iFi iDSD Black Review (watch this space)

rodge827 · « **Reply #20 on:** 10 Dec 2016, 08:26 pm »

Thanks for the update Tyson...keepem' coming

OzarkTom · « **Reply #21 on:** 10 Dec 2016, 10:06 pm »

Quote from: Tyson on 10 Dec 2016, 08:18 pm

Quick update on how things are going. Man this thing is taking for ever to burn in. Per iFi, they put 48 hours of burn in before sending any units out. I got it a week ago and have been running it 24/7 since then. The entire past week it's been alternating between being etched/sharp sounding one day, and completely muffled the next day.

However, TODAY there's been a break in the clouds and it's sounding marvelous - open, clear and musical. And with a lot more boogie and jump factor than my old iFi Silver iDSD.

I'm sure this won't last because per iFi, full burn in takes about 500 hours. But so far the 200 hour mark has been pretty awesome.

+1

My AMR dac took about 650 hours. AMR is the maker of IFI, but everyone here no doubt knows that.

Tyson · « **Reply #22 on:** 10 Dec 2016, 11:26 pm »

Yes, you are right! In my experience it's the caps in the power supply that cause the ruckus. Ultimately the better quality PSU caps sound much, much better than lower quality PSU caps. But getting those high quality PSU caps burned in is a bumpy ride, indeed.

Tyson · « **Reply #23 on:** 12 Dec 2016, 09:46 pm »

Someone asked me to review how the iDSD Black sounds without the $400 iUSB3 in front of it. I think that's a good idea. In fact, I'll include in the review 3 different levels of filtration:

1. No filtration at all, just the iDSD plugged straight into my PC
2. Cheap level filtration - put an iSilencer in the signal path
3. Final level - put the iUSB3 between the PC and iDSD

We'll see how it goes....

Tyson · « **Reply #24 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 05:21 pm »

Man, I was at my wit's end today, burn in was still taking forever and I just couldn't get that digital edge to go away, even though I'm now at over 300 hours on this thing. Then I realized I'd made 2 changes in JRiver when I put the Black inline.

First, I'd turned on upsampling for everything but the DSD files. So 44, 88, 176 were all getting upsampled to 352khz, and 48, 96, and 192 were all getting upsampled to 384. So I reverted all that back to no upsampling at all for anything.

Second, I'd turned off the "Play Track from Memory" option that Jriver has. It was not playing nice with the upsampling options I'd turned on. Getting rid of the upsampling allowed me to turn it back on.

Result? Much more natural sound, closer to what I'm used to with the Silver. And the bass & especially dynamics are EVEN BETTER! Wow. OK, that's today's update.

jparkhur · « **Reply #25 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 05:28 pm »

I have a ifi Dac 2 using a dual head usb, part for power, part for info. Would the USB 3 be an upgrade ? If so, would you use the dual head usb with the usb3 or just singles?

Thoughts.

MacMini to iDac2, RCA out to ACA amps

jrebman · « **Reply #26 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 05:29 pm »

Really interested here! As several folks have said about the silver nano and micro, try them in your main system too -- you might just be surprised. At least 3 of these folks have shelved their expensive DACs in favor of the iFi portables.

-- Jim

Tyson · « **Reply #27 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 05:38 pm »

Quote from: jparkhur on 14 Dec 2016, 05:28 pm

I have a ifi Dac 2 using a dual head usb, part for power, part for info. Would the USB 3 be an upgrade ? If so, would you use the dual head usb with the usb3 or just singles?

Thoughts.

MacMini to iDac2, RCA out to ACA amps

Yes, the iUSB3 is a big upgrade. Or at least it was with the Silver. I haven't tried the Black without it yet. I'll give it a try in the next few days, so check back in this thread.

Quote from: jrebman on 14 Dec 2016, 05:29 pm

Really interested here! As several folks have said about the silver nano and micro, try them in your main system too -- you might just be surprised. At least 3 of these folks have shelved their expensive DACs in favor of the iFi portables.

-- Jim

I've been using the Silver micro iDSD with the iUSB3 and a Regen in my main system for 2 years now. You really have to go to Vega level DAC to best it, IMO. And even then it's quite close, IMO.

Dmason · « **Reply #28 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 05:39 pm »

The Nano iDSD, once burned in is/was a huge musical surprise. 10 hours from its battery is a mega bonus, to me... iFi house sound is remarkable. It is my source in a small, laser-like, off the grid nearfield set up, and it easily not only passes the acid test but makes a great contribution to this kind of listening, cherry picking well produced material, streamed in 320. Highly recommended. Good to hear user feedback about the USB filtration stuff as well.

I am very interested in hearing more about the black, all nice bits, version. Thorsten rocks!

My personal iFi fantasy box would be an iTube2 using a 6SN7 or similar..

Ric Schultz · « **Reply #29 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 08:55 pm »

HQPlayer is suppose to kill Jriver for sound quality. If you have a powerful Windows 10 computer and upsample all files to 512DSD with HQplayer and run directly into the IFI that way it is said to be way, way out there. A powerful windows 10 build with HQplayer would set you back maybe $1200 including Audio Fidelizer Pro. From what people have said....this is killer. This is the only DAC under $1000, that I know of, that can take DSD512 via usb. Apparently upsampling to 512DSD is suppose to sound way better than 256.....this is all with HQPlayer.

