iFi audio Pro iDSD (Official) - NEW Firmware - MQA and more.

[iFi audio]

To make it clear: This was announced 2018.

tinnitize

We'll get there, no worries!

 

[gordec]

I'm thinking of getting an LPSU for my Pro iDSD, any suggestions? I found this on ebay but I'm open to other options.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MCRU-XLCR-...m5217ee1584:g:I2sAAOSw2vJcXJXT&frcectupt=true

I tried the Uptone JS2 and I don't feel a LPS makes a difference compared to the stock. Computeraudiophile has a review on the Pro iDSD and tested Paul Hynes, JS2, among others and claim that it makes a big difference. Now CA is highly biased in the clean power, noise department, so I take it with a grain of salt. It's also possible there are individuals out there who can pick up on the very subtle difference, but many cannot. I know Sbooster makes a good 12v LPS if you want to try it. They are also easy to resell.

 

[Currawong]

The IOS version of Tidal has been upgraded to allow MQA playback to a DAC via USB but I tried both an iPhone and iPad connected to the idsd but playback stutters very badly and MQA only appears very briefly in the idsd display before switching back to the non MQA display

iDevice output is not bit-perfect as far as I know. As well as the volume control altering things, the system, or other apps (eg: Google maps) can insert audio into the output.

 

[tekkster]

iDevice output is not bit-perfect as far as I know. As well as the volume control altering things, the system, or other apps (eg: Google maps) can insert audio into the output.

Not through apple native apps.

But onkyo hf player (iOS app) can send bitperfect through lightning

 

[flyte3333]

iDevice output is not bit-perfect as far as I know.

Yes it is... a simple test is MQA playing to Pro iDSD or any other iFi DACs that support MQA...

MQA will not work if the playback chain is not bit perfect...

That's the only use I have for MQA... using it as a bit perfect tester.

If you turn on 'Do Not Distburb' to allow only phone calls, then phone calls will be the only thing that will/can disrupt bit perfect playback.

Apple won't allow complete 'Exclusive Mode' for very obvious reasons...

But apart from incoming calls things can be 100% bit perfect. Easy to test and verify yourself.

 

[iFi audio]

MQA will not work if the playback chain is not bit perfect...

Golden words. That's why it's so important to make sure that stream comming out of iDevice is not manipulated. We've been getting A LOT of support tickets with bad LEDs and MQA, whereas these colours are indicators of not bit-perfect stream.

 

[flyte3333]

Golden words. That's why it's so important to make sure that stream comming out of iDevice is not manipulated. We've been getting A LOT of support tickets with bad LEDs and MQA, whereas these colours are indicators of not bit-perfect stream.

Noted and on the other hand it is possible (and easy) to make an iOS device a bit perfect source.

Switch to ‘Do Not Disturb’ allowing only phone calls and switch playback volume to max on the iOS device.

The only thing that will break up bit perfect playback with these settings is an incoming call. Even then you can switch to airplane mode if you like.

As mentioned earlier Apple will not allow any 3rd party app to get full “Exclusive Mode” but the reasons for that should be obvious - and understandable.

With the above settings it is essentially Excluside Mode ‘like’ anyway and makes an iOS device a bit perfect source.

 

[va1enr0y]

Hi there iFi team, I recently got hold of this dac and here are some things that you guys can take a look at to improve on beta firmware 2.01.

This would pertain to ethernet network streaming using DLNA (which I personally think is the best sounding and most convenient input option). It would seem that for the iDSD to play nicely on the DLNA network (via latest JRiver v24 or Audirvna), the iDSD needs to be connected to a 2.4ghz wireless network (in the same network as the ethernet connection) concurrently as well. And the easiest way to do this is to add a new device in the MUZO app. Both JRiver and Audirvana have a hard time locating the iDSD on the network if this step is skipped. Alternatively, the MUZO app, with the iDSD found in it, has to be running in the background with whatever Remote app that you are using to control the device (I'm using the JRiver and Audirvana iOS remote apps on my iPad Pro by the way). Even though I do not use wireless streaming at all, the iDSD tethers itself to it and there are currently some issues with that. Firstly, I've found that the iDSD adhoc network cannot be password protected, if I do that, it would immediately cause audio dropouts and stuttering, especially on high bitrate files like DSD64 for example. It would seem that the iDSD is trying to connect to the wireless network as a background process but fails to do so. I suspect that the intrusive wireless setup audio prompts (female voice), if setup/connection is unsuccessful, are causing interruptions in the playback chain, causing the dropouts and stuttering. Users who are experiencing these issues can try out this remedy and report back as a community service to everyone else.

