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

[AMR/iFi audio]

Preview – Pro series - part 4/5

Jaw-dropping features - the story goes on...

 

Full Galvanic Isolation

 

All inputs are galvanically-isolated (including USB). As found in the AMR DP-777. The USB Input is self-powered and does not draw power from the USB bus, making it impervious to after-market add-ons or tuning accessories.

 

 

Cutting-Edge SPDIF technology

 

The SPDIF etc. inputs use the technology derived from the AMR DP-777, including a new, solid-state implementation of HD-VDi, memory buffer and the Global Master Timing® clock system:

 

http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/html/dp777_tech-papers_spdif.html
http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/html/dp777_tech-papers_jitter.html

 

The SPDIF etc. inputs are not expected to benefit much from any kind of tweaking or tuning gizmos.

 

External Clock options and  Synchronisation

 

For synchronization in recording studios the iDSD Pro supports AES3id based DARS (Digital Audio Reference Signal) as recommended in the Audio Egineering Society’s published AES11 standard. And if you happen to have a really good atomic clock (at least a Sanford Research Systems PERF10 should be used) this can be used as to further elevate the iDSD Pro over the internal clock system.

 

 

 

Yes, this is hugely over-specified but the iFi flagship deserves it.

 

Passive Filtering and Discrete Analogue stage

 

The DACs operate ‘Voltage Output Mode,’ giving >119dB dynamic range. All filtering is passive, using a fully-balanced third order capacitor/inductor/capacitor filter, rather than active, feedback-based circuits, to remove ultrasonic noise. (Active filters struggle with the amount of ultrasonic noise and RFI they have to handle and at a few 100kHz they can lose the ability to filter noise at all, which is precisely where a lot of noise is present.)

 

Using passive CLC filtering directly after the DAC means that the following analogue stage is not required to handle ultrasonic noise and RFI originating from the DAC process. Directly after the DAC and filter is the analogue domain volume control, which uses a six-track Alps Japan potentiometer. This can be bypassed for the line outs.

 

The analogue stage is more precisely a line/headphone driver stage. Using Class A circuitry, it is fully-balanced, fully-discrete, direct-coupled (coupling capacitor less) and Tube/Solid-State user-selectable.

 

Stay tuned, there's more!

[AMR/iFi audio]

4 hours ago, rickca said:

I don't know about that.  My QB-9 DSD USB input was self-powered, and it responded very positively to the Uptone Audio REGEN.

 

Not every USB input, self-powered or not, is the same. 

[AMR/iFi audio]

Folks, you might wanna check the very first post of this thread. We've announced two major informations related to the upcoming Pro iDSD.

[AMR/iFi audio]

46 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Not bad at all gents!

 

I assume at this price and by your earlier comments about USB (and SPDIF) inputs being impervious to upstream tweaks & add ons, that the PRO iDSD contains ALL of the micro iUSB3.0 and iGalvanic3.0 and SPDIF iPurifier tech, all built in?

 

Cheers!

 

 

Items like the iUSB3.0 or iGalvanic3.0 are add-ons for DACs that - due to cost constraints or other reasons - benefit from them. But our items you've mentioned are ideally avoided in the design stage if increased cost and complexity is not objectionable.

 

If one designs a DAC from scratch, yet without constraints placed upon the design, it is possible to achieve equal or better performance by design.

 

This is what has been done in the iDSD Pro. The solutions chosen in our upcoming flagship are radically different from those used in iUSB3.0 and iGalvanic3.0 and are integrated in the design of the iDSD Pro on a much deeper level than would have been the case by just adding the tech from other products.

[AMR/iFi audio]

Preview – Pro series - part 5/5

Jaw-dropping features - the story ends

 

Power Supplies

 

Using classic tube design, brought up-to-date with 21st Century technology, all incoming DC is converted to a high-frequency waveform then rectified and filtered by a choke input capacitor filter. This produces a first-level DC bus from which all further voltages are derived. The circuit also generates a galvanically-isolated power supply voltage for the USB input circuitry.

 

 

The digital section is powered by a bank of Super Capacitors totaling 6.6 Farad (6,600,000uF). iFi uses Elna Dynacap DZ (TM) Super capacitors because they have a 400 times lower internal impedance than common grades of super capacitors.

