[rebeljeff]

What Donny Hathaway album are you listening to? He is one of my favorites.

One of the greatest albums of all time... Live or otherwise.

 

[earfonia]

I am on the opposite opinion. I tried the iTube's 3DHS with headphone and it just messed up the whole image and position.

Really? Well, let me try more.
I tried last night with simple pop music, and the imaging sounded ok, didn't sound messed up. Imaging sounded a little wider and more relax. I will try again with binaural recording to analyze the imaging.

 

[ImperialBlade]

Mike,
 
Thanks for the "head up" on this. I was wondering of anyone had done this, and you did exacltey what I was wondering. I am glad to head the great results. I am think of pair the iDSD Micro to the SoundMajic HP200 and the Dunu Titan 1.
 
Regards,
Eric

 

[ImperialBlade]

  This was a last-minute idea,
and this lil' system was Glorious!!
 

I needed to be close to my wifey, as her auto-immune disorder has gone CRAZY the last few weeks,
so that meant being next to her on the couch - so...  Enter the wonderful portability of the iFi Micro iDSD!!!!
 
Using TIDAL as the source via my iPad/CCK!
Black Cat Silverstar USB cable
Double Helix Cables Molecule Elite
Master & Dynamic MH40s
 
I've used this system before, 
but not for an extended listening sesh.
 
This time I went all night, and never a HINT of listener fatigue
and I was glued to the music.
 
iFi - this lil' thing is simply AMAZING
 
Full review coming!!!!

Mike,
 
Thanks for the "head up" on this. I was wondering of anyone had done this, and you did exacltey what I was wondering. I am glad to head the great results. I am think of pair the iDSD Micro to the SoundMajic HP200 and the Dunu Titan 1.
 
What imputs and setting did you use?
 
Regards,
Eric

 

[SonicWarrior]

I have been using IFI Micro for almost a week now. It makes a huge difference in high quality source than playing directly from my MBP. However, for low quality MP3 (256/128 kbps), I feel the output from micro is a little bright and the sound is a tad edgy.. Anyone feel the same?
 
Can: Fidelio X2 (Impedance 32 Ohms)
3D and XBASS: On
Filter: BitPerfect
Power Mode: Normal

 

[jhwalker]

  I have been using IFI Micro for almost a week now. It makes a huge difference in high quality source than playing directly from my MBP. However, for low quality MP3 (256/128 kbps), I feel the output from micro is a little bright and the sound is a tad edgy.. Anyone feel the same?
 
Can: Fidelio X2 (Impedance 32 Ohms)
3D and XBASS: On
Filter: BitPerfect
Power Mode: Normal

 
Try setting the filter to the middle position - it turns on the onboard upsampler + minimum phase filter, which tends to produce a mellower sound for this type of music, to my ear, at least.  Note that the 3D filter also produces a bit of upper octaves energy, so you might try turning it  off, as well.

 

[kbuzz]

Not to hijack this thread but can anyone point me to a post which shows the differences between nano and micro

 

[Triodemode]

  I have been using IFI Micro for almost a week now. It makes a huge difference in high quality source than playing directly from my MBP. However, for low quality MP3 (256/128 kbps), I feel the output from micro is a little bright and the sound is a tad edgy.. Anyone feel the same?
 
Can: Fidelio X2 (Impedance 32 Ohms)
3D and XBASS: On
Filter: BitPerfect
Power Mode: Normal

IMO you could play those low res file through almost any DAC and not hear a difference.  The sound is limited to what the quality of source material being played is.  Listening to highly compressed music through the iDSD micro is like using a race engine to drive a lawn mower   I cannot even listen to 128kbps, and ony tolerate 256kbps, 320kbps is not bad if the Lame encoder was used in the original conversion.  
 
Using low resolution source material to describe the sound of a DAC is an exercise in futility I feel.  May I ask why you are playing these files?  Are you streaming Spotify, Pandora, or other lower resolution service?

 

[SonicWarrior]

 
IMO you could play those low res file through almost any DAC and not hear a difference.  The sound is limited to what the quality of source material being played is.  Listening to highly compressed music through the iDSD micro is like using a race engine to drive a lawn mower   I cannot even listen to 128kbps, and ony tolerate 256kbps, 320kbps is not bad if the Lame encoder was used in the original conversion.  
 
Using low resolution source material to describe the sound of a DAC is an exercise in futility I feel.  May I ask why you are playing these files?  Are you streaming Spotify, Pandora, or other lower resolution service?

