[whitedragem]

Hello; wanting to post my opinion on an iFi Diablo

The reason I give this photo is <insight/reveal> being able to shrink the Questyle into the Chord into a desktop amp; down to “DAP=>Diablo” is favourable, and a ‘no brainer’,.. and not simply because of the vastly smaller size.



This is a preview post, to sit in place until I can place the entire review up. (edit: due up shortly - I lost a 2k word nicely edited document and that delayed me, and now I figured I’d just wait till I can add a comment about balanced headphone cables that were on order until mid this week). The thread seems to be getting some posts.. so maybe I should cut n paste some of my new review doc. (edit 2: an official thread for reviews has been created.. I nearly completed a full post there, tabbed out of the screen for a moment to sort out a photo or two, and lost it. whilst the review body was a cut n paste, my elegant headings and Pros/Cons list was lost, and I couldn’t remuster the wit to do again. Waiting for some feedback from my local audio shop and ifi, happy to delay further, like the universe seems to keep demanding on this one (always for a reason ))

mini preview_______________________ content just to share some findings
The original text had specific examples from the music catalogue as observed.. the redone Doc is now ‘generalised observations’, simply because my child took a ten minute punt at describing the changes and succinctly nailed what it took me days to come to a ‘final verdict’. In fairness the setup I presented them was the most obvious one for hearing changes, where days of headphone setup and equipment swapping had the Diablo best a ‘better DAC and desktop headphone amp’, and then placing the Diablo in the main ‘critical’ hifi for benchmarking the sound differences were ‘very obvious’. The child, in a blind test, chose the Diablo every time, as the vastly better unit, and described the same benefits I had noticed. When they ascribed a win to the vocals in Tool Opiate, to the Chord Hugos rendition, I then put ‘aka a cappella’ on (a vocal performance disc), and instantly the win for vocals was to the Diablo, with the realisation that the Chord DACs massive oversampling killed the honest playback of Tools’ Maynard James Keenan voice, bringing it forward in the mix. And hence sounded louder, and we all mostly interpret louder as better. As my child noted, everything about the Tool playback was better on the Diablo (“TV/Aux“ as we kept referring to it) except for the voice being louder on the Hugo (“Sat” input), but was better and more emotive on the Diablo.. The a cappella recording had more space between the artists and much more honest tonality and layering from the Diablo, where the Hugo, from a listening to a cappella music for techinical traits, where we want the vocalists to harmonise better, the Chord was the ‘nicer’ playback, as it blended them together in a way that was not true to the recording,.. and it was evident that the Diablo was by far the superior studio quality part, and revealed the recording honestly, and more pleasurable, even though the quality of the band seemed less capable as an a cappella group.
Given we do not listen to any file size ‘lossy’ compression recordings, we prefer the better ‘less forgiving’ playback of an honest playback chain, for which the Diablo is king of the hill. For which we will happily split our 4000+ CDs into different rooms if need be (because horrible ‘compressed for radio recordings’ have nothing on Cat Stevens or Quentin Tarantino soundtracks, ie proper ‘dynamic range’ capable MUSIC).
___________________________________________

The lion share of my post will be comparing the value proposition of the Diablo DAC/headphone amplifier, both as a source piece of equipment using XLR output to some two channel hifi rigs, and as a portable unit providing amplifier duties to some sensitive headphones, being primarily the Cardas Ear Speakers IEM, and some Ultrasone Edition 5 headphones.

I will focus on a range of music, and gaming.

I will not cover hard to drive headphones or planars, and for my usage so far I haven’t needed to go beyond Economy power mode, being the IEMs are plenty loud at the first point on the volume dial, and the headphones are too loud at the 2o’clock position.

Most of my listening is in 16bit 44khz, which I know is a strong point for some DAC chips, and might not reflect critical analysis that would be found using higher sampling rates and bit depth.

My initial impressions place this as a strong contender to dedicated home hifi seperates, and so a write up detailing the jump in quality from a standalone DAP (a Questyle QP1R), to using a Chord Hugo, to then adding a dedicated headphone desktop headphone amplifier, and “how does the Diablo compare”..

(review inbound) will update shortly.

Some feedback from team iFi (ie ‘its in the right place’, or ’the heading might need to change to ‘review(s)’ etc) - Hey guys “is this right place”?

