 fully-wired cables would make absolutely no difference, as only the USB2.0 part of contacts will be used anyway. However, as USB3.0 is gradually replacing USB2.0 virtually everywhere, the physical compatibility of the original Nano iDSD with the new generation of cables is an added bonus.
With Firmware 5.2 Limoncello the unit is absolutely stable, and gets recognized by the system every time I connected it, both in “battery power mode” (where you have to first turn the unit on with the volume knob, and then connect the USB cable), and in “USB power mode” (where you plug the cable first and then turn the device power on with the volume knob).
Geeky Technote on power circuit
Using Foobar2000, I had absolutely no problem playing back all almost all declared file formats. The unit correctly accepted PCM signals ranging from your Redbook 16/44.1 all the way up to whopping DXD 24bit/352kHz files. As far as DSD is concerned, I was able to effortlessly playback DSD 64 (2.8MHz) and DSD 128 (5.6MHz).
DSD256 files could not be played back though Nano BL flashed with 5.2 Limoncello. The original Nano iDSD running the same 5.2 Limoncello firmware (and yes, this is exactly the same FW, the binary file is absolutely identical) could not play DSD256 neither. However, for the original Nano iDSD there’s 5.2A firmware variant officially listed on the web site, which unlocks DSD256 in DoP (DSD-Over-PCM), and allows to play back DSD256 files.
While 5.2A is not officially listed as compatible with Nano BL, after consultations with iFi technical specialists I tried flashing this binary to Nano BL, and it went totally fine. The unit was initialized by the driver now displaying 5.2A firmware, and DSD256 tracks played just fine, with the control panel correctly reporting DSD256 (DoP) output format and a whopping 705600kHz sampling rate.
While I strongly believe that the ability to play back DSD256 content in a normal, “consumer listening” environment, let alone portable set ups, is more of a demonstration of iFi’s excellent engineering rather than a practical necessity, credits given where due. iFi managed to cram an incredible amount of versatility and flexibility in such a tiny footprint (both in terms of physical dimensions and the price bracket). There’s certainly some magic going on inside those tiny boxes. Black magic in this case
I have also tried the newer Release Candidate firmware for the Nano BL – namely, 5.3C RC2. This firmware unleashes MQA decoding capabilities of the Nano BL, is said to lock PCM up-sampling to 8x, and changes the logic of LED color indication of the incoming signal format.
As far as MQA is concerned, unfortunately, I could not test this feature. TIDAL is not available in Russia, and I could not find any other way of testing MQA-encoded tracks on a PC source. So no magenta light has ever shown up on my Nano DL.
DSD playback in 5.3C RC2 is unchanged compared to 5.2 – full support of DSD64 and DSD128 tracks, the LED correctly turns cyan. DSD256 tracks cannot be played back again – you do need 5.2A to unlock DSD256 DoP mode.
With the PCM material the unit behaves quite differently compared to the stock 5.2 Firmware. The 5.3C RC2 is said to always show the white LED on PCM material because it is “upsampled 8x”. And indeed, instead of showing individual color coding for up to 96kHz (green) or 174/192kHz (yellow) or DXD (white), the Nano BL is now always white with PCM tracks. However, I could not perceive any audible difference between non-upsampled playback of PCM tracks and 8x upsampling.
I must note, however, that in terms of the overall stability the 5.3C RC2 is still what it is honestly called – a release candidate. I did have a couple of occurrences where Nano BL would not be recognized by the system at first connection attempt (no matter “Power then cable” or “Cable then power”), and required re-plugging it one or two times. Once recognized, the unit remain rock-solid in terms of stability. This only happened to me on the 5.3C RC2 firmware – I have never had any issues plugging/unplugging/re-plugging dozens of times with neither Nano BL, nor Nano iDSD, with officially released 5.2 and 5.2A firmware.
Android operation
Nano BL was tested with my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, which supports USB OTG connection (this is a mandatory requirement to properly use outboard USB DAC on an Android device, bypassing any internal system audio processing).
The only caveat is the physical compatibility of the Nano BL’s square opening and the size of the outer shell of the Type A female connector on the OTG cable. I covered it in the “Packaging and contents” section of this review, just a reminder: not all USB OTG cables are created equal, so please try before you buy!
On my Xperia, in order to use the Nano BL (or any other external USB device), I needed to initialize it manually, by going to Settings -> Device Connection -> USB Connectivity, and tap the “Detect USB Device”.
Your mileage may vary, as I think it strongly depends on the USB OTG implementation and can differ from phone to phone and from Android version to another.
In portable set up, you will want to use Nano BL’s Battery Power Mode, so please make sure to turn the unit on with the volume knob first, and then connect your cables and perform whatever actions are necessary to initialize the device on your smartphone or tablet.
Nano BL demonstrated perfect compatibility with both USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) and Hiby Music – the two leading Android apps capable of completely bypassing Android system sound mixer and output bit-perfect USB Audio to outboard DACs. I had absolutely no problem playing back the entire selection of my test tracks, including (with some quirks) DSD256 tracks.
Track format indication by the LED was accurate with all the files. Most of my testing was done using USB Audio Player Pro, with Bit Perfect set to “ON”, DSD Mode set to “Native”, and no USB Tweaks selected. I must once again acclaim iFi’s excellent format compatibility across any platform!
Geeky Technote on DSD256 playback on Android
iOS connection and operation
While I don’t normally use iOS devices as my digital music sources (I could’ve elaborated on this on 3-4 more pages, but I will not start this Holy War), for the purposes of testing I used my iPad Mini 4 with Onkyo HF Player, connecting Nano BL directly by Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter.
A note to be made here: make sure to always use “Battery Power Mode” when connecting Nano BL to your iOS device, by turning the power on first, and the plugging the cable in. Otherwise you will most likely get the famous annoying Apple’s “The attached accessory uses too much power” error message, and your Nano BL will not be initialized.
Your mileage with more powerful Apple devices such as iPads Pro may vary, but to be on the safe side, I recommend sticking to the Battery Power Mode all the time. Even without the error message, this makes perfect sense, as you don’t really want Nano to draw power from your mobile device.
Connecting Nano BL in Battery Power mode is a breeze. Once initialized by the system, the unit becomes visible to Onkyo HF Player.
Nano BL demonstrated once again excellent format compatibility, playing back all my test PCM and DSD tracks. Note that, unlike UAPP or Hiby on Android, Onkyo HF Player only offers DSD-Over-PCM (or DoP) playback for DSD files (in addition to DSD-to-PCM conversion, which is a totally different thing). It may well be an iOS platform limitation, although being able to play hi-res or DSD content and output it to an external USB DAC form an iOS device is already a huge achievement by Onkyo!
The Nano BL LED indicator correctly reported all the signal formats, from green for PCM all the way up to blue for DSD256 DoP.
The only unpleasant experience of using Nano BL on iOS device is a sudden and very loud unpleasant “scratching” sound, quite often coming from the headphones the moment you close Onkyo HF Player after playing back a DSD file. This has nothing to do with Nano BL and must be something about the app or the iOS platform in general, as this happened to me with every USB DAC I tried on my iPad. It does not happen but make sure to switch the unit off before closing the Onkyo HF Player.
I did not test any other third-party music software on my iPad, since Onkyo HF Player is the only true bit-perfect USB Audio app that I know of, and I own a full-licenced version which allows you to load and play back hi-res content. Please note that for all your fancy hi-res PCM and/or DSD tracks, you’ll need to load them directly to Onkyo HF Player using iTunes’ application-specific file sharing. Onkyo HF Player can read your iTunes music library locally stored on your iPad, but the playback will be routed via iOS audio mixer.
The native Apple music app can play through Nano DL too, but of course, only those tracks that are in your iTunes library.
Listening impressions
This is the trickiest part of any review, but probably for most readers, the most important one. My problem with listening impressions has always been that I know this is always purely subjective, and as such maybe the least reliable part of any review. On the other hand, this is exactly what makes multiple reviewers’ tours the most useful form of product presentation – readers get a wide range of different opinions, and where such opinions converge would most likely be as close to objectivity as possible.
I will start with a few general comments about Nano iDSD Black Label, and then would add some finer details and impressions on various gear combinations and music tracks.
Unique sonic characteristics of different headphones driven by Nano BL remain very recognizable
This one is important. In other words, Nano iDSD Black Label does a good job of not adding too much of its own sonic character to different headphones it drives. Some reviewers would call it neutral sounding, and it may be a good term, although to me, it is neutral not in the sense of perfectly flat frequency response curve, but in the sense of not affecting much the overall tonal characteristics of given headphones.
What it means in practice, with Nano BL, for example, my Etymotics sounded pretty much what they are supposed to sound: a high-precision surgical scalpel, capable of dissecting music into its finest layers and pieces. And not a Thor hammer that slams base notes into your head like a very colored and punchy ES-10 by Audiotechnica.
Nano BL does not try to be nice sounding (by emphasizing lower end, or adding more sparkle to the treble), it tries to be sounding honestly. This may or may not what someone is looking for.
