iFi's Pro iDSD (official) - NEW Firmware - MQA and more.

[AMR/iFi audio]

On 6/22/2019 at 3:01 AM, AudioDoctor said:

 

Would you explain what this is telling me?

Is it 4.2 watts at 16 Ohms at 1 something is better than 1.575 watts?

 

It was a typo. Fixed now.

[applesnowleo]

Is there any firmware developments on the Pro iDSD at the moment?

 

Thanks,

[AMR/iFi audio]

12 hours ago, applesnowleo said:

Is there any firmware developments on the Pro iDSD at the moment?

 

Always.

[AMR/iFi audio]

John Curl joins iFi and AMR as technical consultant

Highly respected high-end audio engineer is engaged to work across all new design projects

 

 

Southport, England – Sister-companies iFi Audio and Abbingdon Music Research (AMR) are pleased to announce that John Curl, one of the world’s most respected high-end audio engineers, has been engaged as a technical consultant.

 

Curl is working across all new product designs from iFi and AMR, collaborating closely with iFi’s Technical Director Thorsten Loesch to ensure that all circuit designs are fully optimised. The first products to feature his input include iFi’s forthcoming ZEN range of desktop audio products – the first of which will launch this autumn – and all-new high-end components from AMR due in 2020.

 

John’s status at the forefront of high-end audio’s hall of fame has been secure for many years. In 1968, whilst building a mixing console for the Grateful Dead, he developed a solid-state circuit that became a benchmark in high-performance audio – the “complimentary differential-input” circuit, which still appears in application handbooks published by transistor manufacturers to this day.

 

This led to Curl working with a young Mark Levinson in the early 1970s, creating the legendary Mark Levinson Audio Systems JC2 preamplifier ­– the first standalone product to incorporate Curl’s complementary differential-input circuit – followed by the ML-2 Class A power amplifier. He went on to work with many other luminaries of the high-end audio scene, including Dave Wilson and Jeff Roland.

 

Curl is unquestionably one of a select group of engineers whose influence is so great it has altered the direction of audio design. Many of us have listened to equipment he has designed, or that was inspired by his work, often without even realising it. His solid-state circuit designs are lauded as classic exemplars of the type; when asked what makes him different to other audio electronics designers, he once replied, “I have circuit sense”.

 

Today, Curl works with a small collection of carefully chosen manufacturers including US-based Parasound and one of high-end audio’s most lauded manufacturers in recent years – Constellation Audio. iFi Audio and AMR are delighted to reap the benefits of the exceptional experience he has gained whilst devising some of the finest audio circuits ever made.

 

Vincent Luke, Sales Director at iFi Audio and AMR, said: “We are excited to have the opportunity to add John’s exceptional expertise to our talented team of technical designers, led by Thorsten Loesch. His insight will help us to further raise the sonic bar with products in the pipeline from both iFi and AMR – from portable and desktop audio to the very finest high-end hi-fi components, we will continue to push the boundaries of design, functionality and performance.”

[gd0]

Hi. It's been several months since I've looked in to learn about the Pro iDSD.

 

I did a search and read the last 7 or 8 pages of this thread but couldn't find this information:

 

Has the gapless issue been resolved by now?

 

Do I understand correctly that there had been a handshake issue that causes the first 1/2-second or so of music to be cut off upon playback? If so, has that been resolved?

 

Thanks in advance.

[firedog]

5 hours ago, gd0 said:

Hi. It's been several months since I've looked in to learn about the Pro iDSD.

 

I did a search and read the last 7 or 8 pages of this thread but couldn't find this information:

 

Has the gapless issue been resolved by now?

 

Do I understand correctly that there had been a handshake issue that causes the first 1/2-second or so of music to be cut off upon playback? If so, has that been resolved?

 

Thanks in advance.

If you don't get an answer here, write their support directly from the web site.

[o.fz]

16 hours ago, gd0 said:

Hi. It's been several months since I've looked in to learn about the Pro iDSD.

 

I did a search and read the last 7 or 8 pages of this thread but couldn't find this information:

 

Has the gapless issue been resolved by now?

 

Do I understand correctly that there had been a handshake issue that causes the first 1/2-second or so of music to be cut off upon playback? If so, has that been resolved?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Unfortunately, Ifi hasn't solved these issues yet, and they don't seem to be No1 on their burner. The missing first second (covered by a 'click') is rather unfrequent though.

