iFi Audio Pro iDSD discussion thread

[diamondears]

At this price point I hope they have a robust linear power supply, but I have a feeling it will be some sort of wall wart.

What are the advantages of that over an External Power Supply at 14V DC that's compatible with 12V battery?

 

[Boris Bollokov]

The iFi mini iDSD is $1,000 cheaper than Chord Hugo, right? That is 1 brand new Audeze LCD-2...lol

In UK Chord is around £1400, and estimated iMini price will be under £1500 with tax, based on previous posts.
 
Where did the $1000 cheaper came from? I mean if iMini is going to retail for £900 I am getting it.

 

[Boris Bollokov]

 
I would prefer to see a version of the mini optimized for use as part of an integrated system (i.e. no duplication of features found in other components) and with an appropriately lower price point, preferably around $1,000. 
 
Mike

 
Agree

 

[Boris Bollokov]

Does anyone know if the headphone output impedance of iMini will be the same as iDSD? 

 

[iFi audio]

To give you an idea ~ Euro1,500 (with VAT)/US$1,500(Plus tax). Obviously £ is lower. Hope this clarifies.

 

[diamondears]

In UK Chord is around £1400, and estimated iMini price will be under £1500 with tax, based on previous posts.

Where did the $1000 cheaper came from? I mean if iMini is going to retail for £900 I am getting it.

Ain't Hugo US$2,500 in the USA? US$2,500-US$1,500=US$1,000. Hope that enlightens...lol

 

[Boris Bollokov]

Ain't Hugo US$2,500 in the USA? US$2,500-US$1,500=US$1,000. Hope that enlightens...lol

 
I live in EU, and to be honest couldn't care less about US prices. We were talking about prices in relation to euro and pounds. Hope that helps...

 

[Boris Bollokov]

  Please clarify Euro1,500 (with VAT)/US$1,500(Plus tax). Obviously £ is lower. Hope this clarifies.

Thanks, I just realised that I misinterpreted you original post about pricing. Around £1200 inc tax. That is £500 cheaper than I originally thought. I think I will be buying it and sending iDSD back, still have 12 days to decided.

 

[diamondears]

Thanks, I just realised that I misinterpreted you original post about pricing. Around £1200 inc tax. That is £500 cheaper than I originally thought. I think I will be buying it and sending iDSD back, still have 12 days to decided.

Ain't it £950? The difference can buy one Audeze LCD-2!

 

[Boris Bollokov]

Ain't it £950? The difference can buy one Audeze LCD-2!

I initially though iMini would be £1700. After iMini i have to stop, otherwise i burn so much cash. I wish I could buy Aduze also but it will have to wait. 
 
I am only started learning about audio recently.
 
I never cared about sound until November when I heard Bose quite comfort. I wanted to get these headphones. Then I started doing research, realised that Bose was average, ended up getting Denon D7100 from amazon new for £360 + £240 in amazon vouchers from work. Got ZxR soundcard for them realised that it has source impedance of 38 ohms, decided to look for a good DAC/AMP to drive my Denons, joined head-fi, was told to get micro iDSD. 
 
Researched iDSD for days, realized that it is an awesome piece of kit. It looked perfect two BurrBrown DAC chips, 1 ohm source impedance, supports DSD and PCM.
 
Discovered iMini, aesthetics looked perfect for my white desk, and of course great spec but at £1700 i couldn't justify the price.
 
 
What was meant to be a £269 purchase (bose QuiteComfort), is now accumulated into £1960 - I hate audio.

 

[Boris Bollokov]

Oppo HA-1 looks very hot, good specification and it is £1200 in UK. Can this be categorized as a competitor to iDSD mini?

 

[john57]

  Oppo HA-1 looks very hot, good specification and it is £1200 in UK. Can this be categorized as a competitor to iDSD mini?