For example, the M2Tech HiFace DAC + RSA Predator combo are a totally different sounding set up, with much more coloration, much more involving sound. Great lower end punch; lush, rich and forward-sounding mids, and slightly recessed treble may sound more appealing, especially with some genres.
However, the price to pay for this emotional involvement is that there’s much less sonic character difference between different pairs of headphones, and all of a sudden your darker, more aggressive and impactful Fidelio X2 start sounding not that different from you normally airy, light and laid-back AKG K501.
Nano iDSD Black Label is a true powerhouse of a headphone amplifier
This one is obvious. The Black Label is a HUGE improvement over the original Nano iDSD in terms of headphone amplification.
It easily coped with anything I was able to throw at it, from sensitive Etymotic IEMs and ATH-EW9 clip-ons to much harder to drive AKG K501.
I hope this is the biggest thing ever plugged into Nano BL
Even without going to the extremes of the headphones range (no, I don’t own any planars, orthodynamics or old-school 600 Ohms studio monitoring cans), I can tell the power reserve of this tiny box is absolutely amazing!
This is probably the most notable difference with the original Nano iDSD. I have always thought (and I still do) that Nano iDSD is a much better DAC than the headphone amp, and in my personal set up it was mainly a desktop unit. Its headphone jack was its Achilles heel.
Certainly not the case with the new Nano BL! A combination of clever iEMatch technology, new fully analogue volume control and the S-Balanced topology make it a much more capable headphone amp than its predecessor.
If any criticism could be applied to headphone amplification of the Nano BL – this would go towards the iEMatch socket. It does sound slightly veiled, less transparent and detailed, than the Standard output, even at normalized volume levels. Whether it has to do with iEMatch additional circuitry in the signal path, or I simply don’t have uber-sensitive 16-ohms IEMs to really benefit from this technology – I am not sure. But here’s the fact: most of my listening was done via the Standard output.
I must admit I was not able to test the advantages of the “S-Balanced Technology” offered by iFi, simply because I could not get hold of any balanced-cabled headphones that would be terminated in a 3.5mm TRRS plug.
Geeky Technote on balanced headphone connections
Nano iDSD BL as a DAC kept all the good things of the original Nano iDSD
I compared Nano iDSD Black Label to the original Nano iDSD, as well as to M2Tech HiFace DAC, in DAC only mode, driving either an external headphones amp or my active monitors from the devices’ line outputs. My findings confirm that the DAC part of both generations of Nanos is almost, if not exactly, the same: the best DAC I have ever heard in sub-$500 class, hands down, especially with DSD material.
It has a very neutral, open sound signature, with a very cohesive overall sonic picture, very good level of detail, and excellent timber reproduction – very natural and delicate. With PCM material it retains most of its qualities, however, it does sound a little less refined and detailed. The differences are very subtle, and require very careful listening with very detailed and neutral headphones (I use my Etymotics for these purposes), but they are audible. This is perfectly in line with my earlier impressions from the original Nano iDSD, and I can only repeat that if you really want to get the best of your iFi Nano – go for DSD material.
I must say that overall the Burr-Brown platform iFi chose for its portable range is really great, and iFi certainly learned well how to make a good DAC on this chip. In my personal ranking, it beats all of the Sabre portable implementations I have heard in this price bracket, and is a very solid contender even against my preferred (albeit not yet owned) AKA4490-based portable platform, such as Shanling M3S. However, this comparison is not very accurate, as I did not have M3S at hand during the review, and had to rely on memorized sonic impressions of the latter.
One thing to note here. It is not a warm and bright sounding DAC, nor a dark, bass-hammering DAC. So if you prefer this type of sound signature – look elsewhere.
Individual sound impressions
With open full size cans (AKG K501/Q701, Philips Fidelio X2)
The Nano BL did a great job allowing K501 and Q701 unleash their strongest features: excellent airiness, fantastic detail and wide and precise soundstage. You could almost physically feel the intimate chamber space where TACET went on with tube only recording of Stuttgarter Kammerorchester performing Boccherini’s La Musica Notturna, while at the same time enjoy the spaciousness of a concert hall with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, conducted by Anatole Fistoulari, made you plunge into the Swan Lake’s Act 2, Scene 10.
Timbre accuracy was also excellent, and I am not adding “for the price” this time. TACET’s tube-only recordings have, to my taste, the most-natural sounding string instruments I have ever heard, and Nano BL was able to convey them without any undue interference. This is something that, for example, none of the Sabre-based portable devices I auditioned was capable to do.
With Fidelio X2, Nano BL managed to drive them to their usual more punchy, heavier-weight and full-bodied sound. “You and your friend” by Dire Straits sounded as energetic and full of drive as you’d expect it to sound, and the same applies to the heart-touching acoustic guitar reefs and voice by Nils Lofgren in his “Keith Don’t Go’.
With closed-back cans (Sony MDR-7506/Audiotechnica ATH-A700/ES-10)
Those are the cans I’d normally use for recordings that benefit from a more intimate, in-your-ears sound signature, with a lot of presence. And Nano BL did not disappoint! John Campbell’s infernal voice sounded infernal enough to make you shiver listening to his Down in the Hole. And the incredible Melody Gardot would literally whisper into your ear her “So we meet again, my heartache”.
The lower end of the spectrum was punchy and accurate, if only just a tiny bit lighter-weight than, for instance, my desktop tube amp is capable of delivering into the same cans. This totally conforms with the term “neutral-sounding” that can be applied to Nano BL – as much as I enjoy the whopping bass response of my Laconic tube amp, its sound signature is anything but neutral.
At home, in my desktop system, I’d probably have more enjoyment of Alan Taylor’s “Dedicated to…” bass line, however, on the go Nano BL was more than persuasive with this piece.
With Etymotic ER4P Custom re-cabled IEMs
Nano BL had absolutely no problems driving Etymotics, and I did not even have to recourse to the iEMatch socket – they played just fine from the Standard output. No matter Standard or iEMatch, Nano BL demonstrated a totally black background, with no hum or hiss whatsoever, even with the volume knob turned all the way to max. Excellent job by iFi, and apparently "iPurifier technology built in" does its job.
Plugged into Nano, ER4P remained exactly what they are: an extremely accurate, sharp and sterile medical scalpel, which is capable of carving out the smallest details of the music texture. Etymotics and Nano BL turned out to be an excellent testing and evaluation combo, but…
This is probably the only case where in terms of the actual listening pleasure and enjoyment I might say I liked my M2Tech HiFace DAC/RSA Predator more than the Nano BL. The much livelier sonic character of M2Tech HiFace DAC, combined with RSA’s signature dark, laid-back and lower-end focused sound are simply more fun with Etys because they offset nicely the uber-flat, even and sterile sound signature of Etymotics. This in no ways mean something is wrong with Nano BL, it is just that ER4 are a very specific pair of IEMs, and not all DACs/Amps are a synergetic match.
Conclusions and final word
Bravo, iFi, you did it again!
You started this game with the original Nano iDSD – opened up the world of excellent sound in a portable package to a sub-$200 market. Then you took the original Nano iDSD, painted it in black, improved on every single aspect that needed improvement, added a few new features (some more practical than others, and still crammed the whole thing into the same $200 envelop.
The only question that I have is how do you guys do it. Black magic?
Is Nano BL ideal? For its price it certainly is. It’s small, incredibly versatile, packed with features and has a very pleasant, clear and neutral sonic character.
Is it for everyone? Well, in my view, it will definitely fit the bill with most users. However, a distinctly neutral sound may seem a bit uninspiring for someone who is addicted to colored sound. Others may note some lacking energy and emotion, especially with some headphones, but this is certainly not Nano BL’s fault.
Did I like it? I absolutely did, and this is not surprising: I like my original Nano iDSD a lot, and here comes the successor that is simply a better, improved version of it.
Oh, and now it is BLACK!
Disclaimer: the unit tested was a loaner from iFi, which means exactly this: I received it from iFi free of charge and returned it after the review. I have not been otherwise incentivized by iFi to write a positive review. And frankly – I didn’t need any additional incentives!
Disclaimer 2: the review contains a few very technical and detailed abstracts, that may be way too lengthy and detailed for a captivating reading, therefore, those abstracts will be titled as Geeky Tech Notes and will be hidden under spoilers, which you may or may not wish to open.
Background with iFi products
I have been for three years and I still am a happy owner of iFi’s original Nano iDSD (the fully-featured one, not LE!), that I’ve had enough time to put through its paces in both desktop and portable applications. I must confess I am absolutely in love with this little piece of genius engineering, although, as it is always the case with beloved partners, Nano iDSD wasn’t without its flaws. Needless to say I was eagerly awaiting for the opportunity to get my hands on the new Black Label incarnation of this tiny magic box to see what has changed and in what direction, apart from the obvious switch from “blonde” to “brunette” appearance. So inevitably, throughout this review I will be comparing the new BL to the original iDSD Nano.
