They haven't removed the mention of the 5180mW from their product page. "The Diablo 2 offers the best of both worlds with its powerful 5,180mW maxmium output and balanced dual-mono circuitry, making it the most powerful headphone amplifier of its size." They still mention 5180mW@32 ohms which is still misleading (even in the video). And all the sellers still tout the 5W power, meaning i the marketing is still very much lying. The reviewer shouldn't be as nice with them as he was.
I'd try saying something about balanced architecture having some actual benefits in practice (as well as noisy USB signal having an impact that would be great to remedy in some way), but after discovering the way it was implemented in this product as well as the reasoning behind it... It feels somewhat inappropriate. Still this whole situation is on another level altogether, imo. Irredeemable. That's a shame, since it seems to be a good product otherwise, apart from being overpriced as usual.
@@juanblanco7898 It's not that balanced amps aren't conceptually cool, or that USB noise is never a problem. The problem is that they pander to the ignorance of the market. Balanced amps aren't always the best solution, but many consumers think that any balanced amp is better than a great SE one. Ifi doesn't care, because as said in the video, their products sell better if they put "balanced" in the feature set. Then there's the purifiers. I'm pretty sure they intentionally skimp on interference suppression in their devices in order to sell purifier dongles at exorbitant prices. When they include built-in "iPurifier" technology in a DAC, they make a big deal of it. Meaning that it's an exception, not a rule, for them to put in that effort. Anecdotally, my old Zen DAC was a pain to get noise free. It really did need one of their fancy power supplies or dongles to work as well as many other comparable products does straight out of the box.
More concerning is the marketing team sticking its tentacles into engineering decisions, a well-known recipe for utter failure. Are you listening iFi ?
They haven't removed the mention of the 5180mW from their product page. Or perhaps they put it back ? "The Diablo 2 offers the best of both worlds with its powerful 5,180mW maxmium output and balanced dual-mono circuitry, making it the most powerful headphone amplifier of its size." They still mention 5180mW@32 ohms which is still misleading (even in the video). And all the sellers still tout the 5W power, meaning i the marketing is still very much lying. The video shouldn't be as nice with them as they are.
This is why independent testing is so important. Whatever your opinion of ASR and similar "communities" they do contribute necessary data points for consumers. I got sucked into the iFi marketing and design esthetic when I was a new enthusiast, but have come to see the light. Thanks for this video!
ASR gets bad rep for the objectivism, but it's really the first thing I check when I want actual numbers. I hope it stays alive, even if I don't directly participate in it.
The issue I have with ASR isn't that they are objectivist. It's that the methodology and analysis parroted by Amir and his zealots is often shit. SINAD scores aren't useful when everything is 20 dB below the audible limit, yet everyone gets excited about it. I've never seen harmonic distortion analysed with auditory masking in mind, and measuring headphones without accounting for seating, seal, and averaging is just moronic. They often only seem to care about results they can use to validate their pre-existing opinions and build their "us vs them" narrative.
@@Joelsfilmer I think Amir himself is fine, he's been including subjective listening tests for a while now as well so I think his posts are decently well balanced. He also often mentions whether any distortion is audible or not. The ASR community on the other hand is pretty insufferable for the most part.
Videos like this are SO IMPORTANT to get products tested when some people spend so much money on their gear. The specifications must not be misleading. Thanks for the testing 😊
iFi should have to go in the penalty box and not allowed to sell anything for a year. Great research as always. Thank you for your service for truth. It’s amazing how much of a difference one person can make in this hobby.
More than a few purchased the original Diablo based on the 5W claim, so yeah it’s pretty fraudulent once money’s involved and you KNOW what you’re doing is straight up wrong. iFi’s culture clearly very cynical. What a dangerous company.
Everyone does fraudvertising these days, even Samsung and Apple. Do you remember when Samsung first announced their fold phones? Claiming that they broke the laws of physics? And it turned out it was just a plastic screen? The US legal system does not target fraudulent advertising, and no lawyer would touch it because there's no profit in it. Get over it, deal with it. Stop believing advertising and do your own research. That's the only way to get good info. Nothing will ever be done legally. Even the UK, with its more sensible legal system (forcing usb c on apple, forcing replaceable smartphone batteries) doesn't go after false claims. Everyone does it. Not saying it's okay, but if you dig enough, everyone is lying.
Its wide spread. In the commercial market, I tried to understand how an amp was able to push 6000w RMS from a 10a, 230v outlet. After much back and forth, they sort of acknowledged that it couldn't. We all need to have a good eye for BS.
Thank you for calling out iFi. It's a shame, as they had a great, and popular range of products, but began ruining their reputation with quality issues and dubious marketing. Something else to consider: The Diablo 1 had newer firmware released, which I think improved the sound quality noticeably, with the option of MQA or non-MQA firmware versions. But, the big elephant in the room is: The Mojo 2.
I wish they would update the polly to have proper Bluetooth support like ldac. You can run roon arc, but the bitrate is limited, you get none of the plug in or eq of real roon, and you can't play offline tidal. I want to use it on the go but attached to my phone is impractical in every conceivable way.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez can't agree enough. Right now I have Fiio BT13 as the Bluetooth receiver and am connecting this to mojo2 via optical input, which seems to be the only reasonable way I can use LDAC with mojo. But that is a desktop device, and a portable bluetooth 5.0+ receiver + LDAC support + optical out is just so rare of a combo that I can't find them. There are a few that support aptxHD and that's it.
