[Ichos]

Aren't the gold and the black Go Bars, with the same HW abd FW?

Thanks

The gold one has enhanced power supply filtering.
I don't know if it is because of this or if there is something else going on but they do sound slightly different.
Not day and night differences but still something that you can tell in a blind test.

 

[littlexx26]

The gold one has enhanced power supply filtering.
I don't know if it is because of this or if there is something else going on but they do sound slightly different.
Not day and night differences but still something that you can tell in a blind test.

what did you use to connect the go bars to test?

 

[Ichos]

what did you use to connect the go bars to test?

An Android tablet with the included cable.

 

[littlexx26]

wonder if anyone can compare go bar gold and gryphon

 

[Ichos]

wonder if anyone can compare go bar gold and gryphon

From memory, since the Gryphon is now returned, they sound closer than you could possibly imagine.
So close that if you don't want the extra power, the internal battery and the Bluetooth it is very difficult not to prefer the Gold bar.
Honestly I am so thrilled with the sound performance of the Gold bar that I am seriously thinking of buying the review unit.
The only real downside is that it drains my battery faster than I like and it is a little heavy.

 

[littlexx26]

From memory, since the Gryphon is now returned, they sound closer than you could possibly imagine.
So close that if you don't want the extra power, the internal battery and the Bluetooth it is very difficult not to prefer the Gold bar.
Honestly I am so thrilled with the sound performance of the Gold bar that I am seriously thinking of buying the review unit.
The only real downside is that it drains my battery faster than I like and it is a little heavy.

ifi uses cirrus logic dac in go bar, any difference than other products that use Burr brown in terms of sound signature？

 

[ardexx]

Does anyone know if it is practically doable to use the GO Bar as a ‘fixed’ output device, so it can be connected to the line-in of an amplifier?

I am not sure if the ‘synchronise’ feature is meant for this. The GO Bar would receive its signal from a Pi running Volumio. My previous iFi devices all had a fixed output setting at the back.

 

[polymaniac]

I use my GoBar from time to time with my HQPlayer NAA (Network Audio Adapter) which runs on a 2GB Raspberry Pi 4, the GoBar is connected from the Pi via USB to the GoBar and from tlhere into my FOCAL clear mg. Sound's great. Sound is not fixed. Music comes from my Rock Roon-Server with my own Musicfiles and a QOBUZ Streaming subscription. My Roon Server runs on a AsRock H470 Deskmini with 32GB of RAM and a 6core i5-11500 with 8TB SSDs. Upsampling to 384kHz thru HQPlayer gets done on my MacBook Pro M1Pro. From there the upsampled Files go thru my Homenetwork to the NAA Pi and from there to the GoBar. Why? Because i can! Because it sounds great and because i can use any Roon-Endpoint (in my case a iPhone 13 Pro, a M1 iPad Pro, my Macbook Pro and my Apple Watch) to access my library and stop/start my music. I can regulate Volume via Roon on one of my Endpoints including my AppleWatch and also via GoBar's Volume Controls.

Now, maybe iFi should spend me a free GoBar Gold for the most complex GoBar Usage-scenario.

On another Note: I tried several Lightning to USB-C cables from Amazon: There is no other short cable which works with the GoBar!!! So, take care of your Lightning to Usb-c cable and let me know if you could find a 10 to 20cm usb-c to lightning cable which works with the GoBar. Trying different usb-c to usb-c cables and adapters worked for me (mostly) without problems.

 

[Ichos]

ifi uses cirrus logic dac in go bar, any difference than other products that use Burr brown in terms of sound signature？

They have nailed their house sound.
Burr Brown Gryphon and Cirrus Go bar share the same analogue like and very musical sound signature.

 

[rafaelo]

On another Note: I tried several Lightning to USB-C cables from Amazon: There is no other short cable which works with the GoBar!!!

There is. The fiio lt1 one for sure.

The ifi audio cables are the best for sure but the other working as well.

What is not working again is the apple 3.0 adapter. It worked once after update and then stopped again. Is vwry good that ifi is working on a fix.

Also, after the update the filter light is not permanently illuminated anymore. Only when you change filter and then disappears. Not sure if this is intended behaviour after the update.

Others may substantially disagree with me but i find the go bar signature different than burr brown and I have listened a lot of ifi burr brown in the past. Is also very different than the sabre dacs in various devices and in particular with fiio KA3 that I am currently compare with often as a dongle.

 

[Doug2507]

Anyone had a chance to side by side with S2 yet?

 

[Ichos]

Not all iFi Burr brown DACs sound exactly the same.
As an example the Diablo is slightly different than the Gryphon.
The Go bar Gold ,to my ears, is sounding quite close to the Gryphon.

 

[Ichos]

Firmware 1.70/1.70a is now available to download.

BTW @iFi audio I think that it was very useful the filter being visible upon startup

 

[CANiSLAYu]

@iFi audio @Sebastien Chiu
I see it in the change log, but not quite sure what the mute difference between the two firmwares actually means in terms of use. Can you elaborate?

​

V1.70>>>V1.7A
1. modify mute control, optimize the switching track noise. (no data when pushing 0 data)

V1.70 is the official version for shipping.
V1.7a is for users to download and experience.
V1.70 and V1.7a are the same except Mute settings are different.

Thanks.

 

[ardexx]

Firmware 1.70/1.70a is now available to download.

BTW @iFi audio I think that it was very useful the filter being visible upon startup

I don’t get the so called IOS (iOS?) version for the GO Bar FW update. It contains a .dmg file which is a (to my knowledge) a MacOS disk image, and no iOS. Confused…