Packaging and contents
The unit I reviewed was a brand-new, unopened retail unit (not a tour unit), therefore I can be confident that the packaging and contents are exactly what you’ll find on the shelves of retail stores/in boxes coming from online stores.
The packaging style is very similar to the original iDSD Nano that I own: you’re met by an outer sleeve with a colorful product picture and a wealth of both marketing and technical information. It even has a little special sticky black label (no pun intended… or is it? ) on the top of the box, showing off 4x Extra Power, Dual Mono Output and MQA Authenticated features. The sleeve off, you will find a typical iFi white tight-fit box (a bit “Apple-style”). Note the obvious difference between box dimensions of the original Nano and the BL: the latter is much slimmer, with roughly the same length and width.
Nano Black Label on the left, original Nano iDSD on the right
Great job by iFi on slimming down the box, given that the Nano BL has a lot of stuff included:
The most notable difference is the set of cables, which is logical given the change of physical USB connection on the BL compared to the original.
The BL comes with the total of 3 cables/adaptors:
- 1m/3ft long USB3.0 A Male to A Female cable. This one looks like the regular USB3.0 extension cable, and technically this is exactly what it is. It will be your main cable for charging the unit from any wall plug adapter/powerbank/computer port, as well as your USB DAC connection cable to connect the BL to a PC.
- A short (slightly less than 20cm/about 7in) USB2.0 A female to B Female cable. This will allow you to connect whatever existing USB A to B male cables you may already have in your desktop or portable setups.
- An even shorter single-piece solid A Female to B Female adaptor, which obviously has exactly the same purpose as the aforementioned 7 inch cable, but in a different form factor.
I will get back to this with a more in-depth analysis of connectivity options later in my review.
Unlike the original Nano iDSD, which included a regular, but decent, stereo RCA cable, the new BL bundles no analogue interconnects at all.
In addition to the set of cables and adapters, the BL also comes with a pair of rubber bands to “sandwich” it with a portable source – a smartphone or a DAP, however, the rectangular silicone spacer that came with the original Nano iDSD, is no longer included.
To finish with the packaging, I’ll mention the much discussed carrying pouch. Yes, it does have an opening at the bottom, and no, this is not a stitching defect, but a wise feature to run cables through.
I am personally not a big fan of soft-cloth carrying pouches, especially made of velour-esque materials. To say that this is a dust/debris magnet is a classical British understatement. Moreover, it offers only limited protection against scratches, but not more. Don’t get me wrong – this is perfectly fine, and very thoughtful on behalf of iFi to include the pouch free of charge, but I always want my beloved gadgets well protected. My original Nano iDSD has been kept in a small digital camera pouch that I got dirt-cheap in the local camera store, and, as you can see, after 3 years of heavy use it is still in a pristine condition.
Given that Black Label is black (what a surprise ), I’d strongly recommend getting something similar for your new toy, as the black coating may be even more prone to accidental bumps and scratches.
Exterior, connections and controls
I can’t agree more with Henry Ford who once said that “The car can be of any color, as long as this color is black”!
The Nano BL, with its high-grade matte-black finish and glossy black/orange markings is beautiful. Full stop! Front and rear plates are perfectly machined and beveled edges add to the overall impression of a quality product.
Don’t get me wrong – the original Nano iDSD made me have the same feelings of shimmering quality when I first got it in my hands, but there’s nothing I can do – BLACK is BLACK. I love it.
While it’s a pure question of personal taste, I was not overly happy with the overall change in the front and rear plate shapes. I really loved the complex multi-angled “raised eyebrows” shape of the original Nano and Micro series.
The new BL has a much simpler, more “boring” trapezoid face. I can see it being more comfortable in the portable set up, as it has less bumpy edges now, but to me it kind of lost that signature bold look of iFi Nano/Micro series. Other than this, the overall physical dimensions of the two units remain very close, with exactly the same chassis length and width. The BL has a slightly smaller overall length thanks to a very wise move by iFi of making the volume knob almost twice as short as the original Nano iDSD.
Bravo, iFi, you really nailed this one! While still offering perfectly sufficient grip for convenient volume control, the new BL does not have this unnecessarily protruding volume knob of the original Nano iDSD. Moreover, the new knob is also more visually informative, thanks to an orange mark against a black background – a step forward from barely visible silver mark on a silver knob of the original Nano iDSD.
However, both the original Nano iDSD and the new BL volume knobs could in my opinion do a much better job in portable use, if they were a little crown-shaped, as opposed to cylindrical.
This would allow much easier “blind operation” of the unit if in a pocket/pouch/bag, because with a little practice you’d be able to tell the dialed volume just by feeling the knob position relative to the unit body.
Geeky Technote on volume control
Note on the volume control of the Nano BL: the novelty is not only the new shape of the knob In fact, technically volume controls of the original iDSD Nano and the Nano BL are implemented very differently. The original Nano iDSD had iFi’s proprietary “Software controlled analogue volume control”, which, in human language, meant that the actual potentiometer that you turn with the volume knob is not in the audio signal path. Instead, it controls a special IC, which in turn switches the signal route across multiple arrays of small resistors, providing stepped volume control. The advantage of this method is that the actual signal quality, as well as relative channel tracking, are not affected by neither the quality nor the possible wear and tear of the potentiometer’s resistive track layers.
This allows using a relatively inexpensive potentiometer with no detriment whatsoever to the audio signal quality – one of those smart things iFi utilizes to build great products at attractive prices. However, the downside of this approach is that a) arrays of resistors take up valuable PCB real estate, and b) the steps of attenuation are quite pronounced and audible, especially at lower volume levels. This translated into quite a few user complaints about “pops” and “clicks” of the original Nano iDSD as you turn the volume knob, especially in the initial part of the adjustment range, that in reality were those audible attenuation steps. iFi even issued tech notes detailing this, outlining the comfortable adjustment range of “past 12 o’clock mark at the volume dial”, and even advised users of very sensitive IEMs to add impedance-boosting adapters, to shift the volume adjustment range of comfortable listening levels further up the actual knob range.
I am very happy to confirm that the new Nano BL is completely free from all these issues, and not only thanks to a dedicated “iEMatch” headphone out. The volume control in Nano BL is now a classical tried and tested “potentiometer-in-the-signal-line” solution. The potentiometer used is twin-track, to maintain the “S-Balanced” topology of Nano BL’s amp, which means that adjustment is made separately for left and right channel signals. The result is silky-smooth, absolutely “analogue-feeling” volume adjustment throughout the entire volume knob rotation range, no matter with what headphones – hard to drive full size cans plugged into “Direct” socket, or super-sensitive IEMs connected to “iEMatch” socket.
First of all, big thanks to iFi for resisting the temptation of simply using fully digital DAC-level volume control, which is a lot easier and cheaper to implement, but might result in quite audible degradation of sound quality.
My (partially educated guess) is that another reason behind replacing the original Nano iDSD’s resistor array switching method of volume regulation with the more traditional “pot-in-the-signal-path” thing is due to the fact that with the old method in order to maintain “S-balanced” dual mono topology of the amp output section, one would have to use twice as much resistor arrays, which may drive the costs up, and be very hard, if not impossible, given the small PCB footprint.
This allows using a relatively inexpensive potentiometer with no detriment whatsoever to the audio signal quality – one of those smart things iFi utilizes to build great products at attractive prices. However, the downside of this approach is that a) arrays of resistors take up valuable PCB real estate, and b) the steps of attenuation are quite pronounced and audible, especially at lower volume levels. This translated into quite a few user complaints about “pops” and “clicks” of the original Nano iDSD as you turn the volume knob, especially in the initial part of the adjustment range, that in reality were those audible attenuation steps. iFi even issued tech notes detailing this, outlining the comfortable adjustment range of “past 12 o’clock mark at the volume dial”, and even advised users of very sensitive IEMs to add impedance-boosting adapters, to shift the volume adjustment range of comfortable listening levels further up the actual knob range.
I am very happy to confirm that the new Nano BL is completely free from all these issues, and not only thanks to a dedicated “iEMatch” headphone out. The volume control in Nano BL is now a classical tried and tested “potentiometer-in-the-signal-line” solution. The potentiometer used is twin-track, to maintain the “S-Balanced” topology of Nano BL’s amp, which means that adjustment is made separately for left and right channel signals. The result is silky-smooth, absolutely “analogue-feeling” volume adjustment throughout the entire volume knob rotation range, no matter with what headphones – hard to drive full size cans plugged into “Direct” socket, or super-sensitive IEMs connected to “iEMatch” socket.
First of all, big thanks to iFi for resisting the temptation of simply using fully digital DAC-level volume control, which is a lot easier and cheaper to implement, but might result in quite audible degradation of sound quality.
My (partially educated guess) is that another reason behind replacing the original Nano iDSD’s resistor array switching method of volume regulation with the more traditional “pot-in-the-signal-path” thing is due to the fact that with the old method in order to maintain “S-balanced” dual mono topology of the amp output section, one would have to use twice as much resistor arrays, which may drive the costs up, and be very hard, if not impossible, given the small PCB footprint.