The channel imbalance on ifi's portable devices is quite an issue that many people gloss over. I recently bought an ifi idsd Signature "Finale", which claimed it had improved volume pot QC over the regular Signature. Lo and behold, I get 1db of channel imbalance below about 10 o'clock, which I find bothersome. ifi themselves have said on Head Fi that this is normal, and you should stick to volumes at 12 o'clock or above. I've not seen channel imbalance extending so far up the pot on any other amps before, but I've now owned several ifi devices with this problem. I had to return a hipDAC where imbalance extended to 3 o'clock. I don't own any particularly sensitive headphones, but I do listen to louder music that I like to turn down for longer sessions. I shouldn't have to turn on iematch or attenuate digitally when I have an Edition XS plugged in.
Very well said. Remember when iPhone antennas were causing cell service issues Jobs responded "Just don't hold it that way." "This is normal, just stick to volume above 12" is a very old school apple way of dealing with an actual flaw in the product, when you have this many competitors in the market.
Nope. iFi specs are absolute garbage. Buy their products at your own risk. For me, I’m done. There are too many alternatives for far cheaper. iFi charge top end prices for sketchy af performance. The worst of all worlds.
iFi also flat out lies about using USB 3.0 in their products. They use a USB 3.0 socket on their desktop DACs, which has the extra "hump" for the SuperSpeed lanes, but those are not used at all. They also make claims about USB 3.0 giving them more power, which would be true if they actually enumerated at SuperSpeed, which they don't. They even claim that the XMOS controller supports "the latest SuperSpeed USB standard" (quote from the ZEN DAC V2 page) and it absolutely does not. I've been waiting on someone to call them on their marketing BS for a while and they really should be castigated for their fictitious marketing specifications. The sad thing is that their products sound fine, so they don't need to do this. They just do it anyway.
Excellent discussion on amplifier output and marketing claims. These kinds of misleading marketing is as old as time unfortunately, and I always see it as a risk to take such a road. For mainstream consumer products, yes, you can often get away with "Max" values and consumers don't really know any better or often care. But when you get into a more niche consumer space, these kinds of tactics get dangerous. Consumers are far more informed, picky, and brand name carries far more weight. It's ALWAYS the safer bet to not exaggerate and to assume your customer is well informed, well educated, and will see through any bs marketing. It's a shame companies working in this space still play these kinds of tactics. Also good work on explaining amplifier limits, clipping, and even basics like what volume knobs do. Sometimes this seems silly to cover, but it's important everyone understands the basics. I'm pretty new to this channel, so I haven't dug back into older videos. This is good coverage on a headphone amp, and I think I'll be browsing for some older reviews and check out some more amps or DAC/amps you've covered. Have you guys done a shootout or best of kind of review on amps or DAC/amps before?
Good video that got the manufacturer correct their information. Another thing that no manufacturer addresses is continuation of apps needed to operate gear. When app support is terminated, consumers end up with 'smart' devices going 'dumb' as in 'inoperable'. This could also happen to audio gear for app-only functionality
Thank you Golden for the review. Such a shame ifi produces many good products but reputation will be hard to restore. Hope you can do more reviews like this to protect or inform us consumers for these misleading products!
Stay far away. iFi does this BS on all their products. If their products were budget then maybe understandable, but they charge a premium based on the exaggeration so they’re off the table for me as a company I’d purchase from. Too many better, cheaper alternatives exist in today’s market.
Thank you for this video and for calling iFi out Cam! Now I wonder what’s the actual power of my Zen DAC V2, Pro iCAN Signature and the Gryphpn I have. I love the sounds and the features loaded onto the iCAN though.
My ifi go pods had the plastic housing crack the first time I put it back in the case. Just the act of putting it in the case was enough to crack the cheap plastic. It also totally fails to support LHDC and can't achieve max bitrate for LDAC. Every firmware version has major bugs.
In the world of car audio this level of dishonesty in power rating is practiced only by the lowest tier of manufacturers. No brand attempting to maintain even modicum of respect would attemp to sell products this way. The responses from marketing and engineering just come off as fabricated excuses after being caught. Many thanks to the reviewer for protecting consumers from what I consider thievery on the part of iFi.
IANAL, but pretty sure the old 5 watt spec was a violation of U.S. FTC rules regarding amplifier ratings. The rules were adopted in the 70s because of nonsense amp ratings.
It's a good lesson for the whole industry and for all of us personally. iFi Audio does make good products. They've had a good reputation. It only takes one mis-step, one mis-calculation, to destroy years of good-will. My hope is that they will learn and grow from this experience and become the paragon of virtue. This planet is moving quickly into an era of Light...which means many shaky things will be coming out into the open. Anything that doesn't have integrity is going down!
I totally agree with this, as much as I like iFi and their style and products they need to be more honest. I'm really happy this is on The Headphone Show channel as this needs to get highlighted so manufactures are being more upfront with consumers.
This is very wrong and on a device this expensive? Good thing that I'm not even their market for something like this. I can buy a reasonably good desktop stack for that money. Thanks for keeping these companies honest Golden Sound.
Shame on you iFi for misleading advertising. Another brand that 'embellishes' their products with clever marketing is FiiO. Anyhow, great video by The Headphone Show! Very informative as well about the misconceptions people have about 'more power = always better'. It's not all about 'power' in and of itself. It's more about 'clean, undistorted power'.
This is a proper review. A few weeks ago I seen a "review" where was repeatedly stated this has over 5000 megawatts. Poor guy was so uneducated that has no grasp on what order of magnitude is a milliwatt compared to a megawatt
I used to own the iFi iDSD (released 2014/2015?), the grand daddy of the diablo line. Even back then their whole line was all about the power output via the Single End and they lied about some of the specs too. Heck, a buddy of mine tested their other products and lets just say iFi purifiers were misleading at best, a scam at worst.
