Article: iFi Micro iDSD Black Label DAC and Headphone Amp Review

[ednaz]

I also enjoy my Micro iDSD BL. I bought it primarily for headphone listening, something I don't actually prefer to speakers, but since I travel a lot, it is how I do a lot of listening.  It was definitely too big for daily travel use - I tried, but when you're in different cities every day, and trying to live light and small and fast, size matters. My Meridian Explorer 2 owns that duty.  But if I'm going someplace and going to be there for a few days... the BL comes along. It plays wonderfully well with every earphone/headphone I have, from CIEMs to my planars. 

 

I've only recently tried it out in my speaker-based systems, and I'm very impressed. I've got a couple of other DACs at a bit over the same price point (since I have an office, a studio, then listening room, bedroom, and living/dining room...) and the only DAC that is clearly better is the one that costs 7 times as much in my listening room. However... most of those other DACs are in a streaming device of some sort, and the thought of replacing one box with two in multiple rooms... no. 

 

The new Nano BL is on my holiday gift list. If it's got anywhere near the same sound quality as the Micro BL, I just may slip it into a couple of the smaller room systems, fed by the existing streaming device.