Adding more to the overall compactness of the unit, the new BL has no protruding RCA connector for SPDIF out on the back (although this one comes at a price of actually losing the functionality), and the filter switch is now a nicely recessed design.
Front controls and connectors
One of the headline features of the new BL is a totally reworked amplifier part, which now offers two 3.5mm connectors for your headphones, located in the left part of the front panel. The left one is marked as “iEMatch”, the right one as “Direct”.
While having two headphone outputs may sound better than one, I personally don’t think so. In a small portable package, where every millimeter and gram counts, having two basically identical headphone connectors with just some internal impedance-matching circuit that differ is a bit of a waste, in my view. I am not an audio engineer, but it seems to me iEMatch could well be a toggle switch feature, instead of a separate connector. The valuable space taken by the second connector could be then used to provide some more useful features, such as 2.5mm TRRS balanced connector (to complement 3.5mm TRRS connector which is already there). I don’t think a full-size ¼ inch (6.3mm) jack is that important in a device that is tailored for portable use, but even this would be a more useful feature than what we have now.
Between the pair of headphone output connectors on the left and the volume knob on the right now resides the main RGB LED which signals battery states, connection states and formats of tracks played. More on it later, but I wanted to highlight another perfect hit by iFi for moving the LED from the top of the original Nano iDSD to the front plate, where it really belongs. I loved how discreet and unobtrusive was the tiny LED on the original iDSD Nano, but its placement could feel awkward at times, especially if you try to stack several units in desktop use, or put your “sandwich” into a pocket/pouch/bag in portable use. In many normal usage scenarios you simply could not see or, at least, could not easily see the LED on the original Nano iDSD. This problem is simply inexistent in the new BL. Ideally, I’d personally prefer the old, smaller and less bright LED of the original Nano iDSD at the new Nano BL location, but this is probably asking too much.
Rear controls and connectors
The left corner of rear plate of the unit houses the 3.5mm stereo mini jack line out, which is a fixed-level 2v stereo output.
Geeky Technote on Line Out
The line out of the Nano DL did not only change location and connector type compared to the original Nano iDSD, but is now implemented in a different, and more appropriate, way: it is a truly fixed-level line out signal, not affected by the volume control circuit and totally independent from headphone output. This is different from the original Nano iDSD, where the “line-out” front RCA connectors were affected by the volume control knob, and were truly “line-out” only if you set the volume knob to MAX. Note also that with the original Nano iDSD, the “line out” signal was muted when you inserted the jack into the headphones out – not the case with Nano BL: the line out signal is always present, no matter headphones connected or not.
Needless to say how much better the new approach is: in desktop use you can now easily connect the BL to an external amplifier and still be able to listen to headphones plugged into BL at adequate levels without affecting the line out signal. Great job on implementing this, iFi! You do lose the “preamp” feature of the original Nano iDSD, however, you’d probably only need it in some exotic cases of connecting Nano to speaker systems that have no volume control. Ironically, I happen to have exactly this exotic case for near field speaker set up – a pair of Genelec 6010 studio monitors. They do have gain control knob on each speaker, but it is located at the rear of the cabinet and is very awkward to use. So I had to add a passive volume control to the set up to test with Nano BL.
Needless to say how much better the new approach is: in desktop use you can now easily connect the BL to an external amplifier and still be able to listen to headphones plugged into BL at adequate levels without affecting the line out signal. Great job on implementing this, iFi! You do lose the “preamp” feature of the original Nano iDSD, however, you’d probably only need it in some exotic cases of connecting Nano to speaker systems that have no volume control. Ironically, I happen to have exactly this exotic case for near field speaker set up – a pair of Genelec 6010 studio monitors. They do have gain control knob on each speaker, but it is located at the rear of the cabinet and is very awkward to use. So I had to add a passive volume control to the set up to test with Nano BL.
Next to the line out is the tiny digital filters switch, which seems to be exactly the same filter switch as in the original Nano iDSD, but with different naming. It looks on paper that “Listen” on the BL is the old “Minimum Phase” on the original Nano iDSD, and “Measure” is “Standard”. To be frank with you, I have never been able to hear any difference beyond the autosuggestion between the two, neither on the original Nano, nor on the new BL, no matter what music I listened to with what headphones. If this sounds to you as a verdict that I am deaf or at least hearing-impaired, you might want to skip my listening impressions altogether
The right corner of the rear plate is occupied by the digital USB input, which represents another novelty introduced on the BL.
Unlike the original Nano iDSD, which had a traditional USB3.0 Type B Female (USB3.0 shaped, but USB 2.0 electronically, to be precise) connector for digital input, the new BL offers the recessed USB Type A Male connector. This smart move (as well as a few other feature differences that I will mention later) to me is a clear sign that iFi is shifting the positioning of the unit more towards the portable use rather than desktop use.
Electronically, this is still the USB2.0 asynchronous digital input, just like on the original Nano iDSD. However, the use of a recessed male connector now allows users to connect the BL to both Android and iOS devices with a lot less cable clutter.
iOS connections
As you all know, in order to get true digital USB audio out with current generation of iOS devices, you need to use Apple’s Lightning to USB camera adapter (and special software, and some luck – but more on this later).
This adapter has a USB Type A Female socket at the device end, where you’re normally supposed to plug the regular USB Type A Male end of the cable connecting your camera to import pictures. (Yes, Apple officially says that this connector is only for importing pictures from compatible digital cameras. He-he ) With most other USB DACs/Amps, this is exactly what you’ll have to do: plug the Type A Male end of your normal USB cable into this Apple adapter.
What you can do now, with iFi Magic (or shall I say clever thinking), is have this regular USB cable disappear! Instead, you simply plug the Type A Female end of your Apple adapter right into this rectangular hole with rounded corners, where it fits just perfectly.
Sorry for the fingerprints on the dirty iPad screen
Geeky Technote on Apple USB adapters and USB Audio Out
Technically speaking, there are a total of four Apple’s original adapters that allow (with varying degree of success though) to connect an external USB DAC to an Apple device for a bit-perfect USB Audio Class-compliant output. For older 30-pin devices, it’s the old and discontinued Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit (MC531ZM/A) (and yes, it works only with 30-pin iPads, no 30-pin iPhones or iPods support it). This is now kind of history.
For more recent lightning devices, there’s Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter – this is exactly what you want to use with Nano BL because of physical connector compatibility – you can plug the device end of this adapter straight into Nano BL’s recessed Type A Male socket. There are two generations of this adapter, MD821ZM/A (the earlier) and MD821AM/A (the more recent), which seem to work in exactly the same way, at least for the purposes of USB Audio out. And finally, there’s the Apple Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter (MK0W2AM/A), which is the newest version. It adds USB3.0 speeds to devices who support it (selected iPad Pro models only, AFAIK), and has a physically larger adapter body adding a female lightning socket for external power supply. This adapter will not physically plug directly into Nano BL, simply because it’s bigger than the square opening around the USB connector.
For more recent lightning devices, there’s Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter – this is exactly what you want to use with Nano BL because of physical connector compatibility – you can plug the device end of this adapter straight into Nano BL’s recessed Type A Male socket. There are two generations of this adapter, MD821ZM/A (the earlier) and MD821AM/A (the more recent), which seem to work in exactly the same way, at least for the purposes of USB Audio out. And finally, there’s the Apple Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter (MK0W2AM/A), which is the newest version. It adds USB3.0 speeds to devices who support it (selected iPad Pro models only, AFAIK), and has a physically larger adapter body adding a female lightning socket for external power supply. This adapter will not physically plug directly into Nano BL, simply because it’s bigger than the square opening around the USB connector.
Side note. Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter is not just straightforward wires with different connectors: they do have some Apple’s proprietary digital circuitry inside, so the result is only guaranteed (sort of
) with original adapters.Android connections
In order to connect a USB DAC to an Android device, you need to use the so-called USB OTG (or On-The-GO) cable. This cable is a lot simpler than the Apple adapter, and is in fact just straight wires with different connectors, but wires are soldered in a specific way so that the cable conforms to OTG specs.
Typically, an OTG cable will have a micro USB (or, with recent smartphones, USB Type C) connector at the phone end, and then a USB Type A Female socket on the other (device) end. And while technically very different, both Apple adapters and Android OTG cables share physically identical USB Type A Female connectors at the device end, meaning both of which can be plugged directly into the new BL, without any additional cables or adapters.
A typical Android USB OTG adapter (left) next to Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter (right)
This is where the new “recessed USB Typa A Male” connector of Nano BL really shines in its full glory: all you need to have is a standard USB OTG adapter (Micro USB or USB Type C at the phone end, depending on your device), which you can plug directly into Nano BL.