Thankyou for your time. PMs welcome

(edit - Played with a small file sized leading image, but it turned the Diablo into the ‘off colour product’ that 95%+ of web shots seem to give it.. I was surprised by how it looked ‘in the flesh’ and so I have left the higher quality photo in place for now)

 

[whitedragem]

edit: (and claiming the second post spot for ‘other’ updates) the photo colour is off compared to the live unit. (ISO 5000 will do that)
glad I am litmus testing/testing the waters before ‘jumping in’

please, ‘be kind’

Will cover balanced headphone cable ‘upgrade’ here, and gaming impressions.
edit: Played with some balanced cables in store a couple of days ago. verdict was that a cable five times the price of a cheap balanced cable has noticably improved sound, such that I would take it in an unbalanced configuration in a heartbeat,.. BUT even the cheapest (budget) balanced cable allows the Diablo to do its ‘extra trick’ which noticably ‘sped up the Diablo’ (doubling the slew rate!!) and extended the dynamic range. My ‘Fat Man and Dancing Girl’ test track (for dynamics) sounded much better from the Diablo than any portable amplifier really should. With the exception of fairly expensive kit, not a lot I have heard recently (‘modern hifi’) does what the Diablo does.
To be clear, the Diablo in single ended mode (not true balanced mode output) sounds fantastic, and is a major win for low cost high fidelity sound, then if a user has Balanced cables or an intention to use the ‘wee red wonder’ as a balanced amp, it certainly ups the stakes another notch. The dynamics and darkness just go up again. Not sure if I’d call it a 10% review score increase- ie ‘a ten’ becoming an ‘eleven’; but it is true to say that the spaciousness and panning would normally be found in ‘better kit’ and I can see why the bother is happening.
I always though ‘balanced’ in budget-fi parts was just a way to make cheap stuff look serious or ‘sound serious from a marketing sheet perspective’. The Diablo does the job properly, and again, reinforces to me how it is just biting on the heels of the next tier up equipment, doing so by being basic in design/having limited inputs/and configurability, but allowing the strengths from that design to let it weigh heavy in any round up.
I’d take this unit over most desktop setups anywhere near the price, and enjoy the added ‘free’ benefit of watching TV with it and then taking it to bed as well.

Above article due this week (delayed; waiting response from ifi)/ this post updated ‘next week’.

 

[jburks725]

I’ve read your thoughts in the sponsor announcement thread from iFi, and I look forward to seeing what you have to say here. I haven’t tried my Diablo with separates (though now I am intrigued), but I am absolutely in love with this thing with my Andro Golds. I thought I was set when the Lotoo S1 added MQA support last month, but something about the idea of an MQA-capable DAC+amp that I could use on my desk at work and on the couch in the evenings kept calling to me. I’m glad I took the leap!

I don’t have much to add/ask. Your work in the iFi thread was much appreciated. I just wanted to encourage you to keep writing!

 

[eskamobob1]

Im confused. The diablo doesnt have an analogue input (I would have bought if it did) so how are you using a dap into it?

 

[whitedragem]

Im confused. The diablo doesnt have an analogue input (I would have bought if it did) so how are you using a dap into it?

I buy Digital Audio Players with Digital Output.
I sold off my Fiio X5(III) which had COAX output recently, as I now use a Questyle QP1R due to its much better transport of ‘zeros and ones’.
The Questyle is easy to use with the Diablo due to feeding SPDIF over TOSLINK (fibre optic), and an adaptor for this is in the Diablo box.

Lots of DAPs have Digital output,.. arguably, many people use their phone as their DAP, and Digital Out on those transports via USB.
I wouldn’t want to use analogue output from any phone. The reason I bought the Questyle was due to it NOT HAVING radios in it (no wifi or bluetooth) as their engineers knew that it is hard to dampen that noise across all the electrical circuits.
At the end of the day ALL phones are built to be ‘jack of all trade’ devices. I understand some offer ‘quad DAC’ and some have lots of amplifier power, but even the ‘best phones’ (I have had a few) are nothing, from a sound quality perspective, vs even a mid range dedicated Digital Audio Player.

As a transport, my Questyle is better than most CD players I have ever run and I consider it near to equal performance to some of the best CD transports that the world has known (in my case a Denon DCD-s10 that was highly modified with 18x blackgates and a superclock 2 and had the internal DAC disconnected, through to a TEAC P700).. The improvement in transmission quality was so noticable that I had to bass frequencies DOWN due to their vastly more accurate readability.
(not all transports are equal)

I have one DAP in the house I am unsure of whether it can transport digital (its an A&K knock off part that I gave to my child), and another that just needs me to get a cable adapter (Waiting for me to pickup at my local audio shop).
The reason dedicated DAPs make great transports is a range of reasons, but usually due to having outdated ‘select’ Operating Systems and Outdated ‘select’ CPUs that have been highly tweaked to focus on pure audio transmission.
A phone running the right software and having the right options selected might get ‘close’, but even the best phones are generally trounced thoroughly by a half decent DAP, and a decent DAP, even a few years old, (like the Aurender Flow that turns up on Drop from time to time) can be pieces of hifi kit to love and cherish for long whiles... ;even as we cycle through several phones that generally are built to be cheaper and cheaper, even though the prices go up and have more powerful radio antennas added. - as an example my ‘premium’ phone has 10 antennas inside. I dont want it anywhere near my music transmission, nor dare plug headphones into it... (it does fine using bluetooth for phone calls and occasional listening to music if I really wanted- but I chose an ancient high quality DAP and ear buds every time)

TLR some Digital Audio Players have digital output options.

