iFi's Pro iDSD (official) - NEW Firmware - MQA and more.

[AMR/iFi audio]

'Nuff said!

 

[EVOLVIST]

Are those BNC inputs on the iDSD Pro that I see?

[AMR/iFi audio]

The Pro iESL

First among energizers

The Pro series iESL is an unsurpassed energiser for electrostatic headphones (and transformer-coupled stage for flagship dynamic headphones too).

 

The Pro iESL driven by either the iFi Pro iCAN or a powerful amplifier takes electrostatic headphones to an unprecedented level of performance.

 

Its defining characteristic is a transparency and an ultra-wide dynamic range that is totally natural. The Pro iESL works with Stax, Sennheiser Orpheus and many more.

 

Classic & Cutting Edge Technology

 

The Pro iESL’s three key elements combine the very best in classical approaches with the latest in cutting-edge technology AND superb component quality to deliver the ‘perfectly matched’ headphone experience.

 

•      Atypical Pinstripe Permalloy Core transformer

•      Bias voltage generator

•      Capacitive Battery Power Supply

 

Outstanding Component Quality

 

• One-off, hand-wound, Pinstripe Permalloy Core Transformer
• Wima Capacitors 
• Vishay MELF resistors
• Gold-plated silver and sealed-silver alloy contact relays

 

 

Specifications
Maximum Output voltage:	640V RMS (16Ω/20V in) 320V RMS (64Ω/20V in)
Frequency Response:	5Hz – 50kHz (-3dB)
Input Voltage (Pro iESL):	5V – 9V/1A max
Input Voltage (iPower):	AC 85 – 265V, 50/60Hz
Power Consumption:	< 1W
Dimensions:	213(l) x 206(w) x 63.3(h) mm
Weight:	2.5kg (5.5 lbs)

 

The retail price of the Pro iESL is US$1,399 (ex-tax) or €1,575/£1,395 (incl VAT).

 

Stay tuned, tech stuff coming up shortly!

[occamsrazor]

Any update on the iDSD Pro?

[AMR/iFi audio]

4 hours ago, occamsrazor said:

Any update on the iDSD Pro?

 

For now this:

 

https://www.phileweb.com/news/audio/201711/03/19231.html

[rickca]

Oh great, iDSD Pro does DSD1024.  Where did I put that mainframe?

[Totsipaki]

That display is really Nicer!..

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

Just now, Totsipaki said:

That display is really Nicer!..

 

 

We believe so as well.

[Totsipaki]

So will santa bring it this year or we can assume sometime within the rest of the decade?

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

Just now, Totsipaki said:

So will santa bring it this year or we can assume sometime within the rest of the decade?

 

 

No specific dates, sorry. But we're getting there. The picture says a lot though: "We're close". 

[Totsipaki]

Well hope is the last one to die they say where I come from..

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

On 6.11.2017 at 8:13 PM, Totsipaki said:

Well hope is the last one to die they say where I come from..

 

 

So they say indeed. Rest assured that in case of our Pro iDSD it's not a matter of hopes 

 

Clock's ticking....tick... tock...

[AMR/iFi audio]

Preview – Pro series - part 1/5

Pro iDSD

Is there anything like it?

 

Introduction

 

Over the past few years iFi audio has delighted audiophiles and confounded industry experts with its growing range of high-quality, low-cost and very portable digital-to-audio converters (DACs). Music fans on the move could at last listen to Direct Stream Digital (DSD) on well-built portable devices that didn’t cost the Earth (£500 and under in fact).

 

Now, iFi is set to rock the digital world again with the launch of iDSD Pro, a ground-breaking Quad DAC that will be used across the next generation of iFi products. Yes, it’s taken a while to come to market but, boy, has it been worth the wait! There is simply nothing like it.

 

Coming up next, you'll be able to feast your eyes on our Pro iDSD jaw-dropping features. Rest assured that very shortly you'll see what we mean.

 

Stay tuned!

 

P.S. This might look like one fine Xmas tease and it is. But then again, it's so much more on top of that, things are going to happen very soon.

 

 

 

[Totsipaki]

What's the antenna for? Does It contain a streamer?