I can’t stress enough how much more convenient and compact this is, compared to, for example, the original Nano iDSD. This is the mess of cables you’d normally have to live with when using Nano iDSD in portable mode:
In order to make the portable package with Nano iDSD nicer and more compact, I ordered a wonderful custom-built copper litz Micro USB to USB Type B OTG cable, which worked perfectly, but required quite an additional investment.
With the Nano BL, this is not necessary. Of course, those of us who fancy aftermarket custom cables, could still bother ordering a custom-made higher-quality OTG cable with typical USB Type A Female connector, but the ability to use almost (and this is an important “almost”!) any commercially available USB OTG adapter is a huge plus.
However, a special note must be made here: while Apple’s original Lightning to USB Camera Adapters are all exactly the same in terms of physical dimensions, unfortunately, USB OTG cables are offered by hundreds of different manufacturers, and the size of the outer plastic shell of the female connector can vary quite significantly. Being more of an Android guy rather than Apple person, I have quite a selection of different OTG cables, and I was able to find both those that fit perfectly, those, that fit with a very tight squeeze, and those, that just won’t fit at all.
From left to right: perfect fit, barely fits, does not fit at all.
Therefore, if you plan to use the BL in an Android-based portable set up and you’re planning to use the USB OTG cable directly plugged into BL’s USB socket – take the BL with you when you shop for the OTG cable to try the fit, or be prepared to do some sanding off of the plastic shell. Do NOT force the connector into the socked – you risk to bend/damage the contacts. The connector must enter without any excessive force.
Note the striking size difference between the bundled USB cable Type A female connector and the worst-case Android USB OTG connector – it is well over 1.5 mm!
I wish iFi made this square opening just another half-millimeter larger in each direction – this would have solved a lot, if not all, of the physical compatibility issues with all sorts of cables and adapters.
As you may have noticed, gone is the SPDIF RCA output of the original Nano iDSD – yes, the new BL omits the Digital-to-Digital Converter (DDC) functionality altogether. Whether to lament it or not strongly depends on your intended use. If you happen to own and cherish one of those older-generation coaxial SPDIF-only DACs – then you’ll lose the ability to hook it to your PC via USB to SPDIF conversion offered by the original Nano iDSD. If not (my case) – this omission is nothing to regret about. Obviously, the DDC is a lot more “desktop” rather than “portable” feature: I can hardly imagine when you could need to have an SPDIF output in a truly portable scenario. Yet another sign of iFi clearly wanting the BL to be perceived as a portable solution in the first place.
This closes the section on external controls and connectors. All other sides of the unit are free of any connectors/controls etc. The “belly” has four pre-installed small silicone bumps which provide good grip for the unit sitting on the desk, and some protective clearance between BL and the phone/DAP, if used in a portable “sandwich” set up. Note that the original Nano iDSD also came with preinstalled silicone feet, but those were much larger and taller, making the entire portable “sandwich” noticeably thicker, than in case of Nano BL.
Since this is a loaner unit which I am supposed to return in impeccable condition, there will be no disassembly/teardown, sorry
.Test equipment and music
Sources
In desktop mode, the BL is fed by the digital signal from a dedicated music PC running Windows Server, via a NEC-based PCIe USB 3.0 card. I installed the most up-to-date USB Driver package from iFi, v.3.20.0. The playback software is Foobar2000 v1.3.17, packed with foo_out_asio v2.1.2, foo_dsd_processor v1.1.0 and foo_input_sacd v1.1.0.
In portable mode, the BL is connected to Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, non-rooted, and running latest stock FW. The playback software is the latest version of USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP)v.3.8.5 and/or Hiby Music v.3.0.0 International build 5481. I have also tested the iOS playback using an iPad Mini 4, running the latest iOS 11.2.2 and Onkyo HF Player (full license) for bit-perfect hi-res USB Audio output tests, although I do not primarily use iPad as a portable music source.
The Nano BL was tested with three different firmware binaries: the original 5.2 Limoncello, the 5.2A “DSD256 DoP” variation, as well as the 5.3C RC2 MQA-enabled. More on this later.
Headphones
Full size: AKG K501; AKG Q701; Audiotechnica ATH-A700; Audiotechnica ATH-ES10; Sony MDR-7506; Philips Fidelio X2
IEM: Etymotic ER4P Custom eartips + recable.
Compared to/paired with:
iFi Nano iDSD USB DAC/Amp
M2Tech HiFace USB DAC
Ray Samuels Audio RSA Predator USB DAC/Amp
Laconic HA-04AF Tube Headphone Amp
Genelec 6010 Near-field studio monitors
Test music
While I have listened to a large variety of music during burn-in, I will base my listening impressions for this review on a playlist of test songs that I try to use in whatever equipment listening tests, in order to have more comparable results.
Format compatibility and audible differences between formats (or absence thereof
) was tested using the excellent selection of hi-res samples offered by 2L – a Norwegian record label. The advantage is that I truly compare apples to apples: 2L offers the same track, packaged in a variety of different formats (FLACs ranging from Redbook to DXD, DSD from 64 to 256, and even MQA-encoded files) all coming from the same highest-quality studio master source. In my compatibility tests I used the Mozart Violin Concerto in D major KV 218, I. Allegro, performed by Marianne Thorsen & TrondheimSolistene and mastered in hot and fresh MQA remix of 2016.Sound signature and sonic qualities were tested using a selection of my favorites tracks, mainly coming from big audio companies’ or record lables’ test/demonstration disks. The track list is below:
Basic operations
PC operation
BL is recognized by Windows-based PCs as a USB Audio device and appears under “Sound, video and game controllers” as “iFi (by AMR) HD+ USB Audio”.
I used the supplied USB3.0 Type A Female to Type A Male cable for connection to my PC. In fact, any USB Type A Female to Type A Male extender cable would work, no matter USB3.0 or USB2.0, because electronically the USB input on the Nano DL is USB2.0.
However, this is not the only cabling option. The Nano DL includes two adapters that allow you to use any USB2.0 Type B terminated cable to connect to your digital source. USB Type A to B cables are quite common among higher-end aftermarket USB cable manufacturers. The USB Type A end would usually go to the source – a PC, or a network player/streamer, and Type B would usually go to the DAC. This is not a rule nor a standard, so other variations also occur.
As I mentioned earlier, both included adapters do exactly the same thing and only differ in shape and length. In my opinion, including both of them is a bit of a redundancy. Moreover, unlike the original Nano iDSD, which had “USB3.0-shaped” Type B socket (with the cutout for the raised part of USB3.0 compliant cables), both included adapters would only physically accept “square” USB2.0 Type B cables. Technically, USB3.0 fully-wired cables would make absolutely no difference, as only the USB2.0 part of contacts will be used anyway. However, as USB3.0 is gradually replacing USB2.0 virtually everywhere, the physical compatibility of the original Nano iDSD with the new generation of cables is an added bonus.
With Firmware 5.2 Limoncello the unit is absolutely stable, and gets recognized by the system every time I connected it, both in “battery power mode” (where you have to first turn the unit on with the volume knob, and then connect the USB cable), and in “USB power mode” (where you plug the cable first and then turn the device power on with the volume knob).
Geeky Technote on power circuit
¬The Nano BL does an excellent job of managing the power, and does in my opinion even better, than its predecessor. There are quite a few subtle, but interesting differences, and I did some tests and measurements using an inexpensive USB power meter, the absolute precision of which is not too important, as what I am really interested in is relative performance between different modes, as well as compared to the original Nano iDSD and my M2Tech HiFace DAC. So please take the absolute power numbers below with a grain of salt – it’s the trends that are more important.
Charging
When connected to a USB power source (no matter PC port, portable device or USB power adapter) with power switched off, the Nano BL initiates the charging mode: the LED turns blue, and the battery is begin charged with up to 600mA. The maximum the original Nano was roughly 400mA, which means that, all other things being equal, the Nano BL would pump more energy during the same period of time (with a good charger), resulting in reduced charging times.
An interesting observation: when you connect the Nano BL in USB Power mode, the device starts talking to the system even when the volume knob is in the OFF position. Voltage is supplied to Data+ and Data- lines the moment you plug the cable (see D+ and D- readings in the picture above). The driver is initialized; the device is correctly detected by the host, no matter PC, Android or iOS. For example, on a PC, Nano BL is correctly displayed in the iFi HD USB Audio control panel, and you can even start the playback in Foobar2000 using it as the output device (the control panel will also correctly reflect changes in the track sample rate) with the unit still switched off, but of course no sound will be coming out of connected headphones and/or line out.
This is very different from the original Nano iDSD, which started the handshake only after you switched it on by turning the volume knob. In OFF position, there’s no voltage on Data+ and Data- lines, hence the device is not visible to the host, and only draws power.
This leads me to the conclusion that the Nano BL always powers at least the USB receiver chip and (maybe) part of the DAC circuitry from the external USB power source, before the circuit is broken by the power switch in the volume pot.
