Hello all.
Thread Starter here! Sorry I don't check in very often if at all. Being a 'thread starter' especially early on brought LOTS of attention.
Most of it was just fine, good stuff, lots of tech questions. Back in those days (this is NOT a commentary on these days. I just don't pester those guys as much, and for that I am sure they feel very relieved. I was hounding Vince at that time so much he just passed me directly off to Thorsten Loesch himself, whom I pestered even MORE in many a private conversation that to this day I am STILL dumbfounded he took that kind of time to answer what were incredibly ignorant questions. TL is an AMAZING dude, and deserves WAY more attention and credit for his unique audio genius and creativity) ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY....... where was I... BACK IN THOSE DAYS.....
I was getting lots of private messages. Most of them good, and I was actually able to share some really good insider tech info, probably to the chagrin of the crew at iFi. I actually backed way off, as my personal penance for revealing a bit too much, but in all truth and honesty there was WAY, WAY more stuff I learned about how these DAC's work(ed) that I shared with nary a soul, so my penance was probably out of balance with my sins
Back to those
private HEAD-FI messages. (NOT my private conversations with iFi) And what kind of started pulling me out of the thread, and answering less and less questions. The few bad seeds that screw it up for all of us. You may be surprised, or probably not surprised to know there are some rotten apples out there that must have a compulsion to spread their rotten disease. Getting told by anonymous posters that 'between your ears is full of $hit' and stuff like that really kind of starts to take the joy out of this thing.
Three years later, I can fully admit that there was much left to learn when i penned that review, and while I stand by it on the whole, its pretty darn likely that I now have a much, much greater understanding of what's going on technically here. And even though I am still just a very, very zealous enthusiast who thirsts for as much knowledge about these tech things like all of us, I am pretty sure these days my head has been cleared of quite a bit of '$hit' and I feel much more confident in answering any questions.
I had the privilege of being on the iFi iDSD Micro Black Label Review Tour. Because I had already penned the initial iDSD Micro review over in 'Head Gear' I was unable to fulfil to the letter the requirements of the review tour, so I added an addendum to my old review for the BLACK LABEL. I then realized I never shared the addendum here, so, here you go, for what it is worth. Hopefully these days my $hit don't STANK.
I am back to review the iFi iDSD Micro Black Label Edition. I was part of the tour group that was so lucky to receive a one week audition of the Black Label, simply abbreviated BL from here on. Unfortunately, I cannot create a new review entry. I am only allowed by the Head-Fi system to edit my existing review. So here is an addendum with my impressions of the BL Edition.
Based on my observation of the posts here on Head-fi, it seems many people see the iDSD Micro as a 'jack of all trades' at its price; that is, a device that squeezes in so many features at the expense of some quality. As if without all the many features and functions, more 'quality' could have been squeezed in. Maybe. It seems a logical assumption. But iFi is very resourceful. With their own software team and one extremely clever engineer at the helm, whose designs have long held considerable acclaim in the traditional audiophile world and the DIY audio community, they can get a LOT done for not a lot of money.
Features were not added in compromise of audio quality. Actually, when iFi went to the 'crowd design' concept with the iDSD Micro, there was already a prototype design (ready for production), which was of course scratched for the actual final crowd-designed product. But in the end, perhaps the largest difference between the prototype and the final iDSD Micro was the increase in audio quality the higher price point afforded. It wasn't just about the bells and whistles.
Yet, here we are more than two years later, and iFi has managed to squeeze even more audio quality out of the iDSD Micro with just a slight price increase. And I say 'BRAVO'.
The increase in audio quality relative to price increase is impressive. For not a lot more, you get the same fully featured product that NOW has just enough of a refined sound to truly go head to head with the dedicated desktop DAC's in what I consider the next major price bracket of $1000. Not to mention how it stands up against other portables and head-amp/DAC combos.
So if the original iDSD is a 5 star product, and it still is, what is the BL? 5.5? Yeah, something like that, if we could do such a thing.