Individual low-noise TI LDO Regulators with local LC filtering provide the final low-noise power for all individual digital sections, a total of six individual regulators cover Clock, SPDIF Input and the DAC's digital section.

For the analogue stage (especially the tubes) higher voltages are needed. The whole stage effectively operates on a 60V rail offering massive potential dynamic range.

 

The USB input section has its own separate power management system with multiple regulators and filtering operating from the galvanically-isolated voltage generated to power this section.

 

 

For the analogue stage, higher voltages (especially for the tubes) are needed. The whole analogue stage in effect, operates on 60V rail, giving massive potential dynamic range. These are generated from the main DC Bus and filtered using multiple stages of inductor/capacitor filters, with Elna Silmic Capacitors forming the final stage.

 

Every section in the iDSD Pro has received massive attention to detail and combines classic design techniques for tube equipment with state-of-the-art technology to deliver extreme performance.

 

iDSD Pro Features

 

Sample Rates:                      PCM up to 768kHz

                                               DSD up to 24.576MHz

                                               DXD and double speed DXD (2xDXD)

 

Studio DSD Remastering:   PCM 705.6/768kHz (from all PCM sample rates)        

Crysopeia FPGA                   DSD 512/1024 (22.5792 - 49.152MHz) user-selectable

Digital Engine

 

Inputs:                                   USB (required for DSD, DXD and sample rates above 192KHz)

                                               Wifi – Linkplay

                                               Ethernet – Linkplay

                                               USB-Memory/Harddrive – Linkplay

                                               SDHC Memory Card - Linkplay

                                               AES3 (XLR - single link)

                                               SPDIF (RCA/Optical combo)

                                               BNC multifunction In (SPDIF/AES3id In, DARS In, 10MHz In, Atomic clock in)
                                               BNC multifunction Sync Out (DARS out, 10MHz out)

 

Outputs:                                Balanced XLR at 4.6V (+15.5dBu - HiFi) or 10V (+22dBu - Pro)

                                               Single Ended RCA at 2.3V (HiFi) or 5V (Pro)

                                               Headphones 6.3mm & SE 3.5mm Jack at 2.3V, 5V or 8V maximum

                                               Headphones BAL 3.5mm Jack at 4.6V, 10V or 16V maximum

                                               Headphones out 1,500mW RMS X 2 @ 64 ohm, 4,000mW max. 2 X @ 16 Ohm

 

Volume Control:                  Balanced (quad) Alps potentiometer, motorised with IR remote control

                                               XLR/RCA outputs can be selected as fixed level or adjusted

                                               6.3mm Headphone Jack is always adjusted

 

Other Functions:                 Various digital and analogue filters can be selected for DSD and PCM up to 192KHz

 

PCM Filters:                          Bitperfect (no digital filter, minimal analogue filter)

                                               44.1 - 192KHz, always used for 352.8 - 768kHz

                                               Bitperfect II (no digital filter, analogue filter corrects HF rolloff)

                                               44.1 - 96kHz

                                               Minimum Phase (Filter has no pre-ringing and minimises post-ringing)

                                               44.1 - 384KHz, 32 Tap

                                               Apodising  (Filter has no pre-ringing and moderate post-ringing)

                                               44.1 - 384KHz, 128 Tap

                                               Transient Aligned (Filter has extreme pre- and post-ringing)

                                               44.1 - 384KHz, 16384Tap

                                               additional fixed 3nd order analogue filter @ 100kHz

 

DSD Filters:                           fixed 3rd order analogue filter @ 100kHz,

                                               compensation for 6dB level difference between DSD & PCM

[AMR/iFi audio]

The story about digital filters ... 

... as we see it

 

Alright, let's be frank about one thing...

 

ALL FILTERS ARE WRONG. ALL OF THEM, INLUDING THE 'NO FILTER' OPTION.

 

The reason is that such rules like Nyquists's law sampling theorem are true, but are limited by strictures that make them not directly applicable to highly variant signals (e.g. music) which may contain content that can't be resolved into finite numbers of sine-wave wavelets.