Turning the unit ON while in “USB Power mode”
If you turn the Nano Black Label ON while it is connected to a USB port, it enters the “USB Power Mode”, and the current consumption increases by approximately 20mA. In other words, in my measurements it went up from 600mA to 620mA when turned on while charging at max current, or from 210mA to 230mA when charging closer to full battery capacity. If you turn the power OFF again, and the battery is still not full, the power consumption will go back to whatever charging current there was, and the LED will turn blue again.
Nano BL OFF, charging
Nano BL On from charging
600mA is quite a lot of current, and even though it will drop as the battery charges, I certainly do not recommend using “USB Power Mode” with portable devices, nor leave Nano DL connected to your portable device after you switch it OFF. I know it sort of contradicts iFi’s statement that you can use the unit with portable sources, even if the battery is fully depleted. And yes, you can, however, I don’t think you want to drain 600mA current from your mobile phone, and this is exactly what Nano BL will drain with empty battery, as the charging current will be the highest. Another thing to remember is that there are quite few portable devices, that would actually allow such a drain from them. My Sony Xperia Z5 Compact is known to have a very generous current allowance on its OTG port, so it did supply up to 610mA to Nano BL (590mA in the picture), but the battery drain was very strong.
Note the huge voltage drop – the phone’s power regulator has a hard time coping with Nano BL’s power appetite!
The original Nano iDSD shows a slightly different behavior. When connected with power off, it starts charging the battery at around 400mA, gradually dropping as it gets fuller. Same pattern with different values. However, when you turn the power ON, the power consumption jumps to a fixed value оf around 340-360mA, regardless of the battery charging level (and current consumption in charging mode). When you turn the power OFF again, the current consumption returns to the charging value (which could be higher or lower than 340-360mA in the ON state, depending on the level of battery charge).
Nano iDSD OFF, charging
Nano iDSD ON from charging
However, if you turn the power ON when the battery is fully charged (the LED is off and Nano iDSD goes into the “trickle charge” mode, drawing about 40mA) - the current consumption drops to basically zero (at least, below the precision threshold of my cheap meter, which seems to be 10mA). The unit operates with literally zero current draw from the source until the battery is dead or until you unplug and re-plug it – in which case the power management logic resets. So in other words, if the original Nano iDSD gets fully charged between the moment you connect it to the USB port and you turn it ON, it will always start in “Battery Power Mode”, even though technically you plugged the cable first, and then turned the power ON.
This strange behavior was corrected in Nano BL, which, even if fully charged, will always correctly turn ON in “USB Power Mode”, always drawing “X+20mA” from the source, where X is whatever current the unit was drawing in the “OFF” position, including the “trickle charge” when the battery is fully charged.
Battery Power Mode
If you connect the Nano BL to a USB port with its power ON, it will enter the “Battery Power Mode”.
In this mode the unit consumes virtually nothing from the source’s USB port, with my cheap power meter it was jumping around 10-20mA.
Nano iDSD has approximately the same current drain in Battery Power Mode. Needless to say that this mode is a lot more appropriate for the portable use. Compared to a very portable-friendly, but still battery-less, M2Tech HiFace DAC, both Nanos draw almost 10 times less power from the source, which, to me, is a clear and unbeatable advantage of battery-equipped devices in portable use.
Charging
When connected to a USB power source (no matter PC port, portable device or USB power adapter) with power switched off, the Nano BL initiates the charging mode: the LED turns blue, and the battery is begin charged with up to 600mA. The maximum the original Nano was roughly 400mA, which means that, all other things being equal, the Nano BL would pump more energy during the same period of time (with a good charger), resulting in reduced charging times.
An interesting observation: when you connect the Nano BL in USB Power mode, the device starts talking to the system even when the volume knob is in the OFF position. Voltage is supplied to Data+ and Data- lines the moment you plug the cable (see D+ and D- readings in the picture above). The driver is initialized; the device is correctly detected by the host, no matter PC, Android or iOS. For example, on a PC, Nano BL is correctly displayed in the iFi HD USB Audio control panel, and you can even start the playback in Foobar2000 using it as the output device (the control panel will also correctly reflect changes in the track sample rate) with the unit still switched off, but of course no sound will be coming out of connected headphones and/or line out.
This is very different from the original Nano iDSD, which started the handshake only after you switched it on by turning the volume knob. In OFF position, there’s no voltage on Data+ and Data- lines, hence the device is not visible to the host, and only draws power.
This leads me to the conclusion that the Nano BL always powers at least the USB receiver chip and (maybe) part of the DAC circuitry from the external USB power source, before the circuit is broken by the power switch in the volume pot.
Turning the unit ON while in “USB Power mode”
If you turn the Nano Black Label ON while it is connected to a USB port, it enters the “USB Power Mode”, and the current consumption increases by approximately 20mA. In other words, in my measurements it went up from 600mA to 620mA when turned on while charging at max current, or from 210mA to 230mA when charging closer to full battery capacity. If you turn the power OFF again, and the battery is still not full, the power consumption will go back to whatever charging current there was, and the LED will turn blue again.
Nano BL OFF, charging
Nano BL On from charging
600mA is quite a lot of current, and even though it will drop as the battery charges, I certainly do not recommend using “USB Power Mode” with portable devices, nor leave Nano DL connected to your portable device after you switch it OFF. I know it sort of contradicts iFi’s statement that you can use the unit with portable sources, even if the battery is fully depleted. And yes, you can, however, I don’t think you want to drain 600mA current from your mobile phone, and this is exactly what Nano BL will drain with empty battery, as the charging current will be the highest. Another thing to remember is that there are quite few portable devices, that would actually allow such a drain from them. My Sony Xperia Z5 Compact is known to have a very generous current allowance on its OTG port, so it did supply up to 610mA to Nano BL (590mA in the picture), but the battery drain was very strong.
Note the huge voltage drop – the phone’s power regulator has a hard time coping with Nano BL’s power appetite!
The original Nano iDSD shows a slightly different behavior. When connected with power off, it starts charging the battery at around 400mA, gradually dropping as it gets fuller. Same pattern with different values. However, when you turn the power ON, the power consumption jumps to a fixed value оf around 340-360mA, regardless of the battery charging level (and current consumption in charging mode). When you turn the power OFF again, the current consumption returns to the charging value (which could be higher or lower than 340-360mA in the ON state, depending on the level of battery charge).
Nano iDSD OFF, charging
Nano iDSD ON from charging
However, if you turn the power ON when the battery is fully charged (the LED is off and Nano iDSD goes into the “trickle charge” mode, drawing about 40mA) - the current consumption drops to basically zero (at least, below the precision threshold of my cheap meter, which seems to be 10mA). The unit operates with literally zero current draw from the source until the battery is dead or until you unplug and re-plug it – in which case the power management logic resets. So in other words, if the original Nano iDSD gets fully charged between the moment you connect it to the USB port and you turn it ON, it will always start in “Battery Power Mode”, even though technically you plugged the cable first, and then turned the power ON.
This strange behavior was corrected in Nano BL, which, even if fully charged, will always correctly turn ON in “USB Power Mode”, always drawing “X+20mA” from the source, where X is whatever current the unit was drawing in the “OFF” position, including the “trickle charge” when the battery is fully charged.
Battery Power Mode
If you connect the Nano BL to a USB port with its power ON, it will enter the “Battery Power Mode”.
In this mode the unit consumes virtually nothing from the source’s USB port, with my cheap power meter it was jumping around 10-20mA.
Nano iDSD has approximately the same current drain in Battery Power Mode. Needless to say that this mode is a lot more appropriate for the portable use. Compared to a very portable-friendly, but still battery-less, M2Tech HiFace DAC, both Nanos draw almost 10 times less power from the source, which, to me, is a clear and unbeatable advantage of battery-equipped devices in portable use.
Using Foobar2000, I had absolutely no problem playing back all almost all declared file formats. The unit correctly accepted PCM signals ranging from your Redbook 16/44.1 all the way up to whopping DXD 24bit/352kHz files. As far as DSD is concerned, I was able to effortlessly playback DSD 64 (2.8MHz) and DSD 128 (5.6MHz).
DSD256 files could not be played back though Nano BL flashed with 5.2 Limoncello. The original Nano iDSD running the same 5.2 Limoncello firmware (and yes, this is exactly the same FW, the binary file is absolutely identical) could not play DSD256 neither. However, for the original Nano iDSD there’s 5.2A firmware variant officially listed on the web site, which unlocks DSD256 in DoP (DSD-Over-PCM), and allows to play back DSD256 files.
While 5.2A is not officially listed as compatible with Nano BL, after consultations with iFi technical specialists I tried flashing this binary to Nano BL, and it went totally fine. The unit was initialized by the driver now displaying 5.2A firmware, and DSD256 tracks played just fine, with the control panel correctly reporting DSD256 (DoP) output format and a whopping 705600kHz sampling rate.
