iFi Audio iDSD Diablo Portable DAC & Headphone Amplifier

Devilishly brilliant.

The iDSD Diablo, with its sleek new design and fiery red finish, sits proudly at the top of the range of portable/transportable DAC/amps. It is built for purists – the true headphone enthusiasts who crave pure, unadulterated sonic performance.

Just like a racing car designed for uncompromising speed, the iDSD Diablo sets aside sonic tailoring as well as Bluetooth connectivity to focus on pure sonic power. Prepare for a riveting ride as it will drive any headphone on the planet with aplomb.

Put simply, the iDSD Diablo is iFi's best ever transportable amplifier designed to deliver reference-level sound.

'Bit-perfectly' wicked

iFi uses two Burr-Brown DAC chips and the new 16-core XMOS chip to process the data received via the USB and S/PDIF digital inputs. This means the iDSD Diablo can handle up to PCM 768, DSD 512, 2xDXD. Both PCM and DSD remain 'bit-perfect'.

Positively pure

Balanced, differential analog circuit design reduces noise and cross-talk within the signal path by fully separating the left and right channels. The iDSD Diablo benefits from further refinements to iFi's balanced, symmetrical dual-mono topologies with short, direct signal paths. This is called PureWave.

Negative feedback is used in amplifier circuits to compare the output signal with the input signal and correct errors, but there are drawbacks. iFi turns the negatives into positives with OptimaLoop.

Diabolically dynamic

Able to drive all manner of headphones with ease, the iDSD Diablo delivers up to 5000mW of prodigious power, propulsive energy, and engaging dynamics, coupled with a remarkable ability to resolve fine texture and detail.

With 3 settings, you can adjust power and gain to suit your daily driver or track day supercar!

• Turbo – ramps up the level of drive for current-hungry headphones
• Normal – for most over or on-ear headphones
• Eco – dials down the power to suit high-sensitivity in-ear monitors

Formula 1, iFi style.

High-bandwidth power supply circuity is dedicated to each critical part of the iDSD Diablo’s design, with independent linear regulation delivering excellent PSRR (Power Supply Rejection Ratio) performance.

The headphone amp stage eschews IC regulators in favor of Panasonic OS-CON capacitors, delivering 2320uF between them. The DAC section benefits from an ultra-low-noise regulator with additional passive filtering, reducing high order harmonic distortion and, in turn, jitter. Even the USB input stage benefits from dedicated regulation and multi-stage filtering, and the microprocessor control circuitry (often a local source of digital noise) has separate regulation, too.