 

 

 

Digital filters are based on steady state mathematics and thus distort the music signal, primarily in the time domain. This is an unavoidable byproduct of their function. Operating without filter distorts the music in a different way.

 

Many publications offer good reasons why a specific form of digital filter is superior. Usually the reasons are based on theory and in how close a given filter implementation comes to such a theoretical ideal.

 

What is commonly omitted and ignored are listening tests of radically different filters with different types of signals.

All digital filters (including non) differ in how they are wrong and how this influences objective measured performance as well as subjective listening performance with music and indeed specific music. 

 

 

Music with a highly percussive nature and many instruments containing non-harmonic sounds (i.e. Jazz or Pop) will react different with a digital filter than music which is based mainly on pure tones and harmonics (i.e. a string ensemble plus a soprano singing).

 

These distortions become all the more relevant and carry greater possible audible consequences, the lower the sample rate. So the most abundant digital music source - CD quality - is most impacted.

 

Wherever there is a difference, there is also a preference. Subjective listening preference may be informed by a learned or acquired response to recorded sound (e.g. what sounds "right" or "hifi" is not what sounds natural in comparison to a live performance), in addition to direct referencing acoustic music performances.

 

So, no matter what single fixed filter is present, it is wrong and may not be preferred by a customer at least not with all music. What AMR implemented in the DP-777 (...and now iFi audio in the Pro iDSD) is to give a user a choice between the CORE possible approaches to digital filtering that we have found to produce meaningful differences and preferences in listening. 

 

 

We offer the option to bypass digital filtering completely, to select minimum phase filters of differing structure (minimum ringing or apodising) or to select a "transient aligned" FIR filter that offer a maximally long filter response and number of taps to come closes to the idealised textbook filter.

 

Hence we do not prescribe ONE singular 'perfect' approach, we offer the choice between different approaches that have all been declared by their respective proponents to be 'perfect' and leave the choice which kind of 'perfection' is preferred to the customer.

 

 

Note, not everyone is sensitized to the differences digital filters make. Whatever your preference, simply choose what you like based on either what you believe to be right or on what sounds best to you. We do recommend to experiment with filters at least occasionally, especially once listening to different styles of music than usual.

 

Stay tuned, coming up is Pro iDSD's digital filtering!

 

 

 

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

On 10.01.2018 at 6:40 PM, Totsipaki said:

Very Impressive and considering the phenomenal price/ performance ratio of the cheap ifi dac amps I presume this dac will be killer.. Not without a price though.. At 3000eur approximately It is also very very close to the AMR dac.

 

Our Pro iDSD is in many ways different than AMR DP-777, hence not really comparable.

 

On 10.01.2018 at 6:40 PM, Totsipaki said:

In fact if someone has that sum available in cash the only thing from stopping them from going straight to the AMR 777 is it's much poorer format support. So will you update this as well I am not asking about the price as It is sure to go higher with any update..

 

We have no idea honestly.

 

On 10.01.2018 at 6:40 PM, Totsipaki said:

Finally a personal comment. Even though at this price it is not realistically, financially  approachable by me at this point of my audiophile life I can't help but saying that If it had an Iphono2 incorporated instead of the tube output stage It would surely make me lose a few hours of sleep. So are there any plans for such a version anytime in the future?

 

Out of curiosity, why would you put a phono stage in a DAC?

[AMR/iFi audio]

20 hours ago, EVOLVIST said:

Because Mytek is doing it? 

 

Honestly that's great for them, but we have our own point of view and our own ways of doing things in audio.  

[AMR/iFi audio]

Just now, EVOLVIST said:

 

Right. I wouldn't want iFi to try to emulate anybody else. I was just stating who has one, and the OP backed that up by stating he has a Brooklyn.

 

Point taken. It seems that some people might benefit from such unique feature in a DAC. But at the same time we wouldn't drop our fabulous tube stage to have it on-board instead. 

[AMR/iFi audio]

The iDSD PRO offers the following choices of digital processing:

 

I. Direct - Bitperfect 

• Both PCM and DSD signals are not processed in any way.
• For PCM this is effectively what is sometimes called "non-oversampling" or "zero-oversampling", for DSD it means DSD is retained in the original DSD format and directly converted to analogue without any digital processing.

