Ifi’s Usb-c Hip-flask Dac In ‘titanium Shadow’ Is Your Iphone 15’s New Best Bud

Oh, USB-C ports and Titanium finishes are so scorching at the moment. 

No quicker has Apple‘s four-strong iPhone 15 lineup rolled out – a take hold of of handsets which I am certain you recognize in spite of everything ditched the Lightning port in want of the extra ubiquitous and simply higher USB-C for each charging and audio – than a variety of one of the most best possible USB-C-toting DACs additionally pipes up, short of to show your new iPhone right into a hi-res audio tune participant. 

And none appears to be like higher subsequent for your iPhone 15 Professional or iPhone 15 Professional Max in Herbal Titanium than iFi’s gloriously cheeky hip-flask formed hip-dac 3. It now is available in a end the United Kingdom makers are calling ‘Titanium Shadow’, as it it sounds as if “adjustments tone in several lighting fixtures, with hints of bronze and antique gold.”

I liked iFi’s authentic 2019 hip-dac in Petrol Blue, as smartly the hip-dac 2 (which I helped to check for TechRadar’s sister e-newsletter, What Hi-Fi?, and which seemed for all of the global like the colour of a excellent unmarried malt however used to be in reality referred to as ‘Sundown Orange’). However hip-dac 3’s heat, refined grey tones no longer handiest make the demure audio enhancer glance even glance much more like a hip-flask; they will additionally fit a new iPhone completely. 

And it isn’t all appears to be like! Nearer inspection unearths additional adjustments to the hip-dac 3’s specification. There are actually two USB-C ports – one for audio, the opposite for charging (the former two hip-dac generations used USB-A for audio – and as it used to be somewhat a deeply recessed male USB, no longer all spare cables performed great with it). 

There may be an extra transfer at the hip-dac 3’s underside now, which engages iFi’s IEMatch era. That is a proprietary circuit designed to optimize the amp’s output to raised swimsuit high-sensitivity headphones and earphones – in particular helpful for in-ear displays (IEMs) aka one of the most best possible stressed headphones we have now examined.

Opinion: iFi DACs shoot from the hip – and I adore it 

Why must you wish to have the Southport UK company’s IEMatch tech? It guarantees to cut back background hiss and support element and dynamic vary whilst expanding the useable vary of the quantity keep watch over, that is why.

Extra adjustments were made underneath the hood too, with a number of circuit improvements together with new steel movie capacitors. The DAC phase options an upgraded model of iFi’s GMT (World Grasp Timing) circuitry too, together with a new crystal oscillator in a bid to additional reduces segment noise, contributing to purer, crisper sound.

Rather then those adjustments, the hip-dac 3 keeps all of the options that made the hip-dac 2 any such common transportable USB DAC/headphone amp – and one I nonetheless love. 

Its graceful, tough aluminium enclosure measures simply 10.2 x 7x 1.4cm so can slip simply right into a pocket or bag. And it will greater than change the inferior DAC (digital-to-analogue converter) and amp circuitry in even the latest telephones, capsules, PCs and Macs.

To get granular, Hi-res PCM and DXD audio knowledge is supported at pattern charges as much as 384kHz, along DSD from 2.8MHz to twelve.4MHz (DSD64, 128 and 256). Complete deciphering of MQA may be supported, acting the whole ‘3 spread’ deciphering procedure (versus simply the overall spread within the method of an MQA ‘renderer’). Whilst my pick out of the 3 best possible wi-fi DACs can stage up the standard of tune out of your telephone, they can’t give a boost to some of these top-tier, hi-res figures over Bluetooth. 

Each side of the hip-dac 3’s rotary quantity keep watch over sits a couple of LEDs that adjust colour to signify the structure and pattern charge of the incoming audio, too.

The hip-dac 3’s USB-C audio enter handles audio knowledge as much as 32-bit/384kHz and is asynchronous, that means the knowledge charge is regulated only by means of the hip-dac 3’s specialised audio clock circuitry for correct, jitter-free knowledge switch from the supply software. 

Together with a separate USB-C port (to elucidate: you get two USB-C ports right here) for charging maintains a devoted audio enter for the purest sign trail too, which additionally way you’ll be able to use the hip-dac 3 whilst attached to the mains. And that’s uncommon, even a number of the best possible transportable DACs we have now examined. 

iFi hip-dac 3 is to be had from decided on outlets from nowadays, (October 6, 2023) at an RRP of £199 in the United Kingdom, which is more or less $240 or AU$380 – and I undoubtedly wish to pay attention what it could actually do. Watch this area… 

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