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IFI PRO IDSD DAC, is it a worthy upgrade?


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Hi everyone, looking for advice/share of experiences with the IFI PRO IDSD DAC.

 

I am currently using a IFI NEO IDSD DAC, which is like a stripped down version of the PRO, with a single Burr Brown chip, no streamer function (which I don't need).

 

I only use the NEO DAC with Hqplayer upsample to DSD512 for local digital files and  I am overall pretty happy with the sound. 

 

Then I came across someone selling the IFI PRO (non signature) that fits my budget. I can see the major differences being:

 

- it has a tube output stage and possibly a better JFET solid state output stage compared to the NEO using Op-amps for the output stage (the tube stage is what mainly interest me as I would like to try a tube DAC and this gives me an option to choose between tube or SS output stage, hopefully someone who has used the PRO can share your experiences/impression of the tube stage)

- Dual quad burr brown chips VS single burr brown chip in the NEO

- Support of DSD1024 VS the NEO support up to DSD512 (I won't be using the remastering DSD mode of the IFI as I will stick with HQPlayer doing the upsampling and feeding DSD to the DAC)

- Better headphone AMP for the PRO compared to the NEO (I am not really a headphone person)

- I won't be using the pre-amp section for either the PRO or the NEO as I do have a separate pre-amp I would use.

 

Am I missing anything above, is it a worthy upgrade or I am better off spend the budget on something else?

 

Thanks


Deric

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The guy below did a comparo with a lower priced DAC from Musician Audio. Same guy now uses no external DAC and prefers the analogue out from his Sony HAP z1es. Bottom line, you really have to listen and compare stuff or you risk spending money on a sideways and possibly backwards move.

 

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32 minutes ago, Rexp said:

The guy below did a comparo with a lower priced DAC from Musician Audio. Same guy now uses no external DAC and prefers the analogue out from his Sony HAP z1es. Bottom line, you really have to listen and compare stuff or you risk spending money on a sideways and possibly backwards move.

 

Sounds like in my case, it will be at worst a sideway move since its going from the mid tier to the top of the line dac within the same brand

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Several years ago I bought a micro iDSD, found it  a snore and sold it within 60 days.

 

While it has its flaws, I consider the Ares II  to be the easiest to live with starter DAC

that I've tried. In most introductory systems it should allow you to smile and enjoy, rather than match poorly with the other components in your system.

Selling the Aries required some soul searching on my part, it has a very life like midrange. In the end I sold it because I was moving away from oversampling and the

built in linear interpolation of the Aries  at CD rate causes a notable roll off of treble, you pretty much have to oversample feeding NOS mode to get a flat treble response

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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22 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Several years ago I bought a micro iDSD, found it  a snore and sold it within 60 days.

 

While it has its flaws, I consider the Ares II  to be the easiest to live with starter DAC

that I've tried. In most introductory systems it should allow you to smile and enjoy, rather than match poorly with the other components in your system.

Selling the Aries required some soul searching on my part, it has a very life like midrange. In the end I sold it because I was moving away from oversampling and the

built in linear interpolation of the Aries  at CD rate causes a notable roll off of treble, you pretty much have to oversample feeding NOS mode to get a flat treble response

Thanks for your comments, I had the ares ii for a few months along side with the ifi neo and ended up selling the Aries ii as I much prefer the ifi neo playback with upsampling to dsd with the 7ECV2 modulator in hqplayer.

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5 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Thanks for your comments, I had the ares ii for a few months along side with the ifi neo and ended up selling the Aries ii as I much prefer the ifi neo playback with upsampling to dsd with the 7ECV2 modulator in hqplayer.

Might want to look at @GoldenOne's reviews of the Gustard DAC's then as they seem to be the reasonable priced alternatives to a Chord Qutest, well suited for oversampling.

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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16 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Might want to look at @GoldenOne's reviews of the Gustard DAC's then as they seem to be the reasonable priced alternatives to a Chord Qutest, well suited for oversampling.

https://shenzhenaudio.com/products/singxer-sda-6-primary-direct-solution-cchd-957-femtosecond-clock-of-usb-nos-model-dsd512-ak4499-dac-decoder
 

there is also the singxer sda-6 that appears to be well spec

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There s also the Singxer SDA-6 pro. The Singxer have the models of AKM chips which don't manipulate DSD. Suited for use with HQP.

And if you want the option of tubes, this has good reviews and good measurements, including for the tube output:

https://en.cayin.cn/features/7/59/351.html

 

Don't know the price of the DAC you are looking at, but the two above are reasonably priced.

 

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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2 minutes ago, firedog said:

There s also the Singxer SDA-6 pro. The Singxer have the models of AKM chips which don't manipulate DSD.