So how does the BL differ from the original? I would say in overall refinement. Less grain. A more airy, extended top end. Oh, and the KILLER mid-range that just kept me coming back for more and more. It is pretty amazing, actually. I in many ways prefered the BL in my main head-fi system, in place of my Wyred4Sound DAC-1 LE Femto clock edition DAC, which is double the price! Was the BL better? No, it wasn't better. But it was competitive, and did exceed in a few areas, like the aforementioned mid-range. The mids take on a smooth, silky and full tube like presence, that never lacks for micro-dynamics or detail. And I personally just love that kind of sound. But don't stop reading if you don't. For it gets balanced out by a more forward and lively presence region, and more treble 'air' as audiophiles like to say. Bass? Bass is well delineated, strong and full. No complaints.
Another area where I feel the BL, and the original as well, exceeds the W4S DAC is with DSD material. Well duh, one might say, since DSD is right there in the model name, so one can only assume that DSD is done extremely well. And it is of course. I must confess that I was at one time a DSD 'zealot'. Not so much anymore. I am more format agnostic these days. Other factors are important, or even more important than the delivery format. But, whatever that format is, I want my DAC to convert it in the best way possible.
The iDSD uses a FIR filter in the analog domain to convert the DSD signal. The 1-bit DSD signal needs to be stripped of its square-wave high-frequency ultrasonic content to exit the DAC in a listenable format. And that is really all it needs. And that is all the iDSD does. Relatively simple process, and it uses a moving-average filter that is just 8 bits long. (8 bits in the time domain). Which means as the sample rate increases, the time distortion of the filter lessens! By the time you get up to DSD512, there is truly excellent time domain performance here, which is one of the oft stated advantages of 'native' DSD over PCM.
My W4S DAC uses the ESS chipset, whose highly knowledgeable and respected designers took a different approach. They don't really tell us a lot about what they do to DSD, other than showing some response graphs that seem to show it isn't decimated all the way down to what we consider 'normal' PCM sample rates. (DXD and lower) We also know that the high frequency content of DSD is removed in the DIGITAL domain via AT LEAST an IIR filter, as opposed to analog ala iDSD and its Burr-Brown chip. But in order for DSD to be filtered digitally, it has to be turned into a digital multi-bit format. Absolutely has to be. It has to be digital multi-bit for the volume control, and the ASRC too. This is TYPICALLY accomplished within the architecture of a filter. The result might be called 'DSD-wide', or 'PCM-narrow'. Some would pass it off as true multi-bit delta-sigma, (especially those that sell ESS based DAC's with DSD as a major selling point) but I would disagree with that. That would require a modulator. Then again, the difference between multi-bit Delta Sigma and "Noise-Shaped low-bit-depth high-sample-rate PCM" might be semantics. ANYWAY. The point being, the ESS chipset requires more DSP and manipulation of the original DSD signal. DSD is subjected to the filtering, then possibly volume control, sample rate conversion, and THEN is re-modulated into another Delta-Sigma format (the ESS Hyperstream converter) before being filtered again at the final output stage for conversion to analog. It just seems to the layman like me more complex and involved (unnecessary?) than filtering to analog with an FIR filter realized in the analog domain.
And to my ears, this comes to fruition. DSD sounds more natural via the iDSD, and what I consider its characteristic sound is distinguishable from PCM. Via the W4S, though, DSD sounds, well, more processed. And very little different than PCM.
If you are a DSD lover, or if you have lots of DSD files such as myself, then you really are going to want the iDSD Nano, iDSD Micro, iDSD Micro BL, or something like it. Say, the upcoming iDSD Pro? Can't wait to hear THAT one!
In conclusion, I am VERY thankful for the chance to review the Black Label. iFi is quite the company. They are customer oriented, forward thinking, and create excellent products. In all this they distinguish themselves from the rest of the very competitive industry. 
