IFI AUDIO IS BACK WITH ITS PRO IDSD HI-RES WIFI DAC, PREAMP AND HEADPHONE AMP

The Pro iDSD features sophisticated digital and analogue circuitry combined with an array of sonic tailoring facilities including upsampling to DSD1024 and a switchable valve/solid-state output stage, which all makes for exciting reading.

iFi Pro iDSD

iFi Audio has combined classic design techniques used to achieve ultra-low-noise in tube equipment with cutting-edge, 21st-century technology to deliver stunningly superior performance.

The Pro iDSD uses a Quad ‘stack' of Burr-Brown Bit-Perfect DSD and DXD DACs in a custom ‘interleaved' configuration. The result is that a total of eight pairs of differential signals can be used and mixed – that's four pairs of signals per channel.

A signals to the DACs are re-clocked with the low-jitter Global Master Timing master clock; this has been borrowed from parent company AMR's revered DP-777 DAC.

Digital processing power comes by of an XMOS XU216 X-Core 200 Series 16-Core processor. This brain can deal with 2,000 MIPS (two billion instructions per second) calculation when in dual-issue mode as a USB interface.

Unusually, there is no ASRC or up-sampling involved, unless you select a digital filter. However, all digital processing is Bit-Perfect.

All of the Pro iDSD's inputs (including USB) are galvanically isolated, and the USB input is self-powered. LINKPLAY Wi-Fi/network playback, as well as Spotify and Tidal,  are baked in. You also get Airplay and DLNA support. Furthermore, there's extensive protocol support for 32-Bit/192kHz and DSD64.

The Crysopeia FPGA (field-programmable gate array) is employed to handle up-sampling duties.  The Pro iDSD will play all audio formats to DSD1024 or DSD512 or PCM 768K with user-selectable digital filters.

iFi Pro iDSD specifications

Sample Rates

• PCM up to 768kHz
• DSD up to 24.576MHz
• DXD and double speed DXD (2xDXD)

Inputs

• USB (required for DSD, DXD and sample rates above 192KHz)
• 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 0.55V/2.1V/5V
• Headphones BAL 2.5mm Jack at 1.13V/4.6V/10V
• Headphones out 1,500mW RMS X 2 @ 64 ohm, 4,000mW max. 2 X @ 16 Ohm

New Zealand pricing and availabilty has not yet been confirmed.

For more information, go to iFi Audio.

Further reading: Computer & Desktop Audio Discussion Forums

The article iFi Pro iDSD Streaming DAC Announced first appeared on StereoNET UK.