And if you want the option of tubes, this has good reviews and good measurements, including for the tube output:

https://en.cayin.cn/features/7/59/351.html

 

Don't know the price of the DAC you are looking at, but the two above are reasonably priced.

 

Thanks Firedog. The ifi pro I came across is used going for about $1500usd.

 

i am overall pretty happy with the ifi neo idsd dac I am using right now, that is also not manipulating dsd and support up to dsd512.

 

I am seeing members providing other great alternatives in choices of dac, much appreciated, but are they necessarily better than the ifi PRO, which has pretty impressive specs too with some great features? Wonder if any current users can chime in and provide some hands on experiences?

 

 

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Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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15 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

 

I am seeing members providing other great alternatives in choices of dac, much appreciated, but are they necessarily better than the ifi PRO, which has pretty impressive specs too with some great features? Wonder if any current users can chime in and provide some hands on experiences?

 

You will rarely find anyone who has directly compared the two or three devices you are looking for. And even if they have, that does't mean something conclusive about how it will sound in your system. 

If you think you will like the iFi, go for it. I don't know how much of a difference you will hear from your present DAC. Probably not a huge one. The tube section will probably make a bigger difference than the solid state output. 

In general iFi seems to have a house sound; upgrading from one iFi to another in these price ranges probably is not going to make a huge change in your system. Both the ifi DACs are competent DACs designed by the same people.  In the Pro much of the price difference probably has to do with the added features/tube section.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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16 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

You will rarely find anyone who has directly compared the two or three devices you are looking for. And even if they have, that does't mean something conclusive about how it will sound in your system. 

If you think you will like the iFi, go for it. I don't know how much of a difference you will hear from your present DAC. Probably not a huge one. The tube section will probably make a bigger difference than the solid state output. 

In general iFi seems to have a house sound; upgrading from one iFi to another in these price ranges probably is not going to make a huge change in your system. Both the ifi DACs are competent DACs designed by the same people.  In the Pro much of the price difference probably has to do with the added features/tube section.

Thanks Firedog, the ifi pro retailed about $3,000 usd I think so it’s almost 4x more than the NEO. But I wonder how much of the price differences actually attributed to the extra features that I don’t need - ie built-in streamer and the playback app, remastering mode to upsample everything to dsd512 or dsd1024, a decent headphone amp with selectable gain stage……. 

 

and how much of an actual difference attributed to the overall sound quality from the fpga implementation, tube or solid state output, built-in galvanic isolation for all digital input….. 

 

i do enjoy the sound of my NEO with the Burr Brown dsd1794 chip tho, I think the sound neutrality sits somewhere between Denafrips Aries ii and the say a topping d90……

 

i fancy the idea of the PRO having an optional tube stage - similar to the Schiit Freya +, you have options to tweak around your sound based on different genre of music or simply based on mood of the day!!!

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Then again, you might consider how a component's complete design, not just chips, results in its sound, in your system.

 

Especially with digital, in my experience, power related architecture/design (filtering, current delivery, etc.) probably counts far more than xyz or abc brand chip or supercomputing boards. Then there's the network, and if the network delivers clean signal which again is related to power and grounding design. And price? Not really a strong indicator of how a component will "play well with others" in your system.

 

YMMV. Have fun!

Sum>Frankenstein: JPlay/Audirvana/iTunes, Uptone EtherRegen+LPS-1.2, Rivo Streamer+Uptone JS-2, Schiit Yggdrasil LiM+Shunyata Delta XC, Linn LP12/Hercules II/Ittok/Denon DL-103R, ModWright LS 100, Pass XA25, Tellurium Black II, Monitor Audio Silver 500 on IsoAcoustics Gaias, Shunyata Delta XC, Transparent Audio, P12 power regenerator, and positive room attributes.

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Bonjour,

Need to mention:

House Sound of iFi changed, when  they introduced the mqa like Standard filter called GTO. I had the device in for Review, together with a Ifi isd signature, and i felt the Neo was disappointing soundwise and in regard to the HP amp performance. Lifeless and cold were my subjective impressions.

While googling I noticed that they changed the firmware to allow 3 other filter now.

Which filter are you using?

Generally, the TI BB DAC Chips in use sound very good to my ears, however, depended on the implementation. Imho, different from the AKM Sound (4490) and ESS (9016/9018/9038q2m/9028pro).

From a rational point of view I would not go for the IFI iDSD pro if you do not need the DSD upsampling function, bc that is one of its most valuablec USPs.

Even st 1,5 k.

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26 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Bonjour,

Need to mention:

House Sound of iFi changed, when  they introduced the mqa like Standard filter called GTO. I had the device in for Review, together with a Ifi isd signature, and i felt the Neo was disappointing soundwise and in regard to the HP amp performance. Lifeless and cold were my subjective impressions.