II. PCM - upsampling 

 

• In this case PCM is up-converted to 16 X PCM (705.6/768kHz) using a choice of digital filters (Minimum Phase, Apodising, Transient Aligned) that offer different tradeoffs of time-domain and frequency-domain performance.
• DSD remains completely unprocessed.

III. DSD - Remastering

• In this case all incoming audio (except DSD512) is converted to either DSD512 or DSD1024 as selected, using the filter selected (including Bitperfect, meaning no digital filtering is applied).
• All the above mentioned digital processing options apply to all sources, including the network audio bridge and AES/EBU & S/PDIF inputs.
• Inputs other than USB are currently limited to maximum sample rates of 192kHz PCM and DSD(64) via DoP.

 

In a nutshell, when:

• DSD512 Remaster is selected, then all audio (except DSD512) is upconverted to DSD512.
• DSD1024 Remaster is selected, then all audio (yes, DSD512 as well) is upconverted to DSD1024.

The upconversion process allows different digital filters, including Bitperfect (no filter), to be selected.

 

 

For example, this image shows the screen in DSD Remaster DSD1024 mode with a 44kHz input signal being upconverted to DSD1024 (45.158MHz) using the Bitperfect filter.

[AMR/iFi audio]

On 16.01.2018 at 1:49 AM, austinpop said:

Can you provide any details of the internal clocks? XO, TCXO, OCXO? Same quality for system (USB, ethernet, motherboard) and data? 

 

We use the same GMT clock system as originally developed for AMR DP-777.

 

Feel free to take a look here:

 

...and here: 

 

http://amr-audio.co.uk/html/tech2.html#p2

[AMR/iFi audio]

7 hours ago, gd0 said:

I’m still considering a new DAC, after much hesitation. Hesitating mostly because my Nano works so well; the system is iMac > JRiver > old amp + speakers. Files are lossless, locally stored. No streaming, headphones or mobile. Still, I keep coming back to the PRO iDSD, even at its higher price, mainly for its complete all-in-one-box solution.

 

I was disappointed to read that iFi would install MQA circuitry in DACs going forward. Don’t want to have that debate here, there’s plenty elsewhere; suffice to say that, for several reasons, MQA is a non-starter in this house. Still, I figured I can consider iFi anyway, assuming that MQA circuitry could be easily bypassed.

 

Recently, however, it has come to my attention that a number of MQA-compliant DACs now run all files/streams through the MQA decoder and renderer subsystem including non-MQA files/streams. The Aurender A10 and the MyTek Brooklyn DAC are two current examples. With the Aurender A10, there’s now no way to use its filters because they’ve been disabled by a firmware update. The filters are still selectable in the control app, but they’re not actually functioning. Everything runs through MQA.

 

It appears that implementation of MQA in hardware renderers is making it difficult for DAC makers to also have their own filters available.

 

I’m not remotely expert on this, or DAC design in general. All I know is I won’t buy into MQA, and that if I do buy an iFi DAC, it must provide sound crafted by iFi designers using iFi filters and circuitry. No more, no less.

 

Can iFi demonstrate, and guarantee, that any built-in MQA circuitry in their DACs can be kept 100% completely out of the signal path for those who don’t want it? Ideally, disabled as a default.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, in our iDSD Pro anything non-MQA will not pass through MQA upsampling.

 

Our nano iDSD BL's MQA beta firmware currently up-samples non-MQA streams to 8 x PCM via a filter of our specification.

 

We are working with MQA o allow us to fully bypass this upsampling, until then for all iFi products our standard firmware V5.2 without MQA is available.

[AMR/iFi audio]

1 hour ago, gd0 said:

Thanks for the reply; very encouraging.

 

iFi has obviously been thorough; makes me think the long wait will be worth it.

 

We believe so as well.

[AMR/iFi audio]

GE5670 reserved for flagship AMR and iFi

Press release

 

We have some mixed news for lovers of the GE5670.

 

It is our understanding that we have tracked down and acquired the last known large-scale stockpile of GE5670 tubes.

 

 

 

The good news is that we have amassed a respectable inventory for AMR to use in their machines and for iFi to use in their flagship ‘Pro’ series for the foreseeable future (read: years).

