I see the 33-ohm THD+N shows 0.05% at 1 mW, so about 30 dB_SPL of noise through 96 dB/mW headphones, which would be audible in quiet environments. But this should be easily solvable with the integrated IEMatch, right? It looks like that measurement was done with IEMatch off and may not be representative of the Micro iDSDs' best performance with low-impedance headphones.
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Review and Measurements of Schiit Jotunheim and iFi iDSD Black Label DACs and Headphone Amps
- Thread starter amirm
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Too funny!! I’ll take the nude virgins...
analogSurviver
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I checked this thread only today - as I have been interested in what did the measurements of iFi iDSD BE reveal. Interesting, to say the least.
But I do not respond because of anything concerning iFi. That grounding blues, experienced in (some?) Schiit units, is FAR more widespread than most people realize. Goes both for the new and vintage gear - the latter may, although working perfectly when new, well show such illneses with the passage of time.
The culprit is always down to the same two reasons: either anodized coat/oxidation between the parts hold together carrying the ground by screws or cold solder joints/joints made to heavily oxidized metal in the first place. More rare are direct omissions of grounding wire(s), where everything has been manufactered to specs - but every one in a while, such devices do creep up.
I have seen many examples and combination of these in >40 years of my interest in audio. One thing is reading the assembly instructions - and another is double-checking everything is as it should have been. I will illustrate this on the most trivial example possible - soldering a wire to the RCA jack. On low end "silver shiny" plugs, the oxidation layer ( which is there to prevent "rusting away" of contact surfaces ) can be so thick that simply soldering just won't stick to its surface. One has to get to the BARE metal first - and solder to that definitely not oxidized portions of the plug. The best tool to do this is glass pencil eraser, when not available, any fine small file will do the trick. With gold plated RCAs, this is (usually) not an issue.
But most RCAs, regardless if low end or gold plated in the lower price brackets, have the ground connection part actually made from two separate parts, which are then crimped together. And here usually the problem lurks. If you connect your RCAs "once in a lifetime/year" - very few insert/disconnect cycles - it might work just fine. If you for any reason have to do it more frequently, that supposedly zero ohms impedance from the ground collar of the RCA plug and its spade the ground wire is soldered to can become intermittent - or even open circuit, no matter how you "wiggle" the offending RCA connection.
For that reason, I grew a habit of actually soldering over the joint of these two potentially problematic pieces - and, if done correctly, they never gave that problem anymore.
Above has one, but big fly in the ointment for the manufacturer - it takes MUCH more time to prep and solder RCAs as described above than simple "bussines as usual". And time equals money - we all know what thatmeans in this highly competitive world...
The same applies to assembling an amp ( perticularly problematic if it is "natural metal color" - for which we ASSUME it has conductive surface(s) , when in reality ic can be heavily anodized electrically non-conducting ) - or even superficially as benign item as phono cartridge headshell. There are many cases the screwing the parts together or crimping are expected to cut trough that non conductive layer, thus establishing the required ground connection - but more often than not, the parts joined together in such a fashion DO NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY.
I have seen this in new equipment that misbehaved one way or another due to the lack of proper grounding. The only proper way is to disasemble such piece of equipment and figure out where the ground connection between parts screwed together should be - and physically remove the paint in the vicinity of the screw(s) required. One can spare the trouble of disassembly by using an external wire to the chassis part(s) - but it is not the proper solution.
These ground screwed together joints can and do exidize in vintage equipment - again, disassemble, remove any oxyde ( sometimes cotton Q-tip is enough - BOTH on the bolt and various "holes" that ultimately make the contact ) - any you are good to go for another decade or so.
One nagging issue with phono cartridge headshells that should but do not conduct ( resulting in hum, nomatterwhat ) is the fact that they are crimped together and can not be dissasembled in a non destructive way. For those, I use the following technique :
1. Remove a small portion of anodization ( coloured or transparent ) in a remote area out of the usual sight that does bridge all the parts that should be conducting but aren't. You have to get to the bare metal.