While I strongly believe that the ability to play back DSD256 content in a normal, “consumer listening” environment, let alone portable set ups, is more of a demonstration of iFi’s excellent engineering rather than a practical necessity, credits given where due. iFi managed to cram an incredible amount of versatility and flexibility in such a tiny footprint (both in terms of physical dimensions and the price bracket). There’s certainly some magic going on inside those tiny boxes. Black magic in this case
I have also tried the newer Release Candidate firmware for the Nano BL – namely, 5.3C RC2. This firmware unleashes MQA decoding capabilities of the Nano BL, is said to lock PCM up-sampling to 8x, and changes the logic of LED color indication of the incoming signal format.
As far as MQA is concerned, unfortunately, I could not test this feature. TIDAL is not available in Russia, and I could not find any other way of testing MQA-encoded tracks on a PC source. So no magenta light has ever shown up on my Nano DL.
DSD playback in 5.3C RC2 is unchanged compared to 5.2 – full support of DSD64 and DSD128 tracks, the LED correctly turns cyan. DSD256 tracks cannot be played back again – you do need 5.2A to unlock DSD256 DoP mode.
With the PCM material the unit behaves quite differently compared to the stock 5.2 Firmware. The 5.3C RC2 is said to always show the white LED on PCM material because it is “upsampled 8x”. And indeed, instead of showing individual color coding for up to 96kHz (green) or 174/192kHz (yellow) or DXD (white), the Nano BL is now always white with PCM tracks. However, I could not perceive any audible difference between non-upsampled playback of PCM tracks and 8x upsampling.
I must note, however, that in terms of the overall stability the 5.3C RC2 is still what it is honestly called – a release candidate. I did have a couple of occurrences where Nano BL would not be recognized by the system at first connection attempt (no matter “Power then cable” or “Cable then power”), and required re-plugging it one or two times. Once recognized, the unit remain rock-solid in terms of stability. This only happened to me on the 5.3C RC2 firmware – I have never had any issues plugging/unplugging/re-plugging dozens of times with neither Nano BL, nor Nano iDSD, with officially released 5.2 and 5.2A firmware.
Android operation
Nano BL was tested with my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, which supports USB OTG connection (this is a mandatory requirement to properly use outboard USB DAC on an Android device, bypassing any internal system audio processing).
The only caveat is the physical compatibility of the Nano BL’s square opening and the size of the outer shell of the Type A female connector on the OTG cable. I covered it in the “Packaging and contents” section of this review, just a reminder: not all USB OTG cables are created equal, so please try before you buy!
On my Xperia, in order to use the Nano BL (or any other external USB device), I needed to initialize it manually, by going to Settings -> Device Connection -> USB Connectivity, and tap the “Detect USB Device”.
Your mileage may vary, as I think it strongly depends on the USB OTG implementation and can differ from phone to phone and from Android version to another.
In portable set up, you will want to use Nano BL’s Battery Power Mode, so please make sure to turn the unit on with the volume knob first, and then connect your cables and perform whatever actions are necessary to initialize the device on your smartphone or tablet.
Nano BL demonstrated perfect compatibility with both USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) and Hiby Music – the two leading Android apps capable of completely bypassing Android system sound mixer and output bit-perfect USB Audio to outboard DACs. I had absolutely no problem playing back the entire selection of my test tracks, including (with some quirks) DSD256 tracks.
Track format indication by the LED was accurate with all the files. Most of my testing was done using USB Audio Player Pro, with Bit Perfect set to “ON”, DSD Mode set to “Native”, and no USB Tweaks selected. I must once again acclaim iFi’s excellent format compatibility across any platform!
Geeky Technote on DSD256 playback on Android
The only thing that deserves a special mention is that DSD256 files in UAPP played just fine both in “Native DSD” and in “DoP” mode. This seemed a bit strange to me, because I thought DSD256 playback required “DSD-Over-PCM” (DoP) mode. The LED on Nano BL correctly lights up in blue, which means that at least there’s no hidden PCM conversion of any sort going on. Frankly, I don’t know if it is Nano BL actually doing more than advertised, or the UAPP has those settings messed up, switching to DoP automatically when the DAC requests it.
In Hiby Music DSD256 also didn’t work as advertised: it didn’t work at all My test DSD256 file would not start playing back with an error message “File format is not supported”, no matter what DSD setting was selected – Native DSD or DSD-Over-PCM.
Once again – in my opinion, DSD256 files in a portable set up are just plain useless. They take up HUGE amount of portable device’s storage (a single 5-min DSD256 .dsf file is on average an insane 800 MB!!!), while offering absolutely no sonic advantages compared to DSD64 or 128, and, depending on other equipment, it may not offer any audible advantages even over PCM files. My deeper-than-necessary dwelling into this subject is dictated by purely technical curiosity, rather than any practical concern.
In Hiby Music DSD256 also didn’t work as advertised: it didn’t work at all My test DSD256 file would not start playing back with an error message “File format is not supported”, no matter what DSD setting was selected – Native DSD or DSD-Over-PCM.
Once again – in my opinion, DSD256 files in a portable set up are just plain useless. They take up HUGE amount of portable device’s storage (a single 5-min DSD256 .dsf file is on average an insane 800 MB!!!), while offering absolutely no sonic advantages compared to DSD64 or 128, and, depending on other equipment, it may not offer any audible advantages even over PCM files. My deeper-than-necessary dwelling into this subject is dictated by purely technical curiosity, rather than any practical concern.
iOS connection and operation
While I don’t normally use iOS devices as my digital music sources (I could’ve elaborated on this on 3-4 more pages, but I will not start this Holy War
), for the purposes of testing I used my iPad Mini 4 with Onkyo HF Player, connecting Nano BL directly by Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter.A note to be made here: make sure to always use “Battery Power Mode” when connecting Nano BL to your iOS device, by turning the power on first, and the plugging the cable in. Otherwise you will most likely get the famous annoying Apple’s “The attached accessory uses too much power” error message, and your Nano BL will not be initialized.
Your mileage with more powerful Apple devices such as iPads Pro may vary, but to be on the safe side, I recommend sticking to the Battery Power Mode all the time. Even without the error message, this makes perfect sense, as you don’t really want Nano to draw power from your mobile device.
Connecting Nano BL in Battery Power mode is a breeze. Once initialized by the system, the unit becomes visible to Onkyo HF Player.
Nano BL demonstrated once again excellent format compatibility, playing back all my test PCM and DSD tracks. Note that, unlike UAPP or Hiby on Android, Onkyo HF Player only offers DSD-Over-PCM (or DoP) playback for DSD files (in addition to DSD-to-PCM conversion, which is a totally different thing). It may well be an iOS platform limitation, although being able to play hi-res or DSD content and output it to an external USB DAC form an iOS device is already a huge achievement by Onkyo!
The Nano BL LED indicator correctly reported all the signal formats, from green for PCM all the way up to blue for DSD256 DoP.
The only unpleasant experience of using Nano BL on iOS device is a sudden and very loud unpleasant “scratching” sound, quite often coming from the headphones the moment you close Onkyo HF Player after playing back a DSD file. This has nothing to do with Nano BL and must be something about the app or the iOS platform in general, as this happened to me with every USB DAC I tried on my iPad. It does not happen but make sure to switch the unit off before closing the Onkyo HF Player.
I did not test any other third-party music software on my iPad, since Onkyo HF Player is the only true bit-perfect USB Audio app that I know of, and I own a full-licenced version which allows you to load and play back hi-res content. Please note that for all your fancy hi-res PCM and/or DSD tracks, you’ll need to load them directly to Onkyo HF Player using iTunes’ application-specific file sharing. Onkyo HF Player can read your iTunes music library locally stored on your iPad, but the playback will be routed via iOS audio mixer.
The native Apple music app can play through Nano DL too, but of course, only those tracks that are in your iTunes library.
Listening impressions
This is the trickiest part of any review, but probably for most readers, the most important one. My problem with listening impressions has always been that I know this is always purely subjective, and as such maybe the least reliable part of any review. On the other hand, this is exactly what makes multiple reviewers’ tours the most useful form of product presentation – readers get a wide range of different opinions, and where such opinions converge would most likely be as close to objectivity as possible.
I will start with a few general comments about Nano iDSD Black Label, and then would add some finer details and impressions on various gear combinations and music tracks.
Unique sonic characteristics of different headphones driven by Nano BL remain very recognizable
This one is important. In other words, Nano iDSD Black Label does a good job of not adding too much of its own sonic character to different headphones it drives. Some reviewers would call it neutral sounding, and it may be a good term, although to me, it is neutral not in the sense of perfectly flat frequency response curve, but in the sense of not affecting much the overall tonal characteristics of given headphones.
What it means in practice, with Nano BL, for example, my Etymotics sounded pretty much what they are supposed to sound: a high-precision surgical scalpel, capable of dissecting music into its finest layers and pieces. And not a Thor hammer that slams base notes into your head like a very colored and punchy ES-10 by Audiotechnica.
Nano BL does not try to be nice sounding (by emphasizing lower end, or adding more sparkle to the treble), it tries to be sounding honestly. This may or may not what someone is looking for.