[Rexp]

On 8/18/2019 at 3:58 AM, AMR/iFi audio said:

John Curl joins iFi and AMR as technical consultant

Highly respected high-end audio engineer is engaged to work across all new design projects

 

 

Southport, England – Sister-companies iFi Audio and Abbingdon Music Research (AMR) are pleased to announce that John Curl, one of the world’s most respected high-end audio engineers, has been engaged as a technical consultant.

 

Curl is working across all new product designs from iFi and AMR, collaborating closely with iFi’s Technical Director Thorsten Loesch to ensure that all circuit designs are fully optimised. The first products to feature his input include iFi’s forthcoming ZEN range of desktop audio products – the first of which will launch this autumn – and all-new high-end components from AMR due in 2020.

 

John’s status at the forefront of high-end audio’s hall of fame has been secure for many years. In 1968, whilst building a mixing console for the Grateful Dead, he developed a solid-state circuit that became a benchmark in high-performance audio – the “complimentary differential-input” circuit, which still appears in application handbooks published by transistor manufacturers to this day.

 

This led to Curl working with a young Mark Levinson in the early 1970s, creating the legendary Mark Levinson Audio Systems JC2 preamplifier ­– the first standalone product to incorporate Curl’s complementary differential-input circuit – followed by the ML-2 Class A power amplifier. He went on to work with many other luminaries of the high-end audio scene, including Dave Wilson and Jeff Roland.

 

Curl is unquestionably one of a select group of engineers whose influence is so great it has altered the direction of audio design. Many of us have listened to equipment he has designed, or that was inspired by his work, often without even realising it. His solid-state circuit designs are lauded as classic exemplars of the type; when asked what makes him different to other audio electronics designers, he once replied, “I have circuit sense”.

 

Today, Curl works with a small collection of carefully chosen manufacturers including US-based Parasound and one of high-end audio’s most lauded manufacturers in recent years – Constellation Audio. iFi Audio and AMR are delighted to reap the benefits of the exceptional experience he has gained whilst devising some of the finest audio circuits ever made.

 

Vincent Luke, Sales Director at iFi Audio and AMR, said: “We are excited to have the opportunity to add John’s exceptional expertise to our talented team of technical designers, led by Thorsten Loesch. His insight will help us to further raise the sonic bar with products in the pipeline from both iFi and AMR – from portable and desktop audio to the very finest high-end hi-fi components, we will continue to push the boundaries of design, functionality and performance.”

JC is a legend, great signing. 

[Rexp]

No gapless? Surely not.. 

[Jerry]

From the manual page 7, "It is fully-discrete, fully- balanced with either tube or J-FET input switchable, bipolar second stage and mosfet-buffered bipolar Class A power stage (with Class AB for low impedance headphones and very high levels). The circuit is fully DC coupled."

Does that means, only on middle gain iDSD pro work in Class A, but on low gain setting, it works in Class AB? @AMR/iFi audio?

[Jerry]

Just updated to firmware 2.08, the 48k DSD playback problem still persist. 44.1k DSD (and its multiple) plays perfectly fine, but 48k DSD (and its multiple) plays, I can hear the music, but it also comes with a very audible white noise! It was fine before the MQA firmware update. Hopefully iFi will fix it in the next firmware update. 

[hykhleif]

Hi any drawbacks from using the 5V rca output ( fixed pro ) when connecting it to ifi ican pro. I saw few mention that it makes the dac sound better, fuller more bodied sound. Also some prefer to use variable settings whether variable hifi or variable pro. I myself tried fixed pro and liked it but I just want to make sure it will not harm my ifi ican pro. 

[danielet80]

Hi, today I connect via ethernet my IFI Pro iDSD and I try to stream some tracks using MCONNECT app for iPhone. I search the streamer (IFI) but unfortunely the app don't find it... so I download MUZO Player for iOS and the app search and find the Pro iDSD. So i play some tracks from TIDAL (I have the HI-FI subscription) and work fine, but for me there's a problem: I run some MQA tracks but the IFI's display dont's show MQA... why? Can you explain me what I do to run tracks in MQA quality? Thanks... and sorry for my English!

[Haimsh]

On 7/31/2018 at 12:53 AM, AMR/iFi audio said:

 

Hi,

 

Our policy is to not comment other manufacturers' products, therefore it's up to a user to know what type of a separate clock device he has. The Pro iDSD has several adjustments:

 

The standalone setting is appropriate for any use where the iDSD Pro does not require any external synchronisation to a house clock. Most commercial clocks of lesser quality (regardless of cost) will produce worse results than the internal oscillator of the iDSD Pro.