2. Apply with a small brush silver lacquer/paint sold to repair heating coils in the back window of cars ( off ebay, etc ) to the spot with the paint removed. All this can be say 2 x1 milimeter in size.
3. First, after 2. dries, double check with an ohm meter the headshell now is conducting properly (0,0x ohms and lower ). Then apply some brilliant transparent acryl lacquer/paint over the silver lacquer, to prevent any further degradation of conductivity.
In a perfect world, the end customer should not have to deal with issues of grounding described above. But, since we do live in a real world, one that is far from perfect, we have to take into account that any of the remedies described above can be more time consuming than assembling the entire product in the factory.
But I do not respond because of anything concerning iFi. That grounding blues, experienced in (some?) Schiit units, is FAR more widespread than most people realize. Goes both for the new and vintage gear - the latter may, although working perfectly when new, well show such illneses with the passage of time.
The culprit is always down to the same two reasons: either anodized coat/oxidation between the parts hold together carrying the ground by screws or cold solder joints/joints made to heavily oxidized metal in the first place. More rare are direct omissions of grounding wire(s), where everything has been manufactered to specs - but every one in a while, such devices do creep up.
I have seen many examples and combination of these in >40 years of my interest in audio. One thing is reading the assembly instructions - and another is double-checking everything is as it should have been. I will illustrate this on the most trivial example possible - soldering a wire to the RCA jack. On low end "silver shiny" plugs, the oxidation layer ( which is there to prevent "rusting away" of contact surfaces ) can be so thick that simply soldering just won't stick to its surface. One has to get to the BARE metal first - and solder to that definitely not oxidized portions of the plug. The best tool to do this is glass pencil eraser, when not available, any fine small file will do the trick. With gold plated RCAs, this is (usually) not an issue.
But most RCAs, regardless if low end or gold plated in the lower price brackets, have the ground connection part actually made from two separate parts, which are then crimped together. And here usually the problem lurks. If you connect your RCAs "once in a lifetime/year" - very few insert/disconnect cycles - it might work just fine. If you for any reason have to do it more frequently, that supposedly zero ohms impedance from the ground collar of the RCA plug and its spade the ground wire is soldered to can become intermittent - or even open circuit, no matter how you "wiggle" the offending RCA connection.
For that reason, I grew a habit of actually soldering over the joint of these two potentially problematic pieces - and, if done correctly, they never gave that problem anymore.
Above has one, but big fly in the ointment for the manufacturer - it takes MUCH more time to prep and solder RCAs as described above than simple "bussines as usual". And time equals money - we all know what thatmeans in this highly competitive world...
The same applies to assembling an amp ( perticularly problematic if it is "natural metal color" - for which we ASSUME it has conductive surface(s) , when in reality ic can be heavily anodized electrically non-conducting ) - or even superficially as benign item as phono cartridge headshell. There are many cases the screwing the parts together or crimping are expected to cut trough that non conductive layer, thus establishing the required ground connection - but more often than not, the parts joined together in such a fashion DO NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY.
I have seen this in new equipment that misbehaved one way or another due to the lack of proper grounding. The only proper way is to disasemble such piece of equipment and figure out where the ground connection between parts screwed together should be - and physically remove the paint in the vicinity of the screw(s) required. One can spare the trouble of disassembly by using an external wire to the chassis part(s) - but it is not the proper solution.
These ground screwed together joints can and do exidize in vintage equipment - again, disassemble, remove any oxyde ( sometimes cotton Q-tip is enough - BOTH on the bolt and various "holes" that ultimately make the contact ) - any you are good to go for another decade or so.
One nagging issue with phono cartridge headshells that should but do not conduct ( resulting in hum, nomatterwhat ) is the fact that they are crimped together and can not be dissasembled in a non destructive way. For those, I use the following technique :
1. Remove a small portion of anodization ( coloured or transparent ) in a remote area out of the usual sight that does bridge all the parts that should be conducting but aren't. You have to get to the bare metal.
2. Apply with a small brush silver lacquer/paint sold to repair heating coils in the back window of cars ( off ebay, etc ) to the spot with the paint removed. All this can be say 2 x1 milimeter in size.