For example, the M2Tech HiFace DAC + RSA Predator combo are a totally different sounding set up, with much more coloration, much more involving sound. Great lower end punch; lush, rich and forward-sounding mids, and slightly recessed treble may sound more appealing, especially with some genres.
However, the price to pay for this emotional involvement is that there’s much less sonic character difference between different pairs of headphones, and all of a sudden your darker, more aggressive and impactful Fidelio X2 start sounding not that different from you normally airy, light and laid-back AKG K501.
Nano iDSD Black Label is a true powerhouse of a headphone amplifier
This one is obvious. The Black Label is a HUGE improvement over the original Nano iDSD in terms of headphone amplification.
It easily coped with anything I was able to throw at it, from sensitive Etymotic IEMs and ATH-EW9 clip-ons to much harder to drive AKG K501.
I hope this is the biggest thing ever plugged into Nano BL
Even without going to the extremes of the headphones range (no, I don’t own any planars, orthodynamics or old-school 600 Ohms studio monitoring cans), I can tell the power reserve of this tiny box is absolutely amazing!
This is probably the most notable difference with the original Nano iDSD. I have always thought (and I still do) that Nano iDSD is a much better DAC than the headphone amp, and in my personal set up it was mainly a desktop unit. Its headphone jack was its Achilles heel.
Certainly not the case with the new Nano BL! A combination of clever iEMatch technology, new fully analogue volume control and the S-Balanced topology make it a much more capable headphone amp than its predecessor.
If any criticism could be applied to headphone amplification of the Nano BL – this would go towards the iEMatch socket. It does sound slightly veiled, less transparent and detailed, than the Standard output, even at normalized volume levels. Whether it has to do with iEMatch additional circuitry in the signal path, or I simply don’t have uber-sensitive 16-ohms IEMs to really benefit from this technology – I am not sure. But here’s the fact: most of my listening was done via the Standard output.
I must admit I was not able to test the advantages of the “S-Balanced Technology” offered by iFi, simply because I could not get hold of any balanced-cabled headphones that would be terminated in a 3.5mm TRRS plug.
Geeky Technote on balanced headphone connections
The problem with “balanced headphones” (as much as I hate this term, because it is completely incorrect from the engineering point of view) is that, unlike studio/on-stage/broadcasting world, there’s absolutely no industry standards as to the connectors. We have a wild plethora of options, ranging from dual 3-pin XLRs to 2.5mm 4-pole TRRS, with all sorts of things in the middle - single 4-pin XLR, 4-pin mini-XLR, dual 3.5 TRS, dual 6.3 TRS, 4-pin square “RSA-Alo Audio” Camera plug and you name it!
As I wrote in the Connections and Controls section of this review, anything that would help users cope with this versatility, would be of great help: a 2.5mm balanced connector instead of one of the 3.5mm, and/or one or two balanced adapter cables instead of two identical USB Type B adapters in the bundle would make this “S-Balanced” feature a lot more practical and useful.
As I wrote in the Connections and Controls section of this review, anything that would help users cope with this versatility, would be of great help: a 2.5mm balanced connector instead of one of the 3.5mm, and/or one or two balanced adapter cables instead of two identical USB Type B adapters in the bundle would make this “S-Balanced” feature a lot more practical and useful.
Nano iDSD BL as a DAC kept all the good things of the original Nano iDSD
I compared Nano iDSD Black Label to the original Nano iDSD, as well as to M2Tech HiFace DAC, in DAC only mode, driving either an external headphones amp or my active monitors from the devices’ line outputs. My findings confirm that the DAC part of both generations of Nanos is almost, if not exactly, the same: the best DAC I have ever heard in sub-$500 class, hands down, especially with DSD material.
It has a very neutral, open sound signature, with a very cohesive overall sonic picture, very good level of detail, and excellent timber reproduction – very natural and delicate. With PCM material it retains most of its qualities, however, it does sound a little less refined and detailed. The differences are very subtle, and require very careful listening with very detailed and neutral headphones (I use my Etymotics for these purposes), but they are audible. This is perfectly in line with my earlier impressions from the original Nano iDSD, and I can only repeat that if you really want to get the best of your iFi Nano – go for DSD material.
I must say that overall the Burr-Brown platform iFi chose for its portable range is really great, and iFi certainly learned well how to make a good DAC on this chip. In my personal ranking, it beats all of the Sabre portable implementations I have heard in this price bracket, and is a very solid contender even against my preferred (albeit not yet owned) AKA4490-based portable platform, such as Shanling M3S. However, this comparison is not very accurate, as I did not have M3S at hand during the review, and had to rely on memorized sonic impressions of the latter.
One thing to note here. It is not a warm and bright sounding DAC, nor a dark, bass-hammering DAC. So if you prefer this type of sound signature – look elsewhere.
Individual sound impressions
With open full size cans (AKG K501/Q701, Philips Fidelio X2)
The Nano BL did a great job allowing K501 and Q701 unleash their strongest features: excellent airiness, fantastic detail and wide and precise soundstage. You could almost physically feel the intimate chamber space where TACET went on with tube only recording of Stuttgarter Kammerorchester performing Boccherini’s La Musica Notturna, while at the same time enjoy the spaciousness of a concert hall with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, conducted by Anatole Fistoulari, made you plunge into the Swan Lake’s Act 2, Scene 10.
Timbre accuracy was also excellent, and I am not adding “for the price” this time. TACET’s tube-only recordings have, to my taste, the most-natural sounding string instruments I have ever heard, and Nano BL was able to convey them without any undue interference. This is something that, for example, none of the Sabre-based portable devices I auditioned was capable to do.
With Fidelio X2, Nano BL managed to drive them to their usual more punchy, heavier-weight and full-bodied sound. “You and your friend” by Dire Straits sounded as energetic and full of drive as you’d expect it to sound, and the same applies to the heart-touching acoustic guitar reefs and voice by Nils Lofgren in his “Keith Don’t Go’.
With closed-back cans (Sony MDR-7506/Audiotechnica ATH-A700/ES-10)
Those are the cans I’d normally use for recordings that benefit from a more intimate, in-your-ears sound signature, with a lot of presence. And Nano BL did not disappoint! John Campbell’s infernal voice sounded infernal enough to make you shiver listening to his Down in the Hole. And the incredible Melody Gardot would literally whisper into your ear her “So we meet again, my heartache”.
The lower end of the spectrum was punchy and accurate, if only just a tiny bit lighter-weight than, for instance, my desktop tube amp is capable of delivering into the same cans. This totally conforms with the term “neutral-sounding” that can be applied to Nano BL – as much as I enjoy the whopping bass response of my Laconic tube amp, its sound signature is anything but neutral
.
At home, in my desktop system, I’d probably have more enjoyment of Alan Taylor’s “Dedicated to…” bass line, however, on the go Nano BL was more than persuasive with this piece.
With Etymotic ER4P Custom re-cabled IEMs
Nano BL had absolutely no problems driving Etymotics, and I did not even have to recourse to the iEMatch socket – they played just fine from the Standard output. No matter Standard or iEMatch, Nano BL demonstrated a totally black background, with no hum or hiss whatsoever, even with the volume knob turned all the way to max. Excellent job by iFi, and apparently "iPurifier technology built in" does its job.
Plugged into Nano, ER4P remained exactly what they are: an extremely accurate, sharp and sterile medical scalpel, which is capable of carving out the smallest details of the music texture. Etymotics and Nano BL turned out to be an excellent testing and evaluation combo, but…
This is probably the only case where in terms of the actual listening pleasure and enjoyment I might say I liked my M2Tech HiFace DAC/RSA Predator more than the Nano BL. The much livelier sonic character of M2Tech HiFace DAC, combined with RSA’s signature dark, laid-back and lower-end focused sound are simply more fun with Etys because they offset nicely the uber-flat, even and sterile sound signature of Etymotics. This in no ways mean something is wrong with Nano BL, it is just that ER4 are a very specific pair of IEMs, and not all DACs/Amps are a synergetic match.
Conclusions and final word
Bravo, iFi, you did it again!
You started this game with the original Nano iDSD – opened up the world of excellent sound in a portable package to a sub-$200 market. Then you took the original Nano iDSD, painted it in black, improved on every single aspect that needed improvement, added a few new features (some more practical than others
, and still crammed the whole thing into the same $200 envelop.The only question that I have is how do you guys do it. Black magic?
Is Nano BL ideal? For its price it certainly is. It’s small, incredibly versatile, packed with features and has a very pleasant, clear and neutral sonic character.
Is it for everyone? Well, in my view, it will definitely fit the bill with most users. However, a distinctly neutral sound may seem a bit uninspiring for someone who is addicted to colored sound. Others may note some lacking energy and emotion, especially with some headphones, but this is certainly not Nano BL’s fault.
Did I like it? I absolutely did, and this is not surprising: I like my original Nano iDSD a lot, and here comes the successor that is simply a better, improved version of it.
Oh, and now it is BLACK!