Tyson · « **Reply #30 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 09:21 pm »

Quote from: Ric Schultz on 14 Dec 2016, 08:55 pm

HQPlayer is suppose to kill Jriver for sound quality. If you have a powerful Windows 10 computer and upsample all files to 512DSD with HQplayer and run directly into the IFI that way it is said to be way, way out there. A powerful windows 10 build with HQplayer would set you back maybe $1200 including Audio Fidelizer Pro. From what people have said....this is killer. This is the only DAC under $1000, that I know of, that can take DSD512 via usb. Apparently upsampling to 512DSD is suppose to sound way better than 256.....this is all with HQPlayer.

Sorry, not gonna spend $1200 to make a $500 DAC sound better. I'm just not.

Edit - Actually I just checked and I am running Windows 10 64-bit on my music server, I do have a 3.5GHZ Intel I7 in there, and I do have 12GB of RAM. I wonder, is this enough to use the HQ player to upsample as you (and others) have suggested?

Ric Schultz · « **Reply #31 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 09:43 pm »

Tyson,
I do believe there is a trial period for HQplayer. So, maybe just download it and see if you can get DSD at whatever speed to go to your DAC. Check out the posts online to find the appropriate settings.....lots of different ways to use HQplayer. The guy (Quadman/John Makela) is rewriting the thing he did for me on my website and I am hoping he includes the HQplayer settings he uses. Audiofidelizer Pro is suppose to make the computer sound better too.....I think it is $75.
Ric

brother love · « **Reply #32 on:** 14 Dec 2016, 10:51 pm »

Quote from: Tyson on 14 Dec 2016, 09:21 pm

Sorry, not gonna spend $1200 to make a $500 DAC sound better. I'm just not.

Edit - Actually I just checked and I am running Windows 10 64-bit on my music server, I do have a 3.5GHZ Intel I7 in there, and I do have 12GB of RAM. I wonder, is this enough to use the HQ player to upsample as you (and others) have suggested?

Is your i7 quad core? You could most definitely do DSD256 at a minimum (poster on ComputerAudiophile is using Skylake G4400 3.3 gHz dual core @ DSD256 & CPU usage is 50% with Daphile). Max may depend on whether you use Roon or not.

Tyson · « **Reply #33 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 06:58 pm »

OK, I got the HQ Player installed and set up properly. It's a bit tricky at first, but once you get the settings dialed in, you are set. So I can confirm that my server is able to do DSD256 conversion, no problem. Listening to it now - definitely a big improvement!! Was it worth it? Well its free to try, so check it out. In my system it's definitely kicking Jriver to the curb.

What improvement is there? With native DSD files, eh, not much. With PCM files - a lot! The PCM files get a lot closer to that 'analog-like' sound that DSD does so well. Edge drops away, and you can 'listen into' the music a bit more. Dynamic shading improves. Spatial information improves. In other words, things just sound more real. Nice.

Tyson · « **Reply #34 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 08:41 pm »

OK, some questions - what do I need to change the settings in HQPlayer to go from DSD256 to DSD512? There's a ton of options in the sampling rate menu but none of them are marked "DSD246" or "DSD512", they are all like 1228800 or 1638400 or other mysterious numbers like that.

And, how do I get ISO files to play on this thing? I can get DSF and DFF files to play, but not ISO. And I have a metric ton of ISO files and I will not be manually converting them.

jtwrace · « **Reply #35 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 08:52 pm »

Quote from: Tyson on 15 Dec 2016, 08:41 pm

And, how do I get ISO files to play on this thing? I can get DSF and DFF files to play, but not ISO. And I have a metric ton of ISO files and I will not be manually converting them.

IF you get into a bind I can help convert them. My computer is very powerful and can batch convert them at a frightening pace.

Tyson · « **Reply #36 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 09:45 pm »

Quote from: jtwrace on 15 Dec 2016, 08:52 pm

IF you get into a bind I can help convert them. My computer is very powerful and can batch convert them at a frightening pace.

Its not so much the conversion, as the extra storage space it would require. And all the tagging. Ugh.

brother love · « **Reply #37 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 09:48 pm »

Quote from: Tyson on 15 Dec 2016, 08:41 pm

OK, some questions - what do I need to change the settings in HQPlayer to go from DSD256 to DSD512? There's a ton of options in the sampling rate menu but none of them are marked "DSD246" or "DSD512", they are all like 1228800 or 1638400 or other mysterious numbers like that.

The DSD number is a multiple of CD sample rate, so ...

DSD256 is 44,100 Hz x 256= 11,289,600 Hz or 11.2 MHz

DSD512 is 44,100 x 512 = 22,579,200 or 22.5 MHz

Tyson · « **Reply #38 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 10:02 pm »

Quote from: brother love on 15 Dec 2016, 09:48 pm

The DSD number is a multiple of CD sample rate, so ...

DSD256 is 44,100 Hz x 256= 11,289,600 Hz or 11.2 MHz

DSD512 is 44,100 x 512 = 22,579,200 or 22.5 MHz

OK, thanks! I just tried to go to 512 and can't because the playback gets all static-y with those settings. But 256 works fine so I'll stick with that.

brother love · « **Reply #39 on:** 15 Dec 2016, 10:14 pm »

Tyson,

If you haven't already, try "poly-sinc-shrt-mp-2s" for the SDM oversampling as the -2s filters are less demanding. You can also mess around with the buffer time to possibly improve matters.

Also, there is a HQPlayer user manual that should be part of the download which describes the filters & various settings. Steep learning curve, but well worth the effort.