It takes multiple instances of me being not fully satisfied with a product before I drop the company that made that product. It takes exactly 1 instance of a company lying to me for me to drop them.
Thank you for your unveiled language regarding this mess! Could you confirm whether the xDSD Gryphon is at least really balanced or does this unit suffers under this false claim as well? 😢
Loved the video. These are the same guys who are always slagging off Chinese brands like Topping as their brands are superior. The English in their guidance is dramatically better, but their lies are a lot better as well. Thanks for highlighting this as I won't support branding like this.
I am a noob audiophile. One look at my fiio k7 power supply an one look at idsd neo power supply was what i needed to determine my purchase. Specs and power ratings come a lot after.
Unhappy that iFi marketing was misleading, but overjoyed that they finally succumbed and did the right thing to be (somewhat) more honest and transparent. It should NOT have taken a video review prior to public release to get to this point but I'm very happy that the end result is a more factual correct marketing and product. Bravo Golden! 👏🏽 Edit: as a commentator has pointed out, some of the marketing by iFi Audio still seems to be sketchy or misleading for this product. That's unfortunate, but this video out to help potential buyers know what the product actually does and its best use cases with headphones.
I dont think they did. It still says the balanced has more output and I've never EVER seen an amplifier produce TWICE the amount of power at 64ohm than 32. 32 to 16 yes, but never this.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez...darn, 🤦🏽♂️ At least Golden has done all he can, and this video serves as a way to inform the (audiophile) community of what this product actually does and its best use cases are, but also how the company's marketing is either misleading or outright wrong.
@@TheOneInYellow kinda ironic that headfi continues to peddle the lie that Chinese products are not to be trusted, when it is the established old guard manufacturers that are the shady ones. Astell and Kurn don't put their power rating up honestly. They give the voltage at no load, so just its floating point. Some of their days output 7v, which for most amps would be over a 1w, but they actually output bearly 200mw. They purposefully hid it so you think it's comparable to something substantially more powerful. Some manufacturers don't even put a power rating at all like woo audio, again, to concel how competitive it really is.
Wow, I never realized just how much the specs on my iFi xCAN were being inflated by iFi's non-standard testing methodology. I thought, oh, 600mW output for 16 ohms, nice, that should handle any headphone I'd reasonably pick up in the future. I eventually got the impression that the xCAN is going to be underpowered for some headphones given how much of the headroom can be taken by my Hifiman Edition XS and even some IEMs (relative to expectations). So, the real output is likely somewhere in the ballpark of half of that? Granted, it's similarly pocketable to modern (large) phones or a big wallet, so I don't think it'd be easy to 1:1 replace it with anything significantly more powerful, but I'm irritated to know that I can't easily compare my DAC to the competition or potential upgrades. The tech specs for the xCAN still report "Max Output".
No you can get a topping nx7. It's longer, but it is thinner and narrower and will fit the dimensions of most partnering devices much better. Its been measured at 1.47W RMS at 32ohm. It's the most efficient portable amplifier on the market. I have one and there is basically nothing to replace it with.
As just a schmuck who watches TH-cam videos and hasn't delved into audiophile territory _at all_ myself, this explains why when DankPods swapped from using a Chord Mojo2 to the Diablo 1 for burning out junky headphones, it seemed relatively unimpressive.
Do any of you guys know if it's the same thing with the iDSD Neo 2? It sure seems to have A LOT more power than the last one and I've not found one bad review of it. Seriously considering that for the next desk dac/amp.
This reminds me of the '70's when solid state stereos were really taking off (versus vacuum tubes) and this sort of crazy marketing BS was all over the place, and most of that gear sounded horrible in comparison to the tube driven Marantz and McIntosh units, which by coincidence were conservatively spec'd.
RMS power rating can also be misleading. The whole industry provides misleading specs. If you are really serious about consumer protection you should ask all amp makers to priced RMS at 30, 50, 100 and 300ohms and from 20hz to 20khz. As you know an amp that can deliver 5w only at 1khz is far less powerful than one that can deliver the full 5w from 20hz to 20khz.
ifi is a great engineering company with a scummy marketing department. Which brings them dangerously close to being a scummy company. Also most stores don't update their product pages after the initial listing, my local dealer still has it as a "5W" amp. And no mention whatsoever that it needs to be plugged into a socket for that.
ifi tend to have misleading marketing on those products that has higher price range to justify their price i do hope they still go within their affordable lines and improve there
I’ve had several ifi products and have nothing but commentary on their performance. I currently have the go blu and hip dac2 and both are very solid for the $. With that said the marketing around hifi is sketch AF. For example in 2 channel world speaker amp companies love to market their high end power amps as “full class A” or “deeper class A”. When in reality almost no class A amps exist and they are really class AB with a heavy A bias. But hifi enthusiasts fall for it especially with nostalgia of real class A amps from the 70s. They have other thousands in droves with hopes of that warm thick class a sound .
I'm sorry if an amp is advertised as X Watts of Class A and it does in fact operate in Class A up to X watts then it is indeed Class A, no matter if it can then slide to Class B for >X watts or it just gives up and clips (as a single ended amp would do). There is nothing in the definition of Class A that relates to the topology, for example single ended vs push-pull (complementary). So you are very wrong, I'm afraid.
try to measure the old mini iDSD... it will really surprise you... on how much you can fuck up a product by not understanding how to implement battery ps properly
This is why we need people like you to measure stuff (thank you!) And that's why I'm not paying to a company that lies like this and sells USB purifiers (LOL) Wanna love this hobby but things like these are annoying as heck
Will never buy another iFi product again. Purchased a hipdac from them and with more sensitive iems there's a very loud hissing noise. For $150 that's pretty unacceptable. Not surprised to see stuff like this when they can't even get the noise floor right.
