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See the complete review for the iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier.

The iFi Audio iCAN Phantom is designed to drive ANY type of headphone to its ultimate potential along with affording the listener a host of options to help dial in their “perfect” sound.

iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier Product Packaging Box Image Display

iFi Audio is a UK-based company that specializes in personal audio electronics. They are well known for their portable headphone amplifiers, DACs, amp/DAC dongles, and accessories. They also produce a line of desktop audio products, the Zen line, that are feature-rich and have a smaller footprint. Another element that sets the company’s products apart is their industrial design. It is unique, daring, and memorable which ensures that