frontpage Posted by iconian | Staff • Yesterday
Jun 6, 2025 11:02 PM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
frontpage Posted by iconian | Staff • Yesterday
Jun 6, 2025 11:02 PM
iFi micro iDSD Signature Finale Portable Headphone Amp & DAC
+ Free Shipping$219
$749
70% offAdorama
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A few things to note:
1. You will need a USB A Male to female cable to connect it to your pc. The device out is usb A male. Most female A cable ends will fit
2. While it is battery powered, you will want to power it for desktop use. It does not power from the data connection, there is a separate usb C port for that. Whatever you have lying around will work, it's robust enough to take just about any usb C power.
3. It only accepts 6.3mm and 4.4 mm headphone cables, but it does include an adapter so you can use a 3.5mm with the 6.3 jack.
4. It's not going to work with a gaming head*set*. It does not have throughput for a mic. If you use headphones, and a separate mic, this will work. Otherwise it will not fit your needs. Additionaly.... even if you're using hyperx's or something and you use a separate mic... you aren't probably going to see a lot of improvement over motherboard audio with less resolving headphone drivers.
Other thoughts: It probably won't be ideal for consoles either. The 3D plus setting acts like a crossover in hifi or car audio terms... but it's not appropriate for gaming. While it does make the soundstage "wider" it will cause some inaccuracies to imaging.
TU to OP, this is an insane deal on a 10/10 dacamp.
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why not? it's a dac and an amp
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A few things to note:
1. You will need a USB A Male to female cable to connect it to your pc. The device out is usb A male. Most female A cable ends will fit
2. While it is battery powered, you will want to power it for desktop use. It does not power from the data connection, there is a separate usb C port for that. Whatever you have lying around will work, it's robust enough to take just about any usb C power.
3. It only accepts 6.3mm and 4.4 mm headphone cables, but it does include an adapter so you can use a 3.5mm with the 6.3 jack.
4. It's not going to work with a gaming head*set*. It does not have throughput for a mic. If you use headphones, and a separate mic, this will work. Otherwise it will not fit your needs. Additionaly.... even if you're using hyperx's or something and you use a separate mic... you aren't probably going to see a lot of improvement over motherboard audio with less resolving headphone drivers.
Other thoughts: It probably won't be ideal for consoles either. The 3D plus setting acts like a crossover in hifi or car audio terms... but it's not appropriate for gaming. While it does make the soundstage "wider" it will cause some inaccuracies to imaging.
TU to OP, this is an insane deal on a 10/10 dacamp.
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Some of them perform well. Others perform poorly. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
You CANNOT trust specs.
You CANNOT trust reviews that don't heave measurements. I cannot find any reviews with measurements.
If a million youtubers say it's the hottest thing ever, such a bargain, and a million forum posters agree, that doesn't mean a darn thing other than some of them got paid off, and the others want to get paid off.
Also, apparently, the price isn't that much of a discount.
You can buy a tiny dongle for cheap that will do most of what this can do and probably much better. If you really need to walk around in your high impedance, low sensitivity headphones, you get what you deserve.
Quite the conspiracy that unless someone includes measurements, they must have been paid off along with every single other reviewer. The thought of a company selling such a niche item for a few hundred bucks paying off "millions" of YouTubers is comical.
That being said, I have no measurements to share, but I owned this and it's phenomenal. ( Thanks for the payment ifi 😉 )
That being said, I have no measurements to share, but I owned this and it's phenomenal. ( Thanks for the payment ifi 😉 )
People praise for attention and money and free products. It's not a conspiracy. It's just capitalism.
Measure it or say nothing.
People praise for attention and money and free products. It's not a conspiracy. It's just capitalism.
Measure it or say nothing.
The only differences between the Finale, and the Signature (which GoldenSound himself measured alongside the Black and Diablo v1 and loved) is that:
-this one has the same processor as the Diablo v1, decodes mqa
-this one has a different potentiometer that loses channel imbalance much earlier (the units are powered on by turning the volume knob until it clicks... as with all devices like that there is some channel imbalance until a certain point on the pot... it's much earlier on this one, I own both)
- ELNA capacitors vs TDK and Panasonic capacitors. That is literally it. Otherwise it measures exactly the same.
This is the lowest price the unit has ever been at. It offers a *ton* of features and plays well with a huge range of listening devices.... both iem and headphone... which is not something most dongles can come close to saying.
If you have nothing constructive to add to the discussion beyond "RAWR REVIEWERS SHILL" please go away.
Not a bad model but an antiquated model.
The Finale has notably better dynamics than my xCAN. I sent the Finale back, though, for two reasons…
1) I would use it primarily for when I go for walks around the subdivision. I didn't like the additional cable (phone to amp) compared to my xCAN.
2) if I turned the volume on my iPhone down, the levels to my ear actually went up. Not sure if I just got a bad unit or what…
I paid $249 and my personal preference and/or issue aside, I thought that was a good price for what it packs. For $219, if you're looking for a solid portable amp/DAC (or even for hybrid use), this is really tough to beat. If you're going desktop use only, I'd go the Schiit route (albeit for a bit more new).
Not a bad model but an antiquated model.
You simply cannot feed enough power to some headphones with a dongle or a bt dongle. You may not like it, but it's true. I will give you that it's lacking a wireless function (not that you need it for how this is meant to be used) and it's awkward needing 2 cables to power and feed sound (though that is a feature not antiquity, it keeps the power line noise out of the signal chain).... beyond that you're comparing apples and hand grenades.
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Modern dongles absolutely can power most over-ear headphones but it will drain the phone battery. There are simple calculators you can use to inform you how much power you actually need to power a headphone and it's much less than people parrot. Most Sennheiser and Focal headphones are very efficient so they don't require a lot of power.
So this is a DAC/amp unit comboed with a battery. Again, an antiquated model. You can get a powerhouse dongle and a battery bank for cheaper than this unit. It won't get 1W @ 32ohms output but I don't see how anyone really needs that in a portable unit unless you're traveling with full sized planar headphones (and even then Hifiman has moved to much more efficient drivers).