When I say my height is 6 feet, it can't mean I am 6' when I lift my hills and stand on my toes. Yes, at the specific moment the measurement of my extended body maybe at a certain length, but we have socially agreed upon circumstances and terms that describe what "height" means. Same goes for iFi and they really should be ashamed. You can claim all you want on "misunderstanding" and "miscommunication" but see how well that goes with your tinder date. Diablo 2 has a lot of features I like, but I don't think I will ever be buying this because they are blatantly misleading people for their gain.
You'd be surprised at how often a marketing/support staff member promises to update/fix description at their page or whatever and then it never happens.
It's interesting (?) predictable (?) that this device doesn't really work with IEMs. I bought a Micro BL a many years ago, but concluded that as a headphone amp it was only any good with hard-to-drive headphones such as my 250Ω DT880s or (more recently) FT3s. With anything else, whether it's an IEM or headphone, the volume rapidly hits a point where it's far too loud, and there's a tiny, hard-to-find arc where the volume's just right. It seems to me that the Nano BL is a much better device for lower-rated IEMs and headphones, which in turn, led me to wonder what the point of the Micro BL was. I mostly used the Micro BL as a speaker amp until I discovered that the RCA sockets had got damaged by the weight of the cables. So, not really a speaker amp except with light cables.
Holy crap! With this kind of marketing I assumed this was another one of those $99 Chi-Fi devices, but this thing is $1300!!! I will never need to listen to headphones that badly.
respect for this well needed fact based review mate. i share it on ChiFi Love. as well, i always feel imatch affect proper dynamic response...at least on iGryphon. i need to see proper measurement now, again tx to you! -NymPHONOmaniac
Amazing content, great delivery but... for non english natives, you talk really fast. That's great most of the time but I missed out the name of your reference headphone amp, no matter how many times I replayed, and I could not see the name in the short video insert. What is it if I may ask? Thanks again for all these informations!
Thanks iFi for fixing that, but it would have been better to not get in this mess in the first place. Earn our trust again - but this is a good first step.
Great job! Lack of transparency and misleading metrics is a pet peeve of mine, so glad you called this out. Great piece of audio journalism 🙏
They haven't removed the mention of the 5180mW from their product page.
"The Diablo 2 offers the best of both worlds with its powerful 5,180mW maxmium output and balanced dual-mono circuitry, making it the most powerful headphone amplifier of its size."
They still mention 5180mW@32 ohms which is still misleading (even in the video). And all the sellers still tout the 5W power, meaning i the marketing is still very much lying.
The reviewer shouldn't be as nice with them as he was.
Ifi loves their dubious marketing. They make a lot of weird claims about their purifiers and the supposed benefits of balanced outputs.
I'd try saying something about balanced architecture having some actual benefits in practice (as well as noisy USB signal having an impact that would be great to remedy in some way), but after discovering the way it was implemented in this product as well as the reasoning behind it... It feels somewhat inappropriate.
Still this whole situation is on another level altogether, imo. Irredeemable.
That's a shame, since it seems to be a good product otherwise, apart from being overpriced as usual.
@@juanblanco7898 It's not that balanced amps aren't conceptually cool, or that USB noise is never a problem.
The problem is that they pander to the ignorance of the market. Balanced amps aren't always the best solution, but many consumers think that any balanced amp is better than a great SE one. Ifi doesn't care, because as said in the video, their products sell better if they put "balanced" in the feature set.
Then there's the purifiers. I'm pretty sure they intentionally skimp on interference suppression in their devices in order to sell purifier dongles at exorbitant prices. When they include built-in "iPurifier" technology in a DAC, they make a big deal of it. Meaning that it's an exception, not a rule, for them to put in that effort.
Anecdotally, my old Zen DAC was a pain to get noise free. It really did need one of their fancy power supplies or dongles to work as well as many other comparable products does straight out of the box.
More concerning is the marketing team sticking its tentacles into engineering decisions, a well-known recipe for utter failure. Are you listening iFi ?
They used to be great when first started out. Not long after, everything went to ….😅
They haven't removed the mention of the 5180mW from their product page. Or perhaps they put it back ?
"The Diablo 2 offers the best of both worlds with its powerful 5,180mW maxmium output and balanced dual-mono circuitry, making it the most powerful headphone amplifier of its size."
They still mention 5180mW@32 ohms which is still misleading (even in the video). And all the sellers still tout the 5W power, meaning i the marketing is still very much lying. The video shouldn't be as nice with them as they are.
This is why independent testing is so important. Whatever your opinion of ASR and similar "communities" they do contribute necessary data points for consumers. I got sucked into the iFi marketing and design esthetic when I was a new enthusiast, but have come to see the light. Thanks for this video!
ASR gets bad rep for the objectivism, but it's really the first thing I check when I want actual numbers. I hope it stays alive, even if I don't directly participate in it.
The issue I have with ASR isn't that they are objectivist. It's that the methodology and analysis parroted by Amir and his zealots is often shit.
SINAD scores aren't useful when everything is 20 dB below the audible limit, yet everyone gets excited about it. I've never seen harmonic distortion analysed with auditory masking in mind, and measuring headphones without accounting for seating, seal, and averaging is just moronic. They often only seem to care about results they can use to validate their pre-existing opinions and build their "us vs them" narrative.
I find Amir is great for DAC/Amp results. But headphones is a shit show with him.
@@Joelsfilmer I think Amir himself is fine, he's been including subjective listening tests for a while now as well so I think his posts are decently well balanced. He also often mentions whether any distortion is audible or not. The ASR community on the other hand is pretty insufferable for the most part.
@@CockatooDude no his headphone testing is unacceptable.
Thank you so much for calling this stuff out!
Videos like this are SO IMPORTANT to get products tested when some people spend so much money on their gear. The specifications must not be misleading. Thanks for the testing 😊
Misleading marketing is the diablo family's strong suit
More like all IFI product which contain amplifier
I guess the clue was in the name. It’s a shame.
O diabo é o pai da mentira .
iFi should have to go in the penalty box and not allowed to sell anything for a year. Great research as always. Thank you for your service for truth. It’s amazing how much of a difference one person can make in this hobby.
You have no idea how capitalism works
@@luqmanibrahim he said should.
You were FAR too kind with the language used in this video. They were committing straight up fraud.
I liked the calm reserved approach, it's very British.
@@willielastliterally "a bit much, innit?" 😂
More than a few purchased the original Diablo based on the 5W claim, so yeah it’s pretty fraudulent once money’s involved and you KNOW what you’re doing is straight up wrong. iFi’s culture clearly very cynical. What a dangerous company.
Everyone does fraudvertising these days, even Samsung and Apple. Do you remember when Samsung first announced their fold phones? Claiming that they broke the laws of physics? And it turned out it was just a plastic screen?
The US legal system does not target fraudulent advertising, and no lawyer would touch it because there's no profit in it. Get over it, deal with it. Stop believing advertising and do your own research. That's the only way to get good info.
Nothing will ever be done legally. Even the UK, with its more sensible legal system (forcing usb c on apple, forcing replaceable smartphone batteries) doesn't go after false claims. Everyone does it. Not saying it's okay, but if you dig enough, everyone is lying.
Its wide spread. In the commercial market, I tried to understand how an amp was able to push 6000w RMS from a 10a, 230v outlet. After much back and forth, they sort of acknowledged that it couldn't. We all need to have a good eye for BS.
Thank you for calling out iFi. It's a shame, as they had a great, and popular range of products, but began ruining their reputation with quality issues and dubious marketing.
Something else to consider: The Diablo 1 had newer firmware released, which I think improved the sound quality noticeably, with the option of MQA or non-MQA firmware versions.
But, the big elephant in the room is: The Mojo 2.
What's wrong with Mojo 2? Was planning to buy one in the near future.
@@interstellar4660 Nothing -- quite the opposite.
I wish they would update the polly to have proper Bluetooth support like ldac. You can run roon arc, but the bitrate is limited, you get none of the plug in or eq of real roon, and you can't play offline tidal. I want to use it on the go but attached to my phone is impractical in every conceivable way.
I agree with joshi. The mojo really needs a mordern Bluetooth adapter.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez can't agree enough. Right now I have Fiio BT13 as the Bluetooth receiver and am connecting this to mojo2 via optical input, which seems to be the only reasonable way I can use LDAC with mojo. But that is a desktop device, and a portable bluetooth 5.0+ receiver + LDAC support + optical out is just so rare of a combo that I can't find them. There are a few that support aptxHD and that's it.
This and with their horrid customer service, I'm done with ifi.
Damn, i really enjoy my Gryphon, but after hearing this I'm severely discouraged from ever getting an ifi product again.
Thanks GS for the PSA!
The Gryphon is arguably the best iFi product going right now. The omission of XBASS on the Diablo/Diablo II was asinine
The channel imbalance on ifi's portable devices is quite an issue that many people gloss over.
I recently bought an ifi idsd Signature "Finale", which claimed it had improved volume pot QC over the regular Signature. Lo and behold, I get 1db of channel imbalance below about 10 o'clock, which I find bothersome. ifi themselves have said on Head Fi that this is normal, and you should stick to volumes at 12 o'clock or above. I've not seen channel imbalance extending so far up the pot on any other amps before, but I've now owned several ifi devices with this problem. I had to return a hipDAC where imbalance extended to 3 o'clock. I don't own any particularly sensitive headphones, but I do listen to louder music that I like to turn down for longer sessions. I shouldn't have to turn on iematch or attenuate digitally when I have an Edition XS plugged in.
Very well said. Remember when iPhone antennas were causing cell service issues Jobs responded "Just don't hold it that way." "This is normal, just stick to volume above 12" is a very old school apple way of dealing with an actual flaw in the product, when you have this many competitors in the market.
Thank for doing this video! Keep an eye on these companies, Very nice.
Wow. I was waiting for you guys to review Ifi’s Neo idsd 2 and now I wonder if I can even trust any measurements Ifi put out again.
Nope. iFi specs are absolute garbage. Buy their products at your own risk. For me, I’m done. There are too many alternatives for far cheaper. iFi charge top end prices for sketchy af performance. The worst of all worlds.
iFi also flat out lies about using USB 3.0 in their products. They use a USB 3.0 socket on their desktop DACs, which has the extra "hump" for the SuperSpeed lanes, but those are not used at all. They also make claims about USB 3.0 giving them more power, which would be true if they actually enumerated at SuperSpeed, which they don't. They even claim that the XMOS controller supports "the latest SuperSpeed USB standard" (quote from the ZEN DAC V2 page) and it absolutely does not. I've been waiting on someone to call them on their marketing BS for a while and they really should be castigated for their fictitious marketing specifications. The sad thing is that their products sound fine, so they don't need to do this. They just do it anyway.
Sticking to and happy with my 3+ years old iDSD Signature
I knew IFI was full of it when Dankpods tried blowing up dirty buds with a Diablo and it didn’t put a candle to the Mojo
Excellent discussion on amplifier output and marketing claims. These kinds of misleading marketing is as old as time unfortunately, and I always see it as a risk to take such a road. For mainstream consumer products, yes, you can often get away with "Max" values and consumers don't really know any better or often care. But when you get into a more niche consumer space, these kinds of tactics get dangerous. Consumers are far more informed, picky, and brand name carries far more weight. It's ALWAYS the safer bet to not exaggerate and to assume your customer is well informed, well educated, and will see through any bs marketing. It's a shame companies working in this space still play these kinds of tactics.
Also good work on explaining amplifier limits, clipping, and even basics like what volume knobs do. Sometimes this seems silly to cover, but it's important everyone understands the basics.
I'm pretty new to this channel, so I haven't dug back into older videos. This is good coverage on a headphone amp, and I think I'll be browsing for some older reviews and check out some more amps or DAC/amps you've covered. Have you guys done a shootout or best of kind of review on amps or DAC/amps before?
Thanks for the video. Ifi products are now off the table for me which makes my next purchase easier.
Good video that got the manufacturer correct their information. Another thing that no manufacturer addresses is continuation of apps needed to operate gear. When app support is terminated, consumers end up with 'smart' devices going 'dumb' as in 'inoperable'. This could also happen to audio gear for app-only functionality
This is going to be fun, let me go grab some popcorn 🍿
Nice analysis! Thank you for covering this issue.
Thanks for the illuminating review, we need reviews like yours. Power aside, how would you compare the signature with mojo2? Thanks
Thank you Golden for the review. Such a shame ifi produces many good products but reputation will be hard to restore. Hope you can do more reviews like this to protect or inform us consumers for these misleading products!
would be nice to measure the Ampersand Amp from Centrance... it has enough power for the Mod House Tungsten..
yes please
See if it wasn't for measurements, you would probably never know....
Glad I saw this video first since I'm in the market for a new DAC/AMP and briefly considered this and the iDSD Neo 2...
Stay far away. iFi does this BS on all their products. If their products were budget then maybe understandable, but they charge a premium based on the exaggeration so they’re off the table for me as a company I’d purchase from. Too many better, cheaper alternatives exist in today’s market.
Good review as always!
What do you think about the Earmen Angel in comparaison? Better neutrality and clarity sound with the Angel Imo.
Dude well done for calling out their bullshit, this has to stop, was thinking of getting this as a upgrade from my idsd signature but not now.
Thank you for this video and for calling iFi out Cam! Now I wonder what’s the actual power of my Zen DAC V2, Pro iCAN Signature and the Gryphpn I have. I love the sounds and the features loaded onto the iCAN though.
My ifi go pods had the plastic housing crack the first time I put it back in the case. Just the act of putting it in the case was enough to crack the cheap plastic. It also totally fails to support LHDC and can't achieve max bitrate for LDAC. Every firmware version has major bugs.
This gain issue also presents itself frequently with many respected (albeit mostly VC owned) brands of 2-channel integrated amplifiers.
explains Dankpods's earlier complaint about the Diablo somehow being less powerful than the Mojo
I remember the same
does this kind of weird marketing claim also apply to other products by ifs? For instance the zen can or the gryphon?
In the world of car audio this level of dishonesty in power rating is practiced only by the lowest tier of manufacturers. No brand attempting to maintain even modicum of respect would attemp to sell products this way. The responses from marketing and engineering just come off as fabricated excuses after being caught. Many thanks to the reviewer for protecting consumers from what I consider thievery on the part of iFi.
I’ve been interested in the Diablo for a while… wow does that change things.
IANAL, but pretty sure the old 5 watt spec was a violation of U.S. FTC rules regarding amplifier ratings. The rules were adopted in the 70s because of nonsense amp ratings.
And things like peak music power output (P.M.P.O.)
It's a good lesson for the whole industry and for all of us personally. iFi Audio does make good products. They've had a good reputation. It only takes one mis-step, one mis-calculation, to destroy years of good-will. My hope is that they will learn and grow from this experience and become the paragon of virtue. This planet is moving quickly into an era of Light...which means many shaky things will be coming out into the open. Anything that doesn't have integrity is going down!
I totally agree with this, as much as I like iFi and their style and products they need to be more honest. I'm really happy this is on The Headphone Show channel as this needs to get highlighted so manufactures are being more upfront with consumers.
Well Done, We need more of this. Honest, Fair, Analytical. Absolutely Fantastic.
This is very wrong and on a device this expensive? Good thing that I'm not even their market for something like this. I can buy a reasonably good desktop stack for that money. Thanks for keeping these companies honest Golden Sound.
Shame on you iFi for misleading advertising.
Another brand that 'embellishes' their products with clever marketing is FiiO.
Anyhow, great video by The Headphone Show! Very informative as well about the misconceptions people have about 'more power = always better'.
It's not all about 'power' in and of itself. It's more about 'clean, undistorted power'.
Misleading marketing? In this hobby? Tale as old as time.
Harder for them to get away with it these days!
You really believe that? @@mccririck01
This is a proper review. A few weeks ago I seen a "review" where was repeatedly stated this has over 5000 megawatts. Poor guy was so uneducated that has no grasp on what order of magnitude is a milliwatt compared to a megawatt
I used to own the iFi iDSD (released 2014/2015?), the grand daddy of the diablo line. Even back then their whole line was all about the power output via the Single End and they lied about some of the specs too. Heck, a buddy of mine tested their other products and lets just say iFi purifiers were misleading at best, a scam at worst.
Agree. The true needs to be to known~~
It takes multiple instances of me being not fully satisfied with a product before I drop the company that made that product. It takes exactly 1 instance of a company lying to me for me to drop them.
This is the most articulate and well presented diss track I've ever heard.
All the headaches I got from using their Zen Stream already soured me on the brand; this doesn't help with the sentiment lol
Thank you for your unveiled language regarding this mess!
Could you confirm whether the xDSD Gryphon is at least really balanced or does this unit suffers under this false claim as well? 😢
by their logic you could say that every amplifier has a peak output of infinite wattage if measured at an infinitesimal amount of time.
Thank you for the video! Would love to see more of this for other products as well
Loved the video. These are the same guys who are always slagging off Chinese brands like Topping as their brands are superior. The English in their guidance is dramatically better, but their lies are a lot better as well. Thanks for highlighting this as I won't support branding like this.
So that's why DankPods felt that Diablo was quieter than Chord Mojo when blowing up stink buds
I immediately thought of the same thing, their advertised wattage should have blown up everything he threw at it. Glad I got the Mojo2 instead
Goldensound, First of His Name, King of Reviewers, Diablo Destroyer, Breaker of MQA, Father of DACs.
I am a noob audiophile. One look at my fiio k7 power supply an one look at idsd neo power supply was what i needed to determine my purchase. Specs and power ratings come a lot after.
I would never consider a Diablo or Diablo II because of their omission of XBASS which is one Huge reason many are attracted to the iFi products
Wow... I'd never buy an ifi product after hearing this.
Im happy with my Sony dac amp
Thank you for the video 👍
Unhappy that iFi marketing was misleading, but overjoyed that they finally succumbed and did the right thing to be (somewhat) more honest and transparent.
It should NOT have taken a video review prior to public release to get to this point but I'm very happy that the end result is a more factual correct marketing and product.
Bravo Golden! 👏🏽
Edit: as a commentator has pointed out, some of the marketing by iFi Audio still seems to be sketchy or misleading for this product. That's unfortunate, but this video out to help potential buyers know what the product actually does and its best use cases with headphones.
I dont think they did. It still says the balanced has more output and I've never EVER seen an amplifier produce TWICE the amount of power at 64ohm than 32. 32 to 16 yes, but never this.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez...darn, 🤦🏽♂️
At least Golden has done all he can, and this video serves as a way to inform the (audiophile) community of what this product actually does and its best use cases are, but also how the company's marketing is either misleading or outright wrong.
@@TheOneInYellow kinda ironic that headfi continues to peddle the lie that Chinese products are not to be trusted, when it is the established old guard manufacturers that are the shady ones. Astell and Kurn don't put their power rating up honestly. They give the voltage at no load, so just its floating point. Some of their days output 7v, which for most amps would be over a 1w, but they actually output bearly 200mw. They purposefully hid it so you think it's comparable to something substantially more powerful. Some manufacturers don't even put a power rating at all like woo audio, again, to concel how competitive it really is.
Wow, I never realized just how much the specs on my iFi xCAN were being inflated by iFi's non-standard testing methodology. I thought, oh, 600mW output for 16 ohms, nice, that should handle any headphone I'd reasonably pick up in the future. I eventually got the impression that the xCAN is going to be underpowered for some headphones given how much of the headroom can be taken by my Hifiman Edition XS and even some IEMs (relative to expectations). So, the real output is likely somewhere in the ballpark of half of that? Granted, it's similarly pocketable to modern (large) phones or a big wallet, so I don't think it'd be easy to 1:1 replace it with anything significantly more powerful, but I'm irritated to know that I can't easily compare my DAC to the competition or potential upgrades. The tech specs for the xCAN still report "Max Output".
No you can get a topping nx7. It's longer, but it is thinner and narrower and will fit the dimensions of most partnering devices much better. Its been measured at 1.47W RMS at 32ohm. It's the most efficient portable amplifier on the market. I have one and there is basically nothing to replace it with.
As just a schmuck who watches TH-cam videos and hasn't delved into audiophile territory _at all_ myself, this explains why when DankPods swapped from using a Chord Mojo2 to the Diablo 1 for burning out junky headphones, it seemed relatively unimpressive.
Wondering if the same thing happens to other iFi products?
It does. Of course. They don’t stop at just one product. It never works that way.
Do any of you guys know if it's the same thing with the iDSD Neo 2? It sure seems to have A LOT more power than the last one and I've not found one bad review of it. Seriously considering that for the next desk dac/amp.
This reminds me of the '70's when solid state stereos were really taking off (versus vacuum tubes) and this sort of crazy marketing BS was all over the place, and most of that gear sounded horrible in comparison to the tube driven Marantz and McIntosh units, which by coincidence were conservatively spec'd.
lol I was thinking that this headphone amp might be a collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment for marketing purpose 😅
RMS power rating can also be misleading. The whole industry provides misleading specs. If you are really serious about consumer protection you should ask all amp makers to priced RMS at 30, 50, 100 and 300ohms and from 20hz to 20khz. As you know an amp that can deliver 5w only at 1khz is far less powerful than one that can deliver the full 5w from 20hz to 20khz.
Thank you so much. Never buying from Ifi again. Screw that. Dethonray!!!
ifi is a great engineering company with a scummy marketing department. Which brings them dangerously close to being a scummy company.
Also most stores don't update their product pages after the initial listing, my local dealer still has it as a "5W" amp. And no mention whatsoever that it needs to be plugged into a socket for that.
ifi tend to have misleading marketing on those products that has higher price range to justify their price i do hope they still go within their affordable lines and improve there
Nope. Go Blu also underperforms. Their Purifiers are straight up snake oil too. It’s clear their culture is cynical and fraudulent.
based on this would I be better off getting a used woo audio WA11 to use on the go for my hifiman and focal headphones? Thanks
Making it up. That is what it is. Ifi is not a company I would purchase from. Ever.
I’ve had several ifi products and have nothing but commentary on their performance. I currently have the go blu and hip dac2 and both are very solid for the $. With that said the marketing around hifi is sketch AF. For example in 2 channel world speaker amp companies love to market their high end power amps as “full class A” or “deeper class A”. When in reality almost no class A amps exist and they are really class AB with a heavy A bias. But hifi enthusiasts fall for it especially with nostalgia of real class A amps from the 70s. They have other thousands in droves with hopes of that warm thick class a sound .
I'm sorry if an amp is advertised as X Watts of Class A and it does in fact operate in Class A up to X watts then it is indeed Class A, no matter if it can then slide to Class B for >X watts or it just gives up and clips (as a single ended amp would do). There is nothing in the definition of Class A that relates to the topology, for example single ended vs push-pull (complementary). So you are very wrong, I'm afraid.
Scam artists. I assume the ONLY reason for such a polite way to talk about this scam is due to potential legal issues? Disgusting behaviour from ifi
Throwing out a bunch of expletives and name calling only makes criticism look deranged. A thoughtful scientific deconstruction is way more effective.
@@mikeg2491 Best way to treat scam artists, thoughtfully. Its not 'name calling' to call out people who are trying to cheat people
@@mikeg2491I agree, it makes your case much stronger as well.
@@mikeg2491 they committed sales fraud. They are the definition of scam artists.
This is the official channel of a dealer, not a random individual. They're not gonna start ranting like Zeos.
The price seems a joke. Like their power specification.
What about the measurements for all their other stuff? Are they incorrect? What can be trusted?
aha, so it means iFi xCAN doesn't deliver 1 Watt of power either. Since it says MAX OUTPUT on their website
try to measure the old mini iDSD... it will really surprise you... on how much you can fuck up a product by not understanding how to implement battery ps properly
Diablo Red Handed
i would like to hear what you have to say for fiio ka13, a dongle with a very powerful output
$1300??? Me over here using a $30 amp with no DAC because all my output devices have decent DACs in them already.
please clarify what you said your favourite amp is as I have re listened but can't make the name out
This is why we need people like you to measure stuff (thank you!)
And that's why I'm not paying to a company that lies like this and sells USB purifiers (LOL)
Wanna love this hobby but things like these are annoying as heck
Will never buy another iFi product again. Purchased a hipdac from them and with more sensitive iems there's a very loud hissing noise. For $150 that's pretty unacceptable. Not surprised to see stuff like this when they can't even get the noise floor right.
Excellent content mate! Please also make a video on Xduoo XD-05 Pro.
When I say my height is 6 feet, it can't mean I am 6' when I lift my hills and stand on my toes. Yes, at the specific moment the measurement of my extended body maybe at a certain length, but we have socially agreed upon circumstances and terms that describe what "height" means. Same goes for iFi and they really should be ashamed. You can claim all you want on "misunderstanding" and "miscommunication" but see how well that goes with your tinder date. Diablo 2 has a lot of features I like, but I don't think I will ever be buying this because they are blatantly misleading people for their gain.
I use the iFi Gryphon which serves me fine when I'm not at home.
You'd be surprised at how often a marketing/support staff member promises to update/fix description at their page or whatever and then it never happens.
Shame on ifi. They are off the shopping list for the foreseeable future. Thank you for exposing this.
It's interesting (?) predictable (?) that this device doesn't really work with IEMs. I bought a Micro BL a many years ago, but concluded that as a headphone amp it was only any good with hard-to-drive headphones such as my 250Ω DT880s or (more recently) FT3s. With anything else, whether it's an IEM or headphone, the volume rapidly hits a point where it's far too loud, and there's a tiny, hard-to-find arc where the volume's just right. It seems to me that the Nano BL is a much better device for lower-rated IEMs and headphones, which in turn, led me to wonder what the point of the Micro BL was.
I mostly used the Micro BL as a speaker amp until I discovered that the RCA sockets had got damaged by the weight of the cables. So, not really a speaker amp except with light cables.
Holy crap! With this kind of marketing I assumed this was another one of those $99 Chi-Fi devices, but this thing is $1300!!! I will never need to listen to headphones that badly.
respect for this well needed fact based review mate. i share it on ChiFi Love. as well, i always feel imatch affect proper dynamic response...at least on iGryphon. i need to see proper measurement now, again tx to you!
-NymPHONOmaniac
The only thing from IFI I use and recommend to friends..is the IFI Go Blue and their IFI Silent Power Supply.
Great video as your usual 👍
Zen Phono is awesome at $200
Amazing content, great delivery but... for non english natives, you talk really fast. That's great most of the time but I missed out the name of your reference headphone amp, no matter how many times I replayed, and I could not see the name in the short video insert. What is it if I may ask? Thanks again for all these informations!
ZAHL HM1. Its german
good, keep companies honest.
I want to see GS talking about E1DA 9038
I wonder if the Woo Audio Wa11 is a much better amp than this? Also completely portable.
Ifi was always a bit suspicious with their power purifiers and stuff like that
Thanks iFi for fixing that, but it would have been better to not get in this mess in the first place. Earn our trust again - but this is a good first step.
Great video, and great detective work, Golden!