I would highly urge the iFi team to remove this dependency on the wireless network and let the ethernet connection be truly autonomous. Furthermore, the voice prompts could be a potential area to investigate interruptions during playback. It would be great to include the option of turning the Wifi option off completely to mitigate connection issues and possibly improve the sound quality further by negating spurious wireless signals and noise. As a suggestion, the WPS button could be used to enable the wifi again after you turn it off in the app for example, if not there won't be any other way to enable it again.

Thanks for the time but I'm afraid that I have time only to feedback on these issues when there others abound.

 

[iFi audio]

Hi there iFi team, I recently got hold of this dac and here are some things that you guys can take a look at to improve on beta firmware 2.01.

This would pertain to ethernet network streaming using DLNA (which I personally think is the best sounding and most convenient input option). It would seem that for the iDSD to play nicely on the DLNA network (via latest JRiver v24 or Audirvna), the iDSD needs to be connected to a 2.4ghz wireless network (in the same network as the ethernet connection) concurrently as well. And the easiest way to do this is to add a new device in the MUZO app. Both JRiver and Audirvana have a hard time locating the iDSD on the network if this step is skipped. Alternatively, the MUZO app, with the iDSD found in it, has to be running in the background with whatever Remote app that you are using to control the device (I'm using the JRiver and Audirvana iOS remote apps on my iPad Pro by the way). Even though I do not use wireless streaming at all, the iDSD tethers itself to it and there are currently some issues with that. Firstly, I've found that the iDSD adhoc network cannot be password protected, if I do that, it would immediately cause audio dropouts and stuttering, especially on high bitrate files like DSD64 for example. It would seem that the iDSD is trying to connect to the wireless network as a background process but fails to do so. I suspect that the intrusive wireless setup audio prompts (female voice), if setup/connection is unsuccessful, are causing interruptions in the playback chain, causing the dropouts and stuttering. Users who are experiencing these issues can try out this remedy and report back as a community service to everyone else.

I would highly urge the iFi team to remove this dependency on the wireless network and let the ethernet connection be truly autonomous. Furthermore, the voice prompts could be a potential area to investigate interruptions during playback. It would be great to include the option of turning the Wifi option off completely to mitigate connection issues and possibly improve the sound quality further by negating spurious wireless signals and noise. As a suggestion, the WPS button could be used to enable the wifi again after you turn it off in the app for example, if not there won't be any other way to enable it again.

Thanks for the time but I'm afraid that I have time only to feedback on these issues when there others abound.

Duly noted, we'll pass your feedback, thanks!

In the meantime:

 

[peterjgross]

Hi there iFi team, I recently got hold of this dac and here are some things that you guys can take a look at to improve on beta firmware 2.01.

This would pertain to ethernet network streaming using DLNA (which I personally think is the best sounding and most convenient input option). It would seem that for the iDSD to play nicely on the DLNA network (via latest JRiver v24 or Audirvna), the iDSD needs to be connected to a 2.4ghz wireless network (in the same network as the ethernet connection) concurrently as well. And the easiest way to do this is to add a new device in the MUZO app. Both JRiver and Audirvana have a hard time locating the iDSD on the network if this step is skipped. Alternatively, the MUZO app, with the iDSD found in it, has to be running in the background with whatever Remote app that you are using to control the device (I'm using the JRiver and Audirvana iOS remote apps on my iPad Pro by the way). Even though I do not use wireless streaming at all, the iDSD tethers itself to it and there are currently some issues with that. Firstly, I've found that the iDSD adhoc network cannot be password protected, if I do that, it would immediately cause audio dropouts and stuttering, especially on high bitrate files like DSD64 for example. It would seem that the iDSD is trying to connect to the wireless network as a background process but fails to do so. I suspect that the intrusive wireless setup audio prompts (female voice), if setup/connection is unsuccessful, are causing interruptions in the playback chain, causing the dropouts and stuttering. Users who are experiencing these issues can try out this remedy and report back as a community service to everyone else.

I would highly urge the iFi team to remove this dependency on the wireless network and let the ethernet connection be truly autonomous. Furthermore, the voice prompts could be a potential area to investigate interruptions during playback. It would be great to include the option of turning the Wifi option off completely to mitigate connection issues and possibly improve the sound quality further by negating spurious wireless signals and noise. As a suggestion, the WPS button could be used to enable the wifi again after you turn it off in the app for example, if not there won't be any other way to enable it again.