I was thinking about the same thing and already have the iDSD micro. I wanted to try  a Sabre DAC for my Alpha Prime headphones. Full specifications of the iDSD mini is still not available at this time. The headphone amp on the OPPO HA-1 is very well developed and the closest competitor with some design differences is possibly the Audio GD.

 

[Boris Bollokov]

  I was thinking about the same thing and already have the iDSD micro. I wanted to try  a Sabre DAC for my Alpha Prime headphones. Full specifications of the iDSD mini is still not available at this time. The headphone amp on the OPPO HA-1 is very well developed and the closest competitor with some design differences is possibly the Audio GD.

 
For  aesthetics i like OPPO HA-1's screen/design.
 
In contrast to OPPO HA-1, iDSD mini will support:
 
 >  PCM 705.6/768KHz
 >  DSD 12.4/22.4/24.8MHz
 >  USB 3.0 (not that important)
 >  4 DAC Chip
 >  Bit-perfect processing
 
I don't know if people can actually hear a difference between 384 KHz and 768KHz PCM. Is it really necessary to make DACs with formats that high?
 
No idea what sonic difference 4 BurrBrowns with achieve in comparison to a single ESS Saber DAC.
 
Not sure if OPPO does bit-perfect processing.
 
I will wait for iMini to come out, read reviews, see how much it will actually retail at and see how it compares against OPPO, then make a buy decision.

 

[iFi audio]

Developing the mini Power Supply - to the Nth Degree
 
As the subject of power supplies has come up, it is perhaps a serendipitous coincidence that our technical director has worked very recently on the final version of the external power supply which will used for the “mini” range.
 
As the power supply section is just about full-crystallised, we are comfortable with sharing the results the mini power supply will deliver.
 
Obviously, the better a power supply you start with, the better you can make the power at the actual digital and audio circuitry inside the given piece of equipment. Insufficient power levels can impact dynamics, excessive noise may not become directly audible as noise, but it may raise jitter levels and distortion.
 
So what do we do? Make the best external power supply we can make, with the filtering, shielding and regulation needed and of course in compliance with all international safety standards as well as those for EMC.
 
Attached here is a screen shot from our AP2 showing the noise of the new iFi mini power supply delivering 15V at 1.25A (18.75W output power).
 
This graph covers frequencies from 10Hz to 108kHz and voltages from 10 nanoVolt (0.00000001V) to 10 Volt.
 

 
 
 
It is worth comparing this graph to the one shown in Walt Jungs seminal article which in 1995  introduced the “super-regulator” concept to the world, with his AD797 based design. Despite its age, this design has so far remained the gold standard against which other power-supplies are/should be measured.
 

 
 - taken from this article:
http://waltjung.org/PDFs/Regs_for_High_Perf_Audio_2_A.pdf
 
Please note that graphs are not directly comparable, because the iFi mini powersupply includes line AC components caused by being asked to deliver a lot of power.
 
Walt Jung's measurements are only evaluated using the self-noise of the regulator with very light loading. However they do both show the self-noise / noisefloor of the circuits very well.
 
If measuring the total noise using the AP2 the reading is around 0.00007V (~70uV) for all noise below 80kHz. Or if we express the noise as a percentage of the 15V output voltage, it is 0.0005% noise compared to the output voltage. Again remember this is when delivering over 18 Watt of power, not at idle!
 
If we push the iFi mini power supply to the maximum by drawing 3.75A (the closest setting on our test load - the powersupply incidentally is rated at 15V/3.5A) and thus delivering 56Watt of power, the noise levels rise a little to around 120uV (mainly cause by increased levels of 100/200Hz components). So for any power level within the design limits we get an output noise of better than 0.0008% of the DC output voltage below 80kHz.
 
It should be noted that this Supply does not directly power any audio circuit, it merely provides the “raw” supply which then passes through two more regulation stages and additional LC filtering inside the mini.
 
So we are confident that this performance is close to the very best power-supplies regarding noise, disregarding the actual implementation and technologies entirely, but instead simply looking at the performance delivered.

 

[EraserXIV]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing