iFiHip-dac Portable Balanced DAC Headphone Amplifier for Android, iPhone with USB Input Only/Outputs: 3.5mm Unbalanced / 4.4mm Balanced (Unit only)

I love this little gem! It works well with both my iPhone 12 Pro Max and my iPad Pro 2019 version. Bought the Apple CCK to lightning and the ifi USB -C connector to female USB-A connector at the same time as I bought the hipdac. The connections are quite secure on both and the sound is absolutely top notch. I have used and tested Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon HD, and Apple Music. All worked wonderfully with the appropriate colors showing up on either side of the ifi hipdac’s volume which is wonderful to the touch. Two caveats, The volume knob can be quite sensitive, especially in a pocket. I use a hair tie to hold the hipdac to the back of my iPhone case and this seems to eliminate the issue but just be forewarned. The other is there is only a slight difference between the color Green which covers PCM up to 24/96, and Yellow which is PCM 24/192 and above. Just a very small difference and if you try you can see a slight dimming which I suppose is Yellow. MQA does light up Magenta as it should.More about the sound. I’ve used three headphones with the hipdac so far; Oppo PM-3, Beyer Dt-990 Pro (250 ohms), and my favorites, the small $75 emu purpleheart wood cans from Drop. I have a balanced 4.4 mm cable on the way to use with my reference open back Senn HD600s, I’ll update on that later. First of all this little jewel has a lot of power. It drove the Beyers to insane levels, albeit with the high gain switch deployed. And it was quite a joy to utilize the bass boost as well, but only on certain songs as it could bloat quickly if there was too much bass in the original mix. But useful nonetheless. With the Oppos I had to use the ifi ematch+, which I already had on hand, to get the best results. High gain and occasionally the bass boost, helped me really enjoy the PM-3s a great deal and at the moment this is my favorite pairing while stationary. But I move around the house a good deal and here is where the little emus are outstanding. For the last 4 years, though I own too many headphones, I have relied on the emus and two LG V20s, in airplane mode with WiFi reengaged, running UAPP to play music from Tidal and Qobuz. Alas, my V20s both started to reboot quite regularly whilst playing music. As they are both four years old and T-Mobile hasn’t updated Android in over two years, I finally gave up the ghost. Sooo, I had to resort to my iPhone for mobility. Hence the purchase of the hipdac. Sometimes things really do seem to work out. On low gain at about half volume the sound from the emus is outstanding! I never knew the emus could be so detailed. Highs and lows sound far better than I would imagine from past experience. Anyways, I am one happy camper these days. And the hipdac even makes lossy music sound good. I use the Live Music app to access the Grateful Dead’s concerts and more from Archive.org. Listening to Matrix recordings the music does not sound compressed at all. Frankly I am stunned at the quality. I have over 2 TBs of legally downloaded music that I have accumulated over the last twenty years but who wants to pay the premium for larger storage on a new iPad when this DAC/amp streaming from the iPhone sounds just as good as the 24/96 downloaded files playing through the Onkyo HiFi player even as good as that app is. Sound in one word, impeccable!I’ve seen some folks complain about battery life, but I have not any issue with the hipdac in this respect. Now I’m not trying to play music for 8 hours at a time, though I respect those who try to do so during a full work day. I usually max out at 3 hours, then place the hipdac in standby, and come back for another 2-3 hours later on, and then finally another 1-2 hours before bedtime. So 6-8 hours of usage a day with roughly 2 standby periods in between, and I’ve never seen anything but green on the battery indicator at the rear of the unit. It takes about 2 and a half hours to charge to white and then for the light to turn off.In summary, this little hipdac floats my boat. As someone who plays in both the shallow end and the deep end in the pool of headphones I couldn’t be any happier. I have tried other dongles that did okay including one that did MQA. But this piece of kit is a home run IMHO! Highly recommended!UPDATE: 7/10Received balanced cables to use with Senn HD 600s and Meze 99 Classics. The Sennheiser cable upgraded the 600s to the point of quite enjoyable listening on the go. For well recorded music in Hi-Rez this is a wonderful pairing and let’s the HipDac really shine.It was the Meze cable that turned my world upside down. I’ve always liked the 99 Classics but would more than occasionally find them bloated on the low end. Not any more! Using Meze’s own balanced cable with the HipDac took the 99s to levels of incredible clarity with deep taut bass that I wouldn’t have imagined from past use. Love, love, love this combo with both the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the iPad Pro 2019 version. As the Meze’s I have are beautiful to look at, as well as touch, having their sound elevated to beyond reference level is a blessing. With the Meze 99 Classics, HipDac , balanced cable, and USB connector, you’ll spend around $700. But if you want beautiful music from your phone or tablet, this combo will keep a smile on your face!

Just a heads up, I’ve only had this for a week but since there isn’t that many reviews I figured this one might provide a little more info.Headphones used were Mr. Speakers Open Alphas and Audeze LCD-XC.Size, portability and looks: it’s about the size of a cigarette pack but substantially thinner. Of the top of my head it’s about the thickness of the tip of my pointer finger or a little thicker than an iPhone XR and I’m guessing most modern phones. It’s extremely lightweight and if you plan on using it with any modern smart phone, it’s definitely small enough to stack it with your phone and slide em both in your pocket ( I forget what they’re called but I found these rubber type webbings that attaches to the corners of your phone and any amp/dacs are held in place by the webbing in the back of your phon so no rubber bands across your screen. Definitely recommend. I think I searched “silicone rubber bands for phones” or something similar on Amazon). It got a cool blueish/greenish ocean teal type color with a pretty cool gold/brass knob that is used to turn on the amp/dac as well as control the volume.Features: it’s pretty much got whatever you need when your in the go or need something portable. It’s dsd/pcm numbers are pretty awesome for something of this size plus mqa unfolding if your using tidal.It has a power match (gain stage?) button next to the bass boost button to the left of the gold knob in the front. I kept the power match button on while using the headphones and there was plenty of power to drive both cans (using the 4.4mm input) easily.Sound: like I said, it’s only been a week or so since I’ve been using this so these are basic impressions not a full blown review.Open alphas plugged straight into an iPhone sounded really dark and congested. Plugged into the hipdac they sound incredible. Darkness was lifted and the congestiveness were both gone. The sound stage, depth, separation and overall sound quality were greatly improved. It was actually pretty surprising to me just how much of a difference the SQ was improved. So far I haven’t heard any noticeable hissing or pops or any other weirdness. I kept the bass boost off using the alphas as the hipdac (using power match button) seemed to be pushing these enough to get that bassy, punchy sound from the alphas( I’m guessing probably other fostex tr type cans would work well with this little guy too)I haven’t used it with the LCD-XCs enough to give any insight other than that the hipdac will push em.I have an old Oppo ha-2 portable amp/dac that I’ve been using for years as my go to portable. It’s a great amp/dac but I’m pretty sure the hipdac will take its place. From the features, the power, sound, size and portability its a pretty amazing little piece of hardware for a very reasonable price.If your looking for a portable amp/dac I would definitely keep the hipdac on the list to consider.

I am personally new to the game here so I don't have much to compare it to except a few dongle dacs. That being said, I am extremely impressed with the ifi hipdac. Here's a list of PROS and CONS:PROS:Wonderfully warm and open sound. Going from a pretty good dongle dac to this device, Im getting a smoother and wider presentation. I dont notice more detail but certainly no detail has been lost. Also the signal is fairly clean.Great build quality. The buttons rattle a bit but other than that, completely solid.The "XBass" bass boost is a nice and solid feature. Some music sounds great with it on, some with it off. Has been about half and half in my experience so far. I listen to a lot of electronica, drum and bass, etc... And the bass boost takes it to the next level in sounding like an actual speaker system. Love it!The volume knob is beautiful and smooth when you turn it. Nice touch there.CONS:The battery life doesnt even come close to the 12 hours they tell you in the description. Maybe without xbass and powermatch turned off and the volume at a wisper... Maybe. But it does charge rather quickly so its not a deal brealer whatsoever.The cables it comes with are stiff and not the greatestest quality. Id recommend getting a better OTG cable when purchasing this if you want something more flexible.Does not come with any apparatuses to attatch to your phone. :( bummer.CONCLUSION:It you prefer a warmer sound or if you have any overly bright or bass lacking headphones, I absolutely recommend this amp! Will not disappoint!

Excelente para relajarse y satisfacer el gusto culposo de las frecuencias bajas resaltadas, noté beneficios a utilizar la salida 4.4. todo excelente, buen match con mis hd660s que a veces me parecían muy brillantes.

Very musical with a useful bass boost which is not overwhelming and power level adjustment. Beautifully crafted and high quality. I am using it for streaming but plan to use it for HiFi local media. The MQA Master results were excellent on Tidal once the configuration was corrected with help from Tidal support. To access MQA one has to give control to the source which bypasses any software-controlled equalization or filtering - a separate device would be required. I like the 5.3c firmware which supports MQA and has superior filtering but at the expense of DSD512 and 768KHz support

Amazing sound. I'm no audiophile so please excuse my fumbly attempt of explaining what I hear:All the little details can be heard, bass is punchy, tight but also detailed, in a way I didn't expect was possible from a portable amp. Mids and Highs are equally good, detailed, accurate, no distortions.Sound is very balanced and thus not hurting my ears like some cheap amps can do.The sound makes me just want to keep listening to all my songs again. It is very enjoyable.Cons: The connections for headphones and also the volume knob are directly soldered to the motherboard and they all flex a bit so I think if you flex it too much/many times/strongly then they can break off from the motherboard. So you need to be careful.Also, the USB-C cable that goes into the mobile phone has to be pushed very hard, I'm a bit worried it could damage my phone, hopefully it won't. Also if I touch the cable or phone it often pauses the music or losses connection. So It has to lay still. If the cable was better and the front knobs were not flexing against the motherboard I would give 5 start. I'm sorry to give 4. Wish there was an option for 4.5 stars.

Dès les premières écoutes, avec des morceaux que je connais depuis plus de 20 ans, la qualité du son a été excellente, je dois dire que ce petit DAC permet une belle amélioration du son, le rendant plus chaleureux, les basses sonnent bien, les aigus sont précis et les médiums présents sans être ni étouffés ni trop mis en avant.La puissance du DAC est impressionnante, si on veut garder ses oreilles en bon état, il convient de ne pas pousser le volume. Il élargit quelque peu la scène sonore de mon Focal Elegia, je l'ai également testé sur un Audio Technica MSR7, certifié hi res, le résultat est tout aussi excellent.Pour le prix, c'est un très bon produit, à condition de faire la mise à jour du firmware dans sa dernière version.

Man muss für den Betrieb an einem Iphone ein Camera Kit oder etwas ähnliches bestellen das wird nicht mitgeliefert.Die Funktionsweise ist relativ einfach. Laden funktioniert über USB-C Daten werden über USB-A übertragen. Für den Betrieb am Rechner müssen also 2 Kabel angeschlossen werden. Diese Kabel sind im Lieferumfang enthalten.Am MacBook sollte in der Einstellung MIDi eine Höhere Abtastrate eingestellt werden.Den Klettverschluss habe ich angebracht um den Hip-Dac am Iphone zu befestigen.Klang:Beim Klang kann man verschiedene Modi der Verstärkung auswählen je nach Kopfhörer.X-Bass erhöht nur den Tiefbass und dröhnt nicht. Eine Verzerrung ist nicht hörbar.Akku:ca. 4-5 Stunden, je nach Verstärkungsgrad kann man am Telefon Musik hören.Für mich ist der IFI Hip-Dac wesentlich robuster und klanglich besser als der FiiO Mark II,Beim Mark II leiert die Micro USB dose recht schnell aus und wenn das Micro USB kabel kaputt geht bekommt man nirgendwo ein funktionierendes neues mehr.