 

The bad news is that once units in the supply chain of iTUBE2s and NOS6922s are all gone, there will be no more. The recent rise in the price of the GE5670 makes it even more the right decision to not continue with using the GE5670 in this product. Given that we need to reserve 2 pcs of the GE5670 for each Pro iDSD and Pro iCAN and for the AMR 777 machines too, priority must be given to these flagship products.

 

History of the venerable GE5670

 

For those wishing to delve into the history of the GE5670 and why we chose it over its ‘lesser’ cousin the 6922:

 

https://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/accessory-nos-6922-2/

[AMR/iFi audio]

Pro iDSD - The easygoing perspective

The enclosure and front panel – part 1/2

Introduction

Our latest and greatest DAC – the Pro iDSD – is just around the corner. We’ve already tackled several technical matters related to this device, and all these are to be found via links in the first post of this thread:

 

 

In short, we’ve explained in our regular fashion why this product is very unique. Since there’s still some time left to the official launch of our upcoming flagship DAC’s, we thought we’d describe in a less techy and more easygoing, newbie-friendly way what our Pro iDSD is all about. First stop is its enclosure’s front, back and - later on - also innards.

 

The Pro iDSD – what is it exactly?

This machine, in short, is a DAC, also known as a d/a converter and quite commonly as a source. This means that its main purpose is to receive a digital signal either via cable or wirelessly, convert it to its analogue form and then pass it on to devices such as a preamplifier, a stereo power amplifier, a pair of mono amplifiers, a headphone amplifier or directly to various headphones. Yes, all these devices operate in the analogue domain, which leads us on to this statement:

 

·         The Pro iDSD won’t pass digital signals to a different DAC and yes, this is on purpose

 

The Pro iDSD was primarily built as a high quality digital to analog converter and this is how it should be used. It’s already function packed as it is and - instead of making it operable as an S/PDIF converter - our goal was to use the space normally reserved for this in a more useful way. Basically, using the Pro iDSD to feed a similar device with a digital signal is a big waste of its potential.

 

The enclosure

Now, we have all that out of the way, let’s focus on the Pro iDSD’s enclosure. This machine is the same size as the iFi audio Pro iCAN and both products look very similar. The enclosure is made out of aircraft grade aluminium and its main purpose is to dissipate heat from the devices inside as they will get hot when powered on. In order to further improve on this, the chassis has many venting holes on its sides and on top. These align in a pleasantly rounded shape with a magnifying glass with a pair of fabulous vintage JAN GE5670 valves underneath. (Quick note – these class act valves are now reserved ONLY for our Pro series products but that’s another story). Anyway, we reckon that the Pro series chassis looks very cool.

 

The front panel – LED diode and standby/power switch

Let’s start with the upper left corner. There’s the iFi Pro logo based on a LED diode. Once the Pro iDSD is powered on, this lights up with one of four different colours. Each indicates a different operational status:

 

·         Green: warming up

·         White: solid-state mode

·         Orange: tube mode

·         Red: protection mode

 

 

Moving on, there’s a small, flat button in the lower left corner. This turns the product on or puts it in standby mode if you are not shutting it down completely.  

 

 

The front panel – input selector

Let’s now go a bit to the right. A large and endlessly rotating aluminium knob is next in line. It handles several jobs with its main one being digital input selection. You can cycle through the following options:

 

·         Ethernet/WiFi/Hard Disk/Micro SDHC (Network Bridge/Streamer)

·         Host USB

·         Coaxial/Optical Digital Input

·         XLR Digital Input

·         BNC Digital Input

 

 

There are also two additional adjustment options available via the input selector:

·         Brightness (adjustable via a three second press)

·         Polarity (adjustable via a long press)

 

The front panel – digital filter selector

 

The smaller knob located a bit to the right from the input selector is the digital filter selector. It enable two things.