 
I agree, that's why I said it makes a huge difference when playing high quality source (which is true, the difference is night and day). It's just that most of my older collections are of 320kbps or 256kbps AAC (few are 128 kbps 

) purchased through itunes and I couldn't find much higher quality files for most of them.
 
Nowadays, I just randomly go through the you tube playlists or spotify channels for listening the newer albums and when I like something I try to buy higher quality WAV or DSD (if available) (and no more itunes purchase). When I was going through such lists I noticed it.
 
I think it might be inevitable at least at this point to completely relegate compressed audio as most of the streaming services (yet to check out Tidal) use them and those streaming services are the ones that exposes us to lot of new music.

 

[SonicWarrior]

   
Try setting the filter to the middle position - it turns on the onboard upsampler + minimum phase filter, which tends to produce a mellower sound for this type of music, to my ear, at least.  Note that the 3D filter also produces a bit of upper octaves energy, so you might try turning it  off, as well.

 
Thank you, will try that out. It's just that while listening to FLAC files, turning on the 3D provided me a very nice sound stage and I left it on like that. Let me try , turning it off while listening to lower quality files and check it out. Thanks again.

 

[Dixter]

  I have been using IFI Micro for almost a week now. It makes a huge difference in high quality source than playing directly from my MBP. However, for low quality MP3 (256/128 kbps), I feel the output from micro is a little bright and the sound is a tad edgy.. Anyone feel the same?
 
Can: Fidelio X2 (Impedance 32 Ohms)
3D and XBASS: On
Filter: BitPerfect
Power Mode: Normal

This was brought up when the Micro was first released and ifi recommendation was to use Jriver Media Center and set it so that it up samples the lower res files to x2 DSD format.
You might try that and see if it doesn't take the edginess away from the lower res files....  

 

[ExpiredLabel]

Hey can anyone provide some perspective on how iDSD stacks up against the Herus? Anyone? I felt determined to get the iDSD and A17 but recently came across the Herus and am now thinking about getting that the ipurifier and A17. Of course if I hear in the next little bit that the ZX 2 is just as good as the AK 240 well than I might be changing my mind yet one more time..

Thanks in advanced for any related feedback

 

[Triodemode]

   
I agree, that's why I said it makes a huge difference when playing high quality source (which is true, the difference is night and day). It's just that most of my older collections are of 320kbps or 256kbps AAC (few are 128 kbps 

) purchased through itunes and I couldn't find much higher quality files for most of them.
 
Nowadays, I just randomly go through the you tube playlists or spotify channels for listening the newer albums and when I like something I try to buy higher quality WAV or DSD (if available) (and no more itunes purchase). When I was going through such lists I noticed it.
 
I think it might be inevitable at least at this point to completely relegate compressed audio as most of the streaming services (yet to check out Tidal) use them and those streaming services are the ones that exposes us to lot of new music.

Ok got it...  I will never use itunes again either.  They pissed me off when I purchased around 150 songs back in 2005 when their 128kbs DRM (m4p) was in place on all their music.  This forced me to play each song into Sony Sound Forge, and then edit and save them as an Mp3 to play these files outside of an apple product. 
 
Fast forward 5 years when other competitors of online music like Amazom forced Apple to elliminate that B.S. DRM from itunes (now m4a @ 256kbps).  Whe I tried to download this unrestricted version of these same files from my library on itunes, They forced me to re-purchase a portion of all these songs again and pay for a program (itunes match) to even be able to do it.

 
 
Even though they now they allow drag and drop into their music players (like a hard drive) and itune's music can be played on other devices, it's too little too late for me.  I will no longer swollow Apple's stifling business practices.

 

[EVOLVIST]

Hey can anyone provide some perspective on how iDSD stacks up against the Herus? Anyone? I felt determined to get the iDSD and A17 but recently came across the Herus and am now thinking about getting that the ipurifier and A17. Of course if I hear in the next little bit that the ZX 2 is just as good as the AK 240 well than I might be changing my mind yet one more time..


Thanks in advanced for any related feedback

There's a whole thread up in here dedicated to the Herus. Personally, I don't truck with anything that relies upon my computer's internal volume. Not a good policy.

 

[HookedOnAudio]

There's a whole thread up in here dedicated to the Herus. Personally, I don't truck with anything that relies upon my computer's internal volume. Not a good policy.

 
Yes, theoretically, if you're sending out digital data from the computer to an external decoder, you will always want the "volume level" to be at 100%.