Thanks for the time but I'm afraid that I have time only to feedback on these issues when there others abound.

I agree that it would make sense for some way of deactivating wireless on the Pro iDSD if you use it with a wired connection or even just as USB DAC. But i have never done any WiFi configuration. When i got the Pro iDSD i connected it straight via wired Ethernet and had never an issue to play to it via DLNA without Muzo on. To be clear - i have Muzo installed on my iDevices so who knows if it does something strange in the background. I do know that the Pro iDSD is not on my WiFi network.
I use streaming from my Asset UPnP server to the Pro iDSD via DLNA all the time (8Player as control app) and i have never had an issue to recognize iDSD on the network. And i would not understand how 8Player would mystically communicate with Muzo in background (to be 100% sure i would have to deinstall Muzo).

Stuttering when streaming high bitrate files (i see it with 192/24) over the APP interface (I say this because i observe stuttering when streaming over (wired) network but also from SD card or USB hard disk directly connected to the iDSD - all those sources appear under APP) has been reported by other people here. I doubt this has anything to do with the WiFi implementation. Rather, i assume it has to do with the audio buffering.

 

[va1enr0y]

I agree that it would make sense for some way of deactivating wireless on the Pro iDSD if you use it with a wired connection or even just as USB DAC. But i have never done any WiFi configuration. When i got the Pro iDSD i connected it straight via wired Ethernet and had never an issue to play to it via DLNA without Muzo on. To be clear - i have Muzo installed on my iDevices so who knows if it does something strange in the background. I do know that the Pro iDSD is not on my WiFi network.
I use streaming from my Asset UPnP server to the Pro iDSD via DLNA all the time (8Player as control app) and i have never had an issue to recognize iDSD on the network. And i would not understand how 8Player would mystically communicate with Muzo in background (to be 100% sure i would have to deinstall Muzo).

Stuttering when streaming high bitrate files (i see it with 192/24) over the APP interface (I say this because i observe stuttering when streaming over (wired) network but also from SD card or USB hard disk directly connected to the iDSD - all those sources appear under APP) has been reported by other people here. I doubt this has anything to do with the WiFi implementation. Rather, i assume it has to do with the audio buffering.

Great observation from your end as well. Inadequate audio buffering/receive buffer resources allocated seems to be one of the potential culprits as well. My primary mode of connection is through ethernet/DLNA at the moment so I can't comment on the SD card or USB HDD portion. Don't even get me started on the USB playback from my MacBook yet... The loud static noise between track skips of DSD files are unbearable...

 

[flyte3333]

I would highly urge the iFi team to remove this dependency on the wireless network and let the ethernet connection be truly autonomous. Furthermore, the voice prompts could be a potential area to investigate interruptions during playback. It would be great to include the option of turning the Wifi option off completely to mitigate connection issues and possibly improve the sound quality further by negating spurious wireless signals and noise.

This is of course a great suggestion but also one that has been made long ago in this same thread, by a few of us.

It's a shame it didn't make it to v2.01 firmware recently released but fingers crossed for the next update.

 

[iFi audio]

It's a shame it didn't make it to v2.01 firmware recently released but fingers crossed for the next update.

We haven't said the last word about Pro iDSD's FW just yet.

 

[va1enr0y]

Am I missing something here? With the current beta v2.01, with the 8xDSD (512fs) and 16xDSD (1024fs) remastering engine engaged - the Bit-Perfect option, where no digital filters are applied, is missing? Didn't this used to be present in firmware v1.6?

Meanwhile can anyone else try streaming Joni Mitchell's - Blue 192k MQA on Tidal?

https://listen.tidal.com/album/68708399

The files keep freezing up my iDSD to cause it to hang. Have to power-cycle to reboot it.

 

[applesnowleo]

Am I missing something here? With the current beta v2.01, with the 8xDSD (512fs) and 16xDSD (1024fs) remastering engine engaged - the Bit-Perfect option, where no digital filters are applied, is missing? Didn't this used to be present in firmware v1.6?

Meanwhile can anyone else try streaming Joni Mitchell's - Blue 192k MQA on Tidal?

https://listen.tidal.com/album/68708399

The files keep freezing up my iDSD to cause it to hang. Have to power-cycle to reboot it.

Yes appears the only filter in DSD is BitPerfect, filters are gone in DSD. I noticed this some time ago, but I think 2.01 is still in beta.

The Joni Mitchell Blue is working for me on tidal played from roon to the Pro iDSD connected to an SMS200 Ultra. It plays correctly in MQA 192kHz.