The first feature (available via pressing the digital filter selector) is our proprietary DSD remastering. You can choose whether you’d like to have your music:

 

·         Normal – where DSD signals are passed directly to the DAC. For PCM you may choose between a set of digital filters or bit-perfect, unprocessed PCM

·         Upconverted to DSD512

·         Upconverted to DSD1024

 

 

The second feature allows you to cycle through these five different filters on the fly via the rotary action:

 

1.       'Bit-Perfect' - No digital filtering is applied, one tap

2.       'Bit-Perfect+' - No digital filtering is applied, one tap, SINC roll-off @ HF is corrected

3.       'Minimum Phase' - Minimum filtering, no pre-ringing, minimum post ringing, 32 taps

4.       'Apodising' - Modest filtering, no pre-ringing, modest post ringing, 128 taps

5.       'Transient Aligned' - Max filtering, max pre-ringing, maximum post-ringing, 16,384 taps

 

Please think of these filters as different flavours. Each trades off frequency response flatness, transient response and suppression of ultrasonic images in a different way. There is no “perfect” filter option, such a thing is not possible, so select the filter that offer the right set of compromises for you.

 

We’ve already covered in detail how our proprietary digital filtering works in the Pro iDSD. Please take a look up several posts above.

 

What’s important is that the Pro iDSD is equipped with a FPGA chip that runss on iFi audio’s custom firmware and is responsible for all filters and remasters listed above. It’s worth noting that in this DAC, these operations are hardware based.

[AMR/iFi audio]

4 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Is the iDSD Pro's MQA implementation full decode, or render only?

 

Full decode.

[AMR/iFi audio]

Pro iDSD - The easygoing perspective

The enclosure and front panel – part 2/2

The front panel – output section mode

One of the most unique features of our Pro iCAN is its complex output stage based on both transistors AND valves. We’ve developed it to give you the ultimate headphone amplifier and an exceptionally flexible product, which will work with headphones of every sound characteristic there is. Our goal was to create a machine that would be ‘liked’ by every pair of headphones, IEMs and CIEMs out there. We strongly believe we’ve cracked it.

 

 

This tech was just too good to be locked away after we used it in the Pro iCAN so, we gave it another whirl in the Pro iDSD.  The output stage of this DAC consists of three different circuitries which deliver different outcomes sound wise. You can cycle through these output stage modes:

 

1.     ‘Solid-State' - a purely solid-state J-FETs based circuit of fully-discrete Class A topology.

2.     'Tube' - the J-FET circuitry is switched to an all-valve Class A section based on 2x GE5670 tubes.

3.    'Tube+' - reduces available negative feedback to a minimum. As a result, a greater amount of the tubes natural harmonic distortion is produced (even order harmonics dominate). 

 

Toggling between these three modes can be done without shutting the Pro iDSD off, but there’s a short pause as the circuitry switches over.

 

The front panel – OLED display

We believe that a product as packed with functionalities as the Pro iDSD deserves to have a brilliant looking, readable, nicely embedded display. OLED was the only answer. Such a display provides a true black colour and looks great. Its purpose is to provide you with all the key playback info you need when using the Pro iDSD.  

 

 

·         Operation mode (PCM/DSD)

·         Current sample rate (44kHz, 45MHz etc.)

·         Bitperfect/filtering mode

·         Base sample rate

·         Currently used input

 

The front panel – headphone outputs and gain section

Even though the Pro iDSD is a above all else a DAC , we wanted to make it as versatile as possible and, in order to do so, we built in a sophisticated headphone amplifier. This circuitry is understandably bested only by the Pro iCAN, our TOTL standalone headphone amplifier. And there’s a very good reason why this is the case.

 

The circuitry for both the Pro iCAN and Pro IDSD is actually based on classic studio circuitry. It consists of tubes given the hybrid treatment with solid state parts to give them a higher output current. This topology makes for an excellent line or headphone driver. This circuit is actually VERY SIMPLE and minimizes the number of active stages and parts in the signal path. In short, a win-win scenario.

 

 

The main differences between the Pro iCAN and the Pro iDSD in this regard is that the Pro iCAN has twice as many output devices, is biased deeply towards class A as it is optimised as a headphone amplifier for all headphones.

 

Meanwhile, the same circuitry in the Pro iDSD is optimized as a line driver, but has enough output current to drive headphones. Its output power is reduced in the process and the bias is much less towards class A. As a result, the Pro iDSD is not optimised as a headphone amplifier, yet it will still drive most headphones well.