 

[eskamobob1]

Didn't realize you were using digital out. Tbh, I never assumed that was an option anyone used....

 

[whitedragem]

Definitely; there isn’t a DAP out there with a better DAC layout/setup than what the Diablo offers. (and yes I am aware of R2R feature set DAP)
Many DAPs that claim better ‘spec sheet’ numbers (typically by quoting the measurements of a given DAC chip, and not the ‘circuit’) are seldom going to output anywhere near those numbers.
That portable R2R DAP might do ‘some things right’, but will, simply due to size, be passing up what the Diablo can do..
The 1793 chip as implemented in Dual Differential mode like iFi do, and having the first 6 bit on each chip perform like a ladder; a Delta Sigma process if I read right, means that they get the best of multibit and delta sigma sound quality.

IT is a very analogue sound, and I am hesitant to own ‘budget’ or size constrained (with heat) R2R methods. I have owned some great ladder DACs and the Diablo, to me, sounds every bit their equal for everything I have thrown at it. (which is diverse). To be fair, I needed a conductor (and music teacher who was a legend with violin and piano) to set the polarity button on those DACs (“can’t you hear the attack on the violin?”), so it is true my ear isn’t trained for many aspects of instrument playback. Given how well my ears are trained for testing, I’d surmise that not many people need anything better than true ‘mid tier’ high fidelity audio.

The price to performance once items push past $4k price points isn’t always justifiable, and unless filling a really large space, or having the best components at every point in the system, the real benefits are mostly bragging rights, with the notion that actual critical listening is seldom done, and most music is enjoyed, but hardly in normal use is fast A/B switching ‘a thing’, which is generally what is needed to hear obvious changes.
That being said, I have always sought out neutral/studio playback equipment for my hifi chain, with the end tailoring by the speakers (and room placement) or headphones (by type eg openback/ closed, Dynamic vs Planar etc).
I do believe that genre of music catalogue is probably what justifies expense, and I have no issue recommending the Diablo to classical music enthusiasts/ large scale orchestral recordings, and Nine Inch Nails fans.

 

[eskamobob1]

Haha. I am glad you are enjoying it! I'm looking forward to more reviews coming out. I found the BL lacking s bit of resolution and dynamic staging for my preference so ot would be awesome if this fixes those issues (and given the price point and 5+ years of development after the BL i findnit hard to imagine it wont). Tbh, genuinely, the only reason I havent bought one is jjst that I want a damn analogue input on it -.-

 

[whitedragem]

Its gold.
Fleetwood Mac - Family Man on the den setup says “hi’ for imaging and soundstage, but also ‘hi’ for speed of delivery with nuanced finesse. For me this is always a song that digital seems to trip up on (unless really expensive parts in the mix)... the vocal cuts had proper edge and resolved fully. its on the heels of vinyl, and that is why I can tell this is an evolution of the parts and the revolution in audio we have been needing (the seven years/one tier DAC rule had started to slip!)
Suzanne Vega - Fat Man and Dancing Girl is a track I use to check dynamic power capability. most modern amps make this song sound ‘unlistenable’ to me. The Diablos DAC renders this song beautifully (its typical holographic sound, with rich layerings that are metres in front of the speakers/or massive depth to the headphone soundfield, and a smooth dynamic push that doesn’t make the ‘loud parts’ of the song sound like ‘a wall of sound’.
my typical range of test tracks tell me it is worth more...

 

[eskamobob1]

Til I massively underapreciate Fleetwood mac. That song was fantastic.

 

[Strifeff7]

comparison with honey h1 ?

thank you,

 

[eskamobob1]

Very very very different devices. A friend of mine has my honey and has the Diablo in and said they are on roughly the same tier of SQ, but they sound completely different with the Diablo being more in yhe strictly linear/clinical category while the honey is much warmer and smoother but still with solid detail. The Diablo also has way more power. Sometning like arya may still be a struggle, bjt badicaly anything below that it should handle. The honey has solid power too, but its not that high. Ultimately, I like my honey but I havent heard the Diablo and tend to have a preference towards warmer sources with good tonal density anyways

 

[OCC7N]

Nice review. Has anybody noticed any difference with mercury 3.0 attached to the purifier on this diablo

 

[eskamobob1]

Nice review. Has anybody noticed any difference with mercury 3.0 attached to the purifier on this diablo

I'm fairly certain that the diablo is not able to be powered off of the data input. This would mean that the benefit of the mercury separating power and data would be uneeded

 

[OCC7N]

I'm fairly certain that the diablo is not able to be powered off of the data input. This would mean that the benefit of the mercury separating power and data would be uneeded

That makes sense. I noticed after using it for a while, it just turned off and didnt charge. So I should go for a better charger than iPower