We commence our listening with an Apple Music Hi-Res Lossless playlist on our iPhone. The keen-eyed will note that iFi has added two new colours to the swatch here (red and white) to accommodate this functionality – and very helpful they are too. Magenta means the file is playing in its original sample rate (MQB). Thanks to the DAC's ‘three unfold’ decoding process, now performed internally (as opposed to just the final unfold in the manner of an MQA ‘renderer’ – the method undertaken by the original hip-dac), MQA files glow green but MQA Studio tracks are now recognised too, glowing blue. DSD64 and 128 files are signified in cyan, while DSD256 (aka quad-rate DSD) files will now make the LEDs glow red. Now, 44.1kHz and 48kHz files are represented by a yellow light, but 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8 and 384kHz files will be denoted by a white glow. These indicate the audio format and sampling frequency received by the hip-dac 2 from your music source, but where the original hip-dac’s colour coding was not particularly informative (it was unable to differentiate between the most common PCM file types, for example), it seems iFi has listened to user feedback and done something about it. Perhaps one of the most pleasing improvements iFi has made to this second-gen hip-dac concerns the pair of LEDs located on either side of the volume dial. As with the inaugural hip-dac, our reservations about a bass enhancement option are soon assuaged – iFi’s subtle treatment means that depending on your headphone, the profile is actually useful, adding a sensible degree of low-end clout to certain in-ears (including the Klipsch T5M) without sounding bloated, warm or muddied. Next to this is a button to initiate XBass. For in-ear headphones, iFi advises leaving it off, but for on- and over-ears, pressing the PowerMatch button on supplies the volume boost they need – and you’ll see whether it’s deployed thanks to a useful white LED light. From the outside in, first off is the PowerMatch button, which essentially changes the gain of the internal amp to make headphone matching easier. Featuresįlanking the volume knob on the opposite side to the headphone jacks are two buttons to help tailor the sound. When charging, the battery LED will flash on whatever colour you’re at – and you can continue listening while juicing it up. It glows white if you have more than 75 per cent in the tank, green for more than 25 per cent, red for more than 10 per cent, and flashes red when you need to charge it. Remaining stamina is denoted by a small LED under the USB Type C charging port, which is located next to the USB-A input on the base of the DAC. During our testing, we got just over seven hours with the Austrian Audio over-ears and closer to the maximum claimed figure with the SoundMagic in-ears, on a full charge. Use a set of juice-guzzling Austrian Audio Hi-X55 over-ears and, naturally, the hip-dac 2 won’t last as long as it can when hooked up to the bijou SoundMagic E11C earbuds. The hip-dac 2’s 2200mAh battery should, iFi says, last for eight to 12 hours of playing time, depending on volume level and how power-hungry the connected headphones are – and do take note here. The latter supposedly takes full advantage of the DAC’s differential amp design circuitry (something of a USP compared to most rivals) but, since our favourite headphones at this level all sport the traditional unbalanced connection, it is a novel rather than essential inclusion – albeit one that adds value, nonetheless. Across the top of the unit are two outputs – a conventional 3.5mm headphone jack and a balanced Pentaconn 4.4mm.
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