 

The atomic clock setting enables the input only and is appropriate if a suitably high grade external clock is used. We wrote in the past that our recommendation is Stanford Research System PERF-10 or better, where 'better' means objectively even lower phase-noise.

 

The DARS setting is suitable for studio synchronisation use. Please see the AES Standard - AES11-2003.

 

The 10MHz setting aka. the squarewave icon is intended to be used for example with multiple iDSD Pro machines set up for multi-channel operation. This mode enables both 10MHz input and 10MHz output.

 

It is acceptable not to provide a 10MHz on the input in this mode and instead to apply a BNC terminator and only use to 10MHz output to synchronise other devices with 10MHz clock inputs.

 

So if a 10MHz clock of suitable quality (> SRS PERF-10) is used in a system with only one iDSD Pro, the atomic clock setting is correct, even if the clock used is not an 'atomic clock', but a standard 10MHz one.

 

Clock Sync is handled transparently without any particular details displayed, only if there is a clock error will there be an error message.

Hi there

I just bought Mutec ref-10 and connected it to my IFI PRO IDSD, I set the selector to "atomic clock". When I play spotify connect with the DAC streamer - I hear significant improvement. However when I play Roon on my desktop that is connected by USB to my IFI PRO DAC - I get internittent error mesages - "extern sync clock error!".

Any idea how to fix it?

[Haimsh]

On 7/31/2018 at 12:53 AM, AMR/iFi audio said:

 

Hi,

 

Our policy is to not comment other manufacturers' products, therefore it's up to a user to know what type of a separate clock device he has. The Pro iDSD has several adjustments:

 

The standalone setting is appropriate for any use where the iDSD Pro does not require any external synchronisation to a house clock. Most commercial clocks of lesser quality (regardless of cost) will produce worse results than the internal oscillator of the iDSD Pro.

 

The atomic clock setting enables the input only and is appropriate if a suitably high grade external clock is used. We wrote in the past that our recommendation is Stanford Research System PERF-10 or better, where 'better' means objectively even lower phase-noise.

 

The DARS setting is suitable for studio synchronisation use. Please see the AES Standard - AES11-2003.

 

The 10MHz setting aka. the squarewave icon is intended to be used for example with multiple iDSD Pro machines set up for multi-channel operation. This mode enables both 10MHz input and 10MHz output.

 

It is acceptable not to provide a 10MHz on the input in this mode and instead to apply a BNC terminator and only use to 10MHz output to synchronise other devices with 10MHz clock inputs.

 

So if a 10MHz clock of suitable quality (> SRS PERF-10) is used in a system with only one iDSD Pro, the atomic clock setting is correct, even if the clock used is not an 'atomic clock', but a standard 10MHz one.

 

Clock Sync is handled transparently without any particular details displayed, only if there is a clock error will there be an error message.

Hi there

I just bought Mutec ref-10 and connected it to my IFI PRO IDSD, I set the selector to "atomic clock". When I play spotify connect with the DAC streamer - I hear significant improvement. However when I play Roon on my desktop that is connected by USB to my IFI PRO DAC - I get intermittent  error mesages - "extern sync clock error!".

Any idea how to fix it?

 

I submitted ticket #4440670 for this issue on Sep 30th. No answer yet....

[BlueSkyy]

Hi, I like your thoughts and recommendations on powering the iFi PRO iDSD and Pro iCAN stack.

 

I decided to upgrade one of the iPower Plus originally supplied with my two pieces of equipment.  I have two iPower Plus units, one is a v1.1 with a hardwired two-prong, ungrounded, plug for the US power system and the other one is a v1.3 with a detachable three wired, grounded, connector.  I decided to purchase one +15vdc version of the iPower Elite unit and have it on order.

 

I asked iFi tech support for their recommendations as to whether a single iPower Elite could power both units in the stack using an umbilical between the two and they recommended against it due to voltage and/or current limitations although they said it would work "in theory".  Fair enough.

 

So my plans are to use the new iPower Elite on the PRO iDSD and power the PRO iCAN using, for whatever reason, the iPower Plus v1.3 with the three wire AC power connector.

 

My questions are:

 

1) Has anyone powered two PRO devices successfully from a single iFi-sourced power supply?  If so, which iFi power supply did you use?  (Note:  It one point I did use a single power supply with a homebrew umbilical and the two powered up, appeared to work and the single power supply never appeared to overheat or otherwise "complain"  but I never listened critically to that setup.)