 

In the Pro iDSD you have several headphone outputs to choose from. Single-ended 6.3mm out is mandatory in devices of this caliber. This socket is also complimented by one 3.5mm (both SE and S-Balanced, just like the same output in our nano iDSD Black Label) and one fully balanced 2.5mm TRRS output. These two are to be found right below the 6.3mm out. To complete the picture, an adjustable gain switch is there too. It allows you to boost the signal by 9 and 18dB or leave it in default mode (0dB gain).

 

The front panel – volume control

The aluminium volume knob located near the right edge of Pro iDSD’s front panel is large and very easy to use. Our Pro iCAN uses the very same one and it does the job nicely! Why fix something that’s not broken? The Pro iDSD volume knob can be operated by hand or by a small remote control (included with the product). And lastly, in the bottom right corner of our flagship DAC, you’ll see a small black screen with an infrared receiver. No guessing what that’s for!

 

 

As per usual with iFi audio products, the volume control should be around the 12 o'clock position during normal listening levels. In order to have them higher, you can increase the gain via small nearby knob.

 

Stay tuned, Pro iDSD’s rear is coming up next!  

[AMR/iFi audio]

4 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Can you detail the switch that appears to have a transistor, valve, and valve+ symbol?

 

Please see up above.

 

4 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

And is the iDSD Pro manual available for download yet, or not until after 2/15?

 

What we've been publishing for a while now is basically the Pro iDSD overgrown manual.

[AMR/iFi audio]

8 hours ago, simonklp said:

 

Why the terms of "DSD-Remastering" and sometimes "converted" are used in case of DSD, while the terms of "PCM-upsampling" and "up-converted" are used in the description of PCM?

 

Is there any difference between the terms?

 

No, the process is the same.

[AMR/iFi audio]

14 hours ago, austinpop said:

Any pix of the back panel forthcoming?

 

Yes.

[AMR/iFi audio]

7 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

OK - my fault for asking a vague question.  Let me try again.

 

When will you be posting a picture of the back panel here?

 

In the following days.

[AMR/iFi audio]

Pro iDSD

Global Launch Update

 

News from the Skunkworks!

 

As you will know from recent iFi audio communications, we are about to launch the Pro iDSD. You may also know that the entire concept of this revolutionary new DAC was driven by you – the customer. Recent feedback has led us to make a small but significant alteration to the design of the Pro iDSD’s front panel. 

 

We have replaced the 3.5mm balanced headphone socket with a 2.5mm balanced socket for users with flagship IEMs. There is still, of course, a 3.5mm single-ended socket for music lovers with any other headphone/IEM. 

 

 

Unfortunately, this means a delay to the scheduled launch date of 15 February.  

 

We are the first to admit it has taken long enough for the Pro iDSD to come to market but we have taken everything on board in its creation – from the need for a standalone flagship DAC to match the technological wizardry of the Pro iCAN to the desire to touch the dizzying audio heights of DSD1024. That’s why we are incorporating this last nugget of customer feedback. In short it’s a case of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.  

 

To give the iFi Skunkworks time to implement this change, the updated global launch will be on 15 March 2018 and the Pro iDSD will feature at the Lisbon Audio Show, Portugal (16-18 March). However, we are pleased to announce that visitors to CanJam New York, USA (17-18 Feb) and Bristol Sound and Vision, UK (23-25 Feb) will still be able to see and demo the Pro iDSD on the iFi stand. 

 

Again, thank you for your feedback and your patience.

 

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

45 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Hello @AMR/iFi audio

 

Does this delay in the release of the iDSD Pro correspond to a delay in the release of photos of the back panel of the unit?

 

No.

[AMR/iFi audio]

17 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Will you be showing the Pro iDSD at Axpona?

 

Thanks.

 

That's possible, yes.

[AMR/iFi audio]

We'll leave it here... 

 

The Sound & Vision Bristol Show 2018 is in the past now. Things happened there, oh yes they did!

 
 
Yup, that's our full Pro rig on the Pro iRack.

 

 

 

Some people were impressed more than just 'mildly'....

 

And we had someone (aka The Cap'n) in there to answer the most technical questions there are.