I got a Stiffy over my new iFi !

Hi Steve,

Which iFi?

I bought most of the current line for the office. Likely to plug and play into the McIntosh System first using a Surface Pro 3 as an initial product test.

• NANO + iPurifier + Mercury USB
• Micro iDSD + Micro iTube + Micro iUSB + Gemini USB
• iRack

OMG! Awesome. Photos and impressions would be greatly appreciated.

Well The Postman delivered the first part of the order only. The Micro kit remains on backorder until it lands. Scheduled for delivery next week. So in the meantime, I will have a play around with the iFi Nano.

Dealer recommends charging the Nano for a full 10 hours out of the box. It also helps to burn in the device. The Mercury cable will also continue to improve with 50 hours of use.

The Nano comes with a couple of rubbers and a silicon pad. Perhaps for those that wish to strap on their iWhatever. I will simply use the bands as decoupling stayers with the pad underneath. It even comes with a cheapo iFi RCA and USB cable. iFi recommends short everything. The dealer didn't sound so keen when I told him about my 3m Wireworld Platinum Starlight G7 USB. 3m of this quality of USB should be OK, I would think...$$sh$t

Tomorrow, after a full battery charge, shall aim to hook it up to the C1000T and see what it sounds like. Plan to use the Surface Pro 3 (unoptimized stock Win8.1 Pro) plus JRiver. Any other media players you would like me to try, let me know!

Steve said:

Standby. Postman coming today. I may need to control myself.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the iCLUB!

I have most of what you have, except Rack and iTube.

Try JPlay6, please and HQ Player for Windows for the Upconversion to DSD256.

Norman... I have JPlay and HQ Play installed. I think I will need your help to configure the optimal settings. Particularly the oversampling and filter stuff.

I am currently downloading the Opus 3 No.4 DSD128 Sampler. I chose the sampler as I have THE TAPE and know it quite well. It will be an interesting baseline comparison! I don't expect the iFi Nano or Micro rig for that matter to match the Studer A810 MkIII with A820 Transfoless cards but curious to see how close it comes.

The Nano iFi and the Surface Pro 3 will run in battery mode. I think the combination will work quite well. Have decided not to commission my CAPs v4x build until Win10 is released. Who knows, a Windows Surface Pro 3 or 4 running Win10 could be just as good.

Jplay is PC only and I am not familiar with it other than I know Marcin. When I go Caps in a couple months are so, I plan to use it.

For HQP, you should shoot for ASDM7 and Polysinc filter -2s, as that is a favourite for maxx performance.

Download kickstarter guide here: HQPlayer | soundgalleries

Here is how one guy set up his iFi:
Originally Posted by OpusOneI have finally set up a windows machine that could take on HQP at its most demanding, err, I think.
It is a machine with an i7-5930k processor (6 core at 3.5G max non turbo), 128GB 2.5 inch (SATA3) Mobility Solid State Drive,
16GB Quad Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz, 1500w power supply and liquid cooling. OS is Windows 8.1 Pro (64Bit).

I have buffer time set to the max of 250ms, with ASIO backend feeding to iFi iDSD Micro (iFi supplied driver) without DoP,
and Pipeline SDM checked. I have been using the following filter setting for PCM upsampling to DSD512 (octo rate), poly-sinc + DSD7.
I did not bother really checking out PCM to PCM or DSD to DSD as they are not the most stressful cases.

I have been throwing all kinds of source material at it, would listen in each case on my Sennheiser HD600 for at least 20 minutes.
Eureka, no stuttering or clicks or beeps. Monitoring the CPU loading in each case, the worst case is at an average
of 28%, with 4 cores working and the remaining 2 cores still somewhat idling; this happens when the source material
is 96k/24bit AIFF, followed by 192k/24bit AIFF. For CD red book sources, 44.1k/16bit material, it is running at about 23% CPU loading.
With liquid cooling, i can hardly hear any noise from the computer.

Hope this is a reference point for those who want to build a work horse system that is powerful enough to handle upsampling
to DSD512.

wisnon said:

Here is how one guy set up his iFi:
Originally Posted by OpusOne
I have buffer time set to the max of 250ms, with ASIO backend feeding to iFi iDSD Micro (iFi supplied driver) without DoP,
and Pipeline SDM checked. I have been using the following filter setting for PCM upsampling to DSD512 (octo rate), poly-sinc + DSD7.
I did not bother really checking out PCM to PCM or DSD to DSD as they are not the most stressful cases.

I have been throwing all kinds of source material at it, would listen in each case on my Sennheiser HD600 for at least 20 minutes.
Eureka, no stuttering or clicks or beeps. Monitoring the CPU loading in each case, the worst case is at an average
of 28%, with 4 cores working and the remaining 2 cores still somewhat idling; this happens when the source material
is 96k/24bit AIFF, followed by 192k/24bit AIFF. For CD red book sources, 44.1k/16bit material, it is running at about 23% CPU loading.
With liquid cooling, i can hardly hear any noise from the computer.

Click to expand...

That might as well be a different language

Setup parameter values. They are choices in the program.

I am at home now and can tell what my values currently are.

Preferences:

Device: ifi dac (nano or micro, for example)
Select: 2 channel, SDM pack (none), default selected for both buffer time and DAC bits.

SDM = ASDM7 (modulator)- DSD7 is what the poster above uses, Poly-sinc-shrt (oversampling), (Bit rate) 11289600, Pipeline SDM- unchecked (checked is for PCM upconversion to DSD)
PCM defaults = Poly-sinc-shrt (filter), NS( (dither), 768000 (sample rate /limit), Max volume is 0db, min volume -80db

Dsdiff/DSD settings

Conversion type:
Check both Direct SDM and 6dB Gain
Integrator = IIR
Noise filter = standard
Conversion type = Poly-short-mp

Hooked it up to the McIntosh rig this evening in full battery mode. I must say it is excellent for under $500 with USB Mercury cable and iPurifer.

Still playing around with the HQ Play settings and DSD7 appears to sound best but I will try some other combinations. ASIO to JPlay to device definitely offers a fully richer sound than going ASIO to device direct.

Attached to C1000T with Siltech i770 RCA.

Well the Opus3 DSD128 No.4 Sampler through the iFi Nano DAC is pleasant to listen to and is a bargain. Certainly great enough for a DAC on the go. The DAC no doubt needs some burn-in time to open up further. Falls well short of the tape but this guy's not complaining....

iFi have released iUSB 3.0. Apparently it has a Regen in it. Not sure if it is the same licensed from Uptone Audio or not...



IFI-MICRO-IUSB 3.0. ‘Next Gen’ Tech

The defining Audio + Power regenerator

The original and the best just made the jump to iUSB3.0

Back in 2012, the original iUSB established a whole new audio segment: computer audio improvement.

Fast-forward to 2015 and we are pleased to announce the all-new iUSB3.0 with the following world’s first features:



Audiophile USB3.0 Ultra-speed (5.0Gbps) active USB hub with 2 sets of ports

Ultra-silent 0.0000001V noise-floor and signal REgen®/Rebalance®/REclock®

Active Noise Cancellation+® military-grade circuit

(I don't know what happened to my pics in the earlier posts above. I'll see if I can re-post them again.)