[MundoHiFiOz]

Would the ifi hip-dac be a better solution for iems?

Hip DAC has noise/hiss with sensitive iems.

 

[maricius]

Why should someone buy this "expensive" powerhouse to use it with super sensitive iems?
It is obvious that is not intended for such use.

I personally prefer using IEMs out of convenience even at home. If there is a superior sounding DAP or DAC/amp for IEMs that's also (trans)portable for the same money, I'd love to know about it. For sure harder to drive headphones scale more with power but nice IEMs should surely still benefit from a high quality external DAC and amplifier

 

[iFi audio]

I wish yall made this in black instead of this weird ass color

I wish is was blue, but we both agree against red.

We can't possibly please everyone

The Diablo is our new reference portable product and as such it had to have a distinctive color. Black is taken by BL devices and blue is for our Signature range.

I've been a loyal ifi customer - purchasing the xDSD, ifi nano black, ican se, iphono 2, iusb 3 - all those products were relatively good value to sound performance.. what I would have liked to see are timely upgrades/replacements to those whilst retaining the similar price given technological advances, I would have been happy to keep upgrading.. but I don't fancy paying large price hikes given that technology improves over time. Similar analogy to TVs I guess, nowadays for the same cost as 5 years ago I can upgrade to a much superior TV as technology/rd moves forward. Just feels ifi are taking me for a bit of a ride - I expect better sound quality for the same price to what I've paid 5 years ago.



ifi have lost me as a customer, I will not be upgrading their products anymore - they are not competitive as they were 5 years ago.

I understand and at the same time thanks a lot for being a customer over last years

You're right. Definitely not the primary use case.

Exclusively for IEMs we have our X range for example.

Some strong few posts. I have to agree, as a black label and signature owner, I don't know if Diablo is a decent upgrade or not. I would have to get a hold of a unit and try it out.

I can't promise anything, but we might do a Diablo tour soon.

I have been following iFi since the beginning. I do want to say that, though I love seeing new products from time to time, there are major overlapping (*price, features amd intended market wise) on some of the models that don't fully make sense to me. I'll rather see fewer but better distinguished models.

That's a fair point, but as a manufacturer we aim to cover the entire market, which comprises of smaller markets with different needs.

I just wished iFi would offer a solution to allow Balanced solution for IEMs instead of continuously turning up the power.

Our X range is fully balanced and designed for that. For iEMs exclusively I'd take a closer look at our xDSD (used as a DAC) connected to our xCAN (used as a headphone amp).

 

[jlbrach]

for IEM's buy yourself a good condition chord mojo for 300 bucks

 

[Chibs]

We can't possibly please everyone

The Diablo is our new reference portable product and as such it had to have a distinctive color. Black is taken by BL devices and blue is for our Signature range.



I understand and at the same time thanks a lot for being a customer over last years



Exclusively for IEMs we have our X range for example.



I can't promise anything, but we might do a Diablo tour soon.



That's a fair point, but as a manufacturer we aim to cover the entire market, which comprises of smaller markets with different needs.



Our X range is fully balanced and designed for that. For iEMs exclusively I'd take a closer look at our xDSD (used as a DAC) connected to our xCAN (used as a headphone amp).

If you get a chance - unanswered from earlier on in this thread
Is there a benefit to having the decoding process done on the unit it's self, as apposed to rendering? Does decoding on your Diablo even happen when streaming Tidal on lets say an iphone?

Chibs

 

[ianjturner]

Hey iFi,
Just picked up the Micro idsd Signature (Friday) the exact day this Diablo was released .
I really am enjoying this thing - https://www.head-fi.org/threads/foc...nts-interview-head-fi-tv.899912/post-16112488
Can't help but wonder what I'm missing with this Diablo. Assuming there is a return window, what are your thoughts between the 2 with my setup?
Is there a benefit to having the decoding process done on the unit it's self, as apposed to rendering? Does decoding on your Diablo even happen when streaming Tidal on lets say an iphone?

Chibs

To just chime in, I'd love this question answered too, although only my ears would be able to decide for me sound wise. It's a tough question you've posed though - asking iFi to stand by the sonic superiority of the Diablo by recommending returning another high quality product of theirs. Although they do the same kind of thing, and are the same shape, my take is that they're still for a different audience - one is for iFi house sound with the funky XBass, the other for the more purist who doesn't want to mess about with anything. So comes down to which audience you belong to to determine the best product fit.

MQA full decode is a great question for iFi - for me it has a small convenience use case because I can then set up JRiver to send the raw data for when I have MQA files, even though JRiver themselves refuse to have anything to do with MQA. (Of course we could get into the "is MQA snake oil?" discussion but it's covered elsewhere thankfully!) I'd be interested to know the rest of the MQA full decode epic from iFi's perspective.

 

[Gus141]

And while we’re on the topic of questions-not-answered-yet, I’ll try again: is the Diablo using the GTO filter?

Cheers,
Gus

 

[talan7]

for IEM's buy yourself a good condition chord mojo for 300 bucks

I’d sell him mine for $250. It’s a few years old, but not used much at all.

 

[jlbrach]

that is a steal if it is in good shape

 

[qsk78]

Would the ifi hip-dac be a better solution for iems?

Signature will be a better solution.
xDSD as well.

Hip DAC has noise/hiss with sensitive iems.

Confirm

 

[Ficcion2]

Is the Diablo circuitry (and Signature for that matter) also designed/supervised by John Curl like the Zen Can? @iFi audio

 

[Gus141]

Agree that xDSD is great for IEMs (IER-Z1R and IER-M9 in my case). @iFi audio mentioned pairing xDSD with xCan for IEMs, and I’m sure that’s great, but I can’t imagine my IEMs sounding any better using the xCan as the amp vs just the xDSD. For me, the xDSD is more than powerful enough single-ended for my IEMs; and it sounds awesome. I personally wouldn’t want to add another device (e.g, xCan); I love the all-in-one package of the xDSD.

I keep balanced 4.4 cables on my IEMs all the time since I use a couple of DAPs also that just sound best with the 4.4 balanced output. So when I use the xDSD (usually with my iPad Pro) or any DACs without a 4.4mm output, I use a Moon Audio adapter cable (https://www.moon-audio.com/black-dragon-iem-adapter-cable-v2.html ) that is perfect for my needs.

Back on topic: I’m interested in the Diablo for my over-ear cans so I can’t wait to read the reviews, but for IEMs it’s overkill IMHO.

 

[Ichos]

Would the ifi hip-dac be a better solution for iems?

I don't know as I haven't used it.
Anyway there are a lot of options outside the iFi range but I guess that this is not the place to discuss it.

 

[iFi audio]

Is there a benefit to having the decoding process done on the unit it's self, as apposed to rendering?

Many people would agree that dedicated hardware to decode MQA inside a DAC product would be the best way to approach this task.

Does decoding on your Diablo even happen when streaming Tidal on lets say an iphone?

Yes. Our XMOS chip inside the Diablo is powerful enough to do both MQA decoding and rendering internally and on its own, so it makes no difference where your MQA-capables streaming platform is installed.

Is the Diablo circuitry (and Signature for that matter) also designed/supervised by John Curl like the Zen Can? @iFi audio

It was designed/supervised by our R&D team.

 

[iFi audio]

I'll just leave it here