While googling I noticed that they changed the firmware to allow 3 other filter now.

Which filter are you using?

Generally, the TI BB DAC Chips in use sound very good to my ears, however, depended on the implementation. Imho, different from the AKM Sound (4490) and ESS (9016/9018/9038q2m/9028pro).

From a rational point of view I would not go for the IFI iDSD pro if you do not need the DSD upsampling function, bc that is one of its most valuablec USPs.

Even st 1,5 k.

Thanks DuckToller. Actually because I convert all output to DSD with HQPlayer, and use HQPlayer DSD modulator and digital filters,  I don't use any of IFI filters. Yes, they update their firmware to allow Bitperfect, MP and the GTO (I think they made it for MQA). But these filters are only for PCM files (Actually I did not like the NEO PCM playback with any of these filters with Bitperfect probably the best out of the bunch since at least it does not do any upsampling).

 

The Burr Brown DSD1794 chip processes all DSD natively with no filters applied and it sounds great with using HQPlayer to do all the upsampling and digital filtering. So NOT a chance would I use the PRO's DSD remastering or PCM upsampling

 

I was looking at the PRO potentially having the option of a tube output stage and probably a better SS output stage than the NEO (which uses some standard op-amps.) And that it has built-in galvanic isolation of USB and other digital inputs.

 

Not sure if dual Burr Brown chips VS single BB chip would make any differences.

 

 

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Tbh @dericchan1,

I'm a sucker for dual mono configurations, and subjectivly my bias has always comforted me on that idea, i e  with the iDSD BL and signature. This is the reason I had the iDSD Pro on my list for a long time.

Then I heard the Allo Revolution and felt that implementation is king, and now I would love to have a well implemented fully balanced DAC for Desktop or HP use, while I have already an Okto Pro for my multichannel active X-over project with DRC

As long it isn't finished yet, I am listening with the Soncoz LA-QXD1 balanced DAC's outputs into active A300 pro in balanced mode, changig between USB and Toslink for my WIIM streamer. This little gem sports  a linkplay chip for streaming like the Ifi pro (iirc), but from 2021 - allowing bitperfect  playback up to 192/24 over WiFi.

 

No use of HQP here, that's left for the future HP system ... Yesterday I gave one of my DSD playlists a run through, though the leap in quality* wasn't really convincing enough for me to justify the efforts ...

*With the Soncoz (2x ESS9038q2m)

Best, Tom

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15 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Tbh @dericchan1,

I'm a sucker for dual mono configurations, and subjectivly my bias has always comforted me on that idea, i e  with the iDSD BL and signature. This is the reason I had the iDSD Pro on my list for a long time.

Then I heard the Allo Revolution and felt that implementation is king, and now I would love to have a well implemented fully balanced DAC for Desktop or HP use, while I have already an Okto Pro for my multichannel active X-over project with DRC

As long it isn't finished yet, I am listening with the Soncoz LA-QXD1 balanced DAC's outputs into active A300 pro in balanced mode, changig between USB and Toslink for my WIIM streamer. This little gem sports  a linkplay chip for streaming like the Ifi pro (iirc), but from 2021 - allowing bitperfect  playback up to 192/24 over WiFi.

 

No use of HQP here, that's left for the future HP system ... Yesterday I gave one of my DSD playlists a run through, though the leap in quality* wasn't really convincing enough for me to justify the efforts ...

*With the Soncoz (2x ESS9038q2m)

Best, Tom

So you tried the IFI Zen signature DAC and the NEO. Have you tried the PRO that's been on your list?

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2 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Not the zen,  the idsd micro sig.

I used the pro in 2019 in a hp booth at the Paris Audio show, but thats more a no than a yes. Fed by aurender 10, amplified by  Primaluna Dialoge pro into Meze Empyrean. Sounded great, but why exactly ? IDK!

The whole point of the discussion was to see if the PRO sounds great and whether it’s worth upgrading from the NEO, so I was hoping to hear from people who had used the PRO and their impression.

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I understand your desire, but its a bit difficult to create the conditions you need for comparison, especially bc you use your DAC in a unique way.

So approximisation might work, but is still a question of subjective experience and given config of the system.

You've pointed out all the objective values which are (in your view) pro iDSD pro, however your are still looking for some subjective confirmation?

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55 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I understand your desire, but its a bit difficult to create the conditions you need for comparison, especially bc you use your DAC in a unique way.

So approximisation might work, but is still a question of subjective experience and given config of the system.

You've pointed out all the objective values which are (in your view) pro iDSD pro, however your are still looking for some subjective confirmation?

Points taken. Thanks

 

i am just not quite sure if it’s worth while. But it’s great to hear from everyone’s views

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