[AMR/iFi audio]

47 minutes ago, Totsipaki said:

What's the antenna for? Does It contain a streamer?

 

It has a wireless functionality.

[AMR/iFi audio]

Preview – Pro series - part 2/5

Jaw-dropping features

 

1) Quad DAC section

 

The iDSD Pro uses a Quad ‘stack’ of the iFi Bit-Perfect DSD and DXD DAC by Burr-Brown in a custom ‘interleaved’ configuration. This enables a total of eight pairs of differential signals to be used and mixed – that’s four pairs of signals per channel.

While the iDSD Pro includes field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) for digital remastering duties – where we believe they excel – there are also external D/A sections, with a limited number of elements. In the iDSD Pro we use four interleaved 64-Element converters, to create a 256-Element DAC per channel, manufactured at high level of precision.

All signals to the DACs are re-clocked with the low-jitter Global Master Timing® master clock derived from the AMR DP-777.

 

2) Studio DSD Remastering

 

Bit-Perfect or Upsampled

 

All digital processing is Bit-Perfect, without employing an Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter (ASRC), or by up-sampling unless digital filters are explicitly selected. A variety of digital filters (including Bit-Perfect mode without digital filtering) are available.

 

The iDSD Pro supports both USB 3.0 Type B connections and USB 3.1 Type C connections – a first for a DAC. All inputs (including USB) are galvanically isolated and the USB input is self-powered. The SPDIF inputs use technology derived from the AMR DP-777 including a new, solid-state implementation of the HD-VDi, memory buffer and the Global Master Timing® clock system.

 

Click on this link for more information on iFi’s SPDIF solution:

http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/html/dp777_tech-papers_spdif.html

 

 

Next Generation X-Core 200

 

 

The iDSD Pro features the new XMOS XU216 X-Core 200 Series 16-Core processor with a maximum of 2,000 MIPS (two billion instructions per second) calculation power in dual-issue mode as a USB interface. It can decode signals from all Inputs, from USB (up to 768kHz/DSD512), AES/EBU or S/PDIF (up to 192kHz/24Bit) and Wifi/Network/Mass-storage (up to 192kHz/32Bit).

 

Stay tuned!

[asdf1000]

5 minutes ago, AMR/iFi audio said:

2) Studio DSD Remastering

 

Hello, can you share more info on this? 

 

The iDSD Pro will itself up-sample internally up to DSD512 using the mentioned FPGAs? Or higher?

 

[AMR/iFi audio]

5 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hello, can you share more info on this? 

 

The iDSD Pro will itself up-sample internally up to DSD512 using the mentioned FPGAs? Or higher?

 

 

In the not too distant future we will explain everything.

[jamesg11]

$s are always a good place to start! ... & then we contemplate the specs & functionality ... & then we wait for reviews & toes-in-the-water ...

[Totsipaki]

Will the I dsd pro support the Ravenna protocol ?

[asdf1000]

7 hours ago, Totsipaki said:

Will the I dsd pro support the Ravenna protocol ?

 

Now that would be somethin... I hope 2018 is the year Ravenna finally takes off in the consumer sphere. The same thing I hoped for in 2017 :-)

 

[One and a half]

4 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Now that would be somethin... I hope 2018 is the year Ravenna finally takes off in the consumer sphere. The same thing I hoped for in 2017 :-)

 

Dusty Springfield has a song about hope...

[asdf1000]

57 minutes ago, One and a half said:

Dusty Springfield has a song about hope...

 

LOL. Good call.

[One and a half]

Or Dante to support 6ch/2ch DSD, but steering off topic.

[occamsrazor]

I think the Dante hopes are more dream-wishlist than likely reality :-) :-) But it certainly would be cool...

In any case despite the "details", without any timeframe I don't see anything that puts us substantially closer to a real product we can buy.

I'm in the market for a new DAC/Pre (I don't need headphone use) and need to buy something pretty soon... While I'd like to wait to see just what this one will turn out like, expecially given the supposed network functionality of some type, it's been so long coming I think I'm just going to go for an RME ADI-2 DAC instead.