iFi Audio Nano iDSD discussion + impression

[50188]

They all have analogue volume control.

There is a separate iEMatch available. It just plugs in between the headphone and the iDSD.

http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/accessory-iematch/

 
Thank you, I totally missed this accesory, really interesting.
 
Regarding the analog volume of Nano, I remember that I contacted with the store and they contacted with ifi, and they said that the volume was some kind of hybrid volume, in fact, I could listen to the "internal steps" perfectly.

 

[technobear]

[COLOR=1F497D]We use a chip that combines differential input, volume control and an Amplifier all on one Chip. This volume control is similar to that in the Abbingdon Music Research AM-777.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=1F497D]The iDSD, at FULL volume, has NO resistors remaining in series with the volume control.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=1F497D]The volume works for both RCAs and Headphones. So it is a type of small pre-amp. Or turn to full volume and there will be no more resistors in the chain. Eat and cake![/COLOR]

I've found one post in this thread which talks about the volume control.

Sounds like a digitally-controlled analogue volume control to me.

 

[theaudiologist]

guys, what do you think is a better choice:

IFI nano idsd + ifi nano ican or

just Ifi micro idsd

 

[technobear]

guys, what do you think is a better choice:

IFI nano idsd + ifi nano ican or

just Ifi micro idsd

That's easy. The micro iDSD is the clear choice there. Better sound. Better battery life. More features. More power.

 

[iFi audio]

That's easy. The micro iDSD is the clear choice there. Better sound. Better battery life. More features. More power.

Sound quality wise we believe so as well. Still, it all comes down to personal needs, i.e. pocket space available etc. Hence in our eyes the Nano range isn't a case lost against iDSD BL on every field out there

 

[Ver JJ]

How will you guys describe ifi nano iDSD in one sentence (in terms of sound & build quality).......? I had found many mixed review online so I am a little confused right now........

 

[Bla4444]

I get ifi idsd le but i advice,stay away from it. Mine had worked for 1 hour, and it seem the battery won t charge anymore. Big dissapointment. Especially if i think about drb or dfr, has no battery and has not such a problem.

 

[scrypt]

Last Friday, I switched to a desktop computer with Windows 10 at my secret non-home location. Every time I've tried to access the iFi drivers page (or indeed any page on the iFi site), I've gotten an endlessly static progress bar beneath the following sentence in festive italics:

We are busy updating the website for you and will be back shortly.​

High above the text and bar, a seemingly arbitrary count appears:

2days 4hours 30minutes​

Is everyone getting this and, if so, what's up with the iFi audio site?

 

[hamachan]

Last Friday, I switched to a desktop computer with Windows 10 at my secret non-home location. Every time I've tried to access the iFi drivers page (or indeed any page on the iFi site), I've gotten an endlessly static progress bar beneath the following sentence in festive italics:

We are busy updating the website for you and will be back shortly.​

High above the text and bar, a seemingly arbitrary count appears:

2days 4hours 30minutes​

Is everyone getting this and, if so, what's up with the iFi audio site?

As it says, ifi is updating their site. Let's wait!

 

[scrypt]

As it says, ifi is updating their site. Let's wait!

Thanks for the vigorous response.

Normally, site updates don't take over a week, hence my question posed to the at public large. Hey, there, large public at.

It's a diagnostic question, which I hope didn't appear to be an impatient expostulation. Fellow Trilobite Lodge members will attest to my zero-impatience-tolerance policy. (Hurry the hell up and regain your composure, you reckless foonts!)

If the issue is the site and not my access, so be it. I wanted to be certain that the hiccup (urp!) had nothing to do with my IT-saddled setup. Restricted permissions can result in various kinds of dead pages -- even maintenance pages -- depending on a site's defaults.

 

[yangian]

Anyone have these two and could give me some coooments:
https://www.amazon.com/Nano-iDSD-Po...F8&qid=1502474768&sr=1-4&keywords=ifi+idsd+le

https://www.amazon.com/SMSL-M8A-ES9...02474917&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=smsl+m8a&psc=1

Thanks

 

[boblauer]

Thanks for the vigorous response.

Normally, site updates don't take over a week, hence my question posed to the at public large. Hey, there, large public at.

It's a diagnostic question, which I hope didn't appear to be an impatient expostulation. Fellow Trilobite Lodge members will attest to my zero-impatience-tolerance policy. (Hurry the hell up and regain your composure, you reckless foonts!)

If the issue is the site and not my access, so be it. I wanted to be certain that the hiccup (urp!) had nothing to do with my IT-saddled setup. Restricted permissions can result in various kinds of dead pages -- even maintenance pages -- depending on a site's defaults.

If you hit the More button on the bottom of the splash page and then the back button it does take you into the site. I don't know how accurate or up to date the site that it resolves to is but it is slow.

 

[hamachan]

Thanks for the vigorous response.

By the way the iFi site has been resumed but it looks old version. No recent launched products are shown, the USB driver version is 2.23 and the firmware for iDSD nano is 5.0 (Latest version must be 2.26 and 5.2 respectively). I do not know what happen.

 

[cheungtsw]

Thanks for the vigorous response.

Normally, site updates don't take over a week, hence my question posed to the at public large. Hey, there, large public at.

It's a diagnostic question, which I hope didn't appear to be an impatient expostulation. Fellow Trilobite Lodge members will attest to my zero-impatience-tolerance policy. (Hurry the hell up and regain your composure, you reckless foonts!)

If the issue is the site and not my access, so be it. I wanted to be certain that the hiccup (urp!) had nothing to do with my IT-saddled setup. Restricted permissions can result in various kinds of dead pages -- even maintenance pages -- depending on a site's defaults.

That's what I have been saying but instead I got personal attacked by various people.

I believe (my guess) is their server crashed and lost the latest backup. Hence it is now on the "older" website after 2 weeks.

 

[xichenamoy]

I'm not concerned about listening to headphones and speakers at the same time. That isn't the concern. From the response above, it does sound like iFi has put quite a bit of thought into the issue.

If I am understanding things correctly, it is necessary to set the volume control of the iDSD on maximum to get the proper output from the RCA outs. Apparently, this is 1.8V. That is a little less than what seems to be the accepted standard of 2.0V, although in reality, I don't think a standard really exists. That means that the user must have a more powerful speaker amplifier to obtain the same results than if the output was 2.0V, because the speaker amplifier is receiving a slightly weaker signal than what I would call normal.

It also means the user must constantly remember to unplug their headphones from the the iDSD when switching from headphones to speakers and vice versa. If one wishes to use their speakers, it will be necessary to turn the volume control on the iDSD to max to obtain 1.8V output through the RCA jacks, which is probably at best on the low side. Doing this without unplugging headphones (or while wearing headphones) means that the iDSD headphone amplifier will now be outputting the maximum headphone volume it can output.

Anyone who left their headphones plugged into the iDSD on their last listening session must not forget to unplug them before setting the iDSD volume to maximum in order to use their speakers.

I had the same concern here since my another Denon DAC's RCA output not affected by its volume control. So I googled and found your postings as well as ifi's response. I completely understood the concern since people always try to avoid double amplifying the signal, and I agreed that it seems necessary to push volume to max for a RCA output to skip "Stepped Attenuator".

Anyway It's a very good question and it got a good answer. It's good for the owner to better understand how the product works. Just completely did NOT understand why people like kugino kept giving very mean responses... If they were hired to attack customers in this way, I would feel very bad for the company.