2) Has anyone chosen to use a single linear power supply of another brand with the stack and, if so, did it work out successfully for you?

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[André Gosselin]

23 minutes ago, BlueSkyy said:

1) Has anyone powered two PRO devices successfully from a single iFi-sourced power supply?  If so, which iFi power supply did you use?  (Note:  It one point I did use a single power supply with a homebrew umbilical and the two powered up, appeared to work and the single power supply never appeared to overheat or otherwise "complain"  but I never listened critically to that setup.)

2) Has anyone chosen to use a single linear power supply of another brand with the stack and, if so, did it work out successfully for you?

I personnally connect the ProiDSD and ProICAN with a DC4 cable sold by Sonore. The iDSD is powered by one rail of a Uptone JS-2 set at 12v.This setup works perfectly.

[BlueSkyy]

André, thanks for the information!If the iPower Elite doesn't work for me I may go the other route.

[BlueSkyy]

On 9/2/2021 at 1:48 PM, André Gosselin said:

I personnally connect the ProiDSD and ProICAN with a DC4 cable sold by Sonore. The iDSD is powered by one rail of a Uptone JS-2 set at 12v.This setup works perfectly.

I decided to go with the JS-2 and two separate UpTone provided cables.  Hopefully the good stuff will be with me late next week.

[André Gosselin]

4 hours ago, BlueSkyy said:

I decided to go with the JS-2 and two separate UpTone provided cables.  Hopefully the good stuff will be with me late next week.

Do you mean you will use one rail to power the iDSD and one for the iCan ? If so, I think you are then wasting one rail on the JS-2, as one rail set at 12v is more than enough to power both iFI devices linked by a proper DC cable. I have been using such a setup for the last 2 years without any problem, and with a great SQ.

 

Regards

[BlueSkyy]

3 minutes ago, André Gosselin said:

Do you mean you will use one rail to power the iDSD and one for the iCan ? If so, I think you are then wasting one rail on the JS-2, as one rail set at 12v is more than enough to power both iFI devices linked by a proper DC cable. I have been using such a setup for the last 2 years without any problem, and with a great SQ.

 

Regards

Yes one rail for the iDSD and one rail for the iCAN.  That is until I find a need for another rail and then I can combine the two iFi units on a single rail but currently I don't have the need.

[BlueSkyy]

I am juggling power supplies until I receive my JS-2 that hopefully will ship tomorrow.  I replaced the iPower Plus v1.3 that was originally supplied with the iDSD with a +15V 3.5A iPower Elite that was already on order when I placed the order for the JS-2.

 

This iPower is shocking in its ability to allow me to hear previously unheard nuances or microdynamics that must have been hidden by the higher noise level that the iPower Plus was putting out.  This is particularly apparent in certain sections of Dvorak's 9th Symphony, From the New World, and the opening sequence of Bolero both of which I have in 24bit 192khz and am using the iDSD to upscale to DSD1024 with the "GTO" filter engaged.  Very impressive and I look forward to getting the JS-2 because of the power supply's choice in filtering schemes (choke input) and the choice of transformer, etc.

 

Heady stuff this!

[Superdad]

4 minutes ago, BlueSkyy said:

I am juggling power supplies until I receive my JS-2 that hopefully will ship tomorrow. 

 

Indeed it will ship on-time tomorrow (Tuesday) Joe. Configured, packed and labeled it over the weekend but I forgot that today is a national holiday here and that USPS, UPS, and FedEx are all closed.

Your are sure to enjoy it when it arrives to you this Thursday.

Best,

Alex C. 

[BlueSkyy]

27 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Indeed it will ship on-time tomorrow (Tuesday) Joe. Configured, packed and labeled it over the weekend but I forgot that today is a national holiday here and that USPS, UPS, and FedEx are all closed.

Your are sure to enjoy it when it arrives to you this Thursday.

Best,

Alex C. 

Many thanks Alex for the status update.  Your care for your customers is exemplary and not found all that often these days!!

[BlueSkyy]

iFi Pro iDSD Signature edition:

 

Hi, I have an iDSD that is about two years old and since I threw the UpTone JS-2 LPS into the mix with the Pro iCAN I am enjoying it very much!

 

But now, to my "horror", I see that there is a new version of the iDSD and am wondering if I will be forced into upgrading.  Has anyone gone from the original iDSD to the new one and what changes, if any, did notice?