iFi audio PowerStation - The Official Thread

[firedog]

53 minutes ago, AMR/iFi audio said:

Guys, you really crack us up, honestly we have nothing but love for you. 

 

 

...

Of course, you were asked to show that the device can improve the output of a DAC. Your clip is showing something else.

[Jez]

16 hours ago, AMR/iFi audio said:

Guys, you really crack us up, honestly we have nothing but love for you. 

 

 

...

 

If you think laughing at people who ask valid questions will help you get customers or respect you are wrong. 

 

But we do notice your inability to give a sensible answer to a reasonable question.

 

[Richard Dale]

12 minutes ago, Jez said:

 

If you think laughing at people who ask valid questions will help you get customers or respect you are wrong. 

 

But we do notice your inability to give a sensible answer to a reasonable question.

 

If had some figure for some sort of distortion in some sort of DAC, for some sort of mains environment, what would you do with it?

[Jez]

4 minutes ago, Richard Dale said:

If had some figure for some sort of distortion in some sort of DAC, for some sort of mains environment, what would you do with it?

 

Be more inclined to believe the claims being made for it, and conceivably be more inclined to buy one.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Richard Dale said:

If had some figure for some sort of distortion in some sort of DAC, for some sort of mains environment, what would you do with it?

He’s asking to show the output of a DAC - any DAC - with and without the device inline, as an indication that it’s electric line noise reduction actually can make a difference to the audio result. It’s not obvious that reducing the electric line noise will actually improve what you get from the output of a DAC. 

As iFi have, on this very site, written about how they are top level experts at measuring audio equipment with audio analyzers, they should be able to show such a result, if it exists at all. 

[Richard Dale]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

He’s asking to show the output of a DAC - any DAC - with and without the device inline, as an indication that it’s electric line noise reduction actually can make a difference to the audio result. It’s not obvious that reducing the electric line noise will actually improve what you get from the output of a DAC. 

As iFi have, on this very site, written about how they are top level experts at measuring audio equipment with audio analyzers, they should be able to show such a result, if it exists at all. 

IFi said quite reasonably in my opinion, that doing that sort of measurement involves too many variables and isn't worth doing.

 

If there are doubts about whether it would make a difference to your own system, it would make sense to try it out and see. I'm sure there will be iFi dealers who will either have a sale or return policy, or loaner units.

 

The mains block has 6 or 8 sockets for plugging in your whole system, and even if it doesn't make a difference to the DAC in isolation it may well make a difference to the other components when everything is plugged in. Or perhaps filter out noise emitted by the DAC that may affect the other components.

[Jez]

1 hour ago, Richard Dale said:

IFi said quite reasonably in my opinion, that doing that sort of measurement involves too many variables and isn't worth doing.

 

If there are doubts about whether it would make a difference to your own system, it would make sense to try it out and see. I'm sure there will be iFi dealers who will either have a sale or return policy, or loaner units.

 

The mains block has 6 or 8 sockets for plugging in your whole system, and even if it doesn't make a difference to the DAC in isolation it may well make a difference to the other components when everything is plugged in. Or perhaps filter out noise emitted by the DAC that may affect the other components.

 

So .. put another way iFIAudio haven’t done any relevant measurement because it’s too diffficult and not worth doing. So there’s no evidence it improves the performance of any DAC under any conditions. But some anonymous, quite possibly not even real, punter on amazon thinks it’s good.

 

And all you can say is .,  “even if it doesn’t make a difference to the DAC .. it may well make a difference ... Or perhaps ..”

 

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it does and perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps I’ll hang on to my money. Especially as iFIAudio think that laughing at their potential customers is the way to avoid reasonable questions.  And especially since other of their products - the power supplies - have been measured as degrading the performance of a DAC.

[AMR/iFi audio]

1 hour ago, Richard Dale said:

IFi said quite reasonably in my opinion, that doing that sort of measurement involves too many variables and isn't worth doing.

 

Our R&D team does a lot of measurements in case of each product, but on forums we publish those we view as useful. Of course at times some people disagree, but that's how we've been doing this since day one.     

 

1 hour ago, Richard Dale said:

If there are doubts about whether it would make a difference to your own system, it would make sense to try it out and see. I'm sure there will be iFi dealers who will either have a sale or return policy, or loaner units.

 

 

Our global return policy has always been generous. If a product doesn't meet expectations, full refund is in order with no questions asked. This is fair and reasonable.    

 

And lastly, we've been around long enough and we've released many cool products to give us some credit. Honestly, if one is not interested in our product just because we haven't published a specific measurement type, that's fine, perhaps it wasn't meant to be. All good 😉  

 

[mansr]

2 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

IFi said quite reasonably in my opinion, that doing that sort of measurement involves too many variables and isn't worth doing.

Another way of putting it would be that the device in question involves too many variables and isn't worth making.

[Ralf11]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

He’s asking to show the output of a DAC - any DAC - with and without the device inline, as an indication that it’s electric line noise reduction actually can make a difference to the audio result. It’s not obvious that reducing the electric line noise will actually improve what you get from the output of a DAC. 

As iFi have, on this very site, written about how they are top level experts at measuring audio equipment with audio analyzers, they should be able to show such a result, if it exists at all. 

 

I agree.

 

I'd be happy to see a blinded listening test as an alternative, or in addition.

 

OTOH, a neutral third party is the best entity to do any tests, and has any manf. ever done such tests?

 

But I do not think this poster is doing a good job of representing iFi - irrespective of their MQA-philia (another 'turn-off').

[One and a half]

On 8/17/2019 at 6:44 AM, AMR/iFi audio said:

Guys, you really crack us up, honestly we have nothing but love for you. 

 

 

...

Interesting video. Only the left channel is where the radio is heard, most likely an RCA cable shield has lifted, or another ground anomaly. The narrator cannot have a system that’s grounded properly.

 

The iPurifier is likely to create a null around the HF which pulls in the noises. The ‘problem’ still exists though.

[Ralf11]

maybe iFi would like to loan a unit to @mansr for testing (and super secret improvement manf. changes)

 

 

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

The narrator cannot have a system that’s grounded properly.

 

When he said in the video that everything was properly grounded, the first thing I thought was his system is probably not properly grounded.

 

There are many that think grounding everything is proper grounding. Just see the Swenson thread about SMPS grounding. That was intended for grounding a few specific network switches.. OR if you need to ground one PSU and looking for a DIY way. But I've seen people on numerous forums go and ground everything in their system.

 

At the same time, I don't think iFi can be blamed for every system on the planet that's not properly grounded.

[mansr]

9 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

maybe iFi would like to loan a unit to @mansr for testing (and super secret improvement manf. changes)

They would just blame my equipment. I know this from previous experience.

[highstream]

What I'd like to know is, What I'm curious about is the relationship between this Powerstation and a regenerator, such as the PS Audio ones, in terms of effect on sound. I have an iFi spdif iPurifier, which with a better LPS and power cable offers a substantial improvement between Oppo and the dacs I've used it with, even with a top notch spdif cable. It'd be nice if a unit like the powerstation could likewise match the performance of much more costly regenerator, although that's probably a far reach.