3. First, after 2. dries, double check with an ohm meter the headshell now is conducting properly (0,0x ohms and lower ). Then apply some brilliant transparent acryl lacquer/paint over the silver lacquer, to prevent any further degradation of conductivity.
In a perfect world, the end customer should not have to deal with issues of grounding described above. But, since we do live in a real world, one that is far from perfect, we have to take into account that any of the remedies described above can be more time consuming than assembling the entire product in the factory.
Erispedia
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Crinacle just updated his headphone rank list with a hundred more headphones. But a lot of people were complaining that his choice of amp for testing (iFi Micro BL) doesn't do those high end headphones justice. They said the micro BL doesn't have enough power compared to fully desktop amp. What are your thoughts?
Veri
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Umm he's using a Topping A90, no?
https://crinacle.com/2020/09/06/topping-a90-in-the-hands-of-a-non-believer/
analogSurviver
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Likelihood that ifi micro BL does not actually have enough power is rather small. There are very few headphones that do require more power. On top of that list will probably forever stand AKG K-1000 and RAAL SR1a. And of course electrostatic headphones trough transformers - 4 watts/ch or 4.x watts for nitpickers ( or whatever ASR measured ) - is WAY too little power to drive any electrostatics adequately. Other than that, very little if any possible cases of inadequate power.
Output impedance, on the other hand, can be problematic with some very difficult/demanding designs as far as impedance is concerned. Those designs that really require lower amp output impedance may benefit from the use of such amp(s) - then again, not many such headphones around.
Higher powered desktop amps might have problems with noise when using sensitive IEMs.
Erispedia
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Erispedia
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He gave special treatment to electrostats like STAX by using STAX own amp. So we can safely exclude those.
analogSurviver
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I did not care to check the headphone survey in question. I only gave all possible cases where the power of ifi micro BL may not be enough.
Don't know Crinacle's fanbase, but I doubt "a lot of people" in general would complain about the Micro iDSD lacking power. Sounds more like the subcategory of big-spender gear-philes going around justifying their overpriced gear and trying to push others down the same rabbithole of neverending audio expenses. You can get the Micro iDSD (silver or black) as a desk unit and stop worrying about powering your non-estat headphones properly for the rest of your life (or until it breaks).
Veri
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Simple answer, yes, absolutely much better bang for the buck. Will also work just fine for gaming.
Does it worth the gap tho ?
If you want it portable/battery powered, the iFi is worth it. Otherwise, a topping/schiit/jds stack is the best bang for the buck
D
Deleted member 22273
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Consider black label or the new signature.
What is the output power on SE?same as balanced? If not? Black label is probably a better choice?
Planning to drive unbalanced.
What is the output power on SE?same as balanced? If not? Black label is probably a better choice?
Planning to drive unbalanced.
Veri
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Old black label is being phased out. If you can get it on promo/discount it's probably your best bet, the Signature offers 4.4mm output but it has same power over unbalanced/balanced. It costs more and all you get is that extra pentaconn connector...
D
Deleted member 22273
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The dealer give me 10% off on signature and 15% off on BL
Thats about 105 USD difference
Not so much.
Thats about 105 USD difference
Not so much.
Veri
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Signature will have higher re-sale value. Can you order on amazon however? I would try it and see if you really like this item, since it is so costly; so you can return it hassle-free in case you find it overpriced. That's what I'd do.
D
Deleted member 22273
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I can. But its too much tax and fees and shipping
Hello, ifi micro bl battery is over, it needs to be replaced, but ifi cannot provide this service where I am.
What can you suggest for me to continue using? Actually, I only use it in desktop dac amp style, the presence of the battery is not very important for me, can micro BL be a safe method of feeding over the power line? Or can you suggest an alternative battery, which I can use instead of the original battery, what are the minimum requirements since there is constant desktop use?
thank you,
What can you suggest for me to continue using? Actually, I only use it in desktop dac amp style, the presence of the battery is not very important for me, can micro BL be a safe method of feeding over the power line? Or can you suggest an alternative battery, which I can use instead of the original battery, what are the minimum requirements since there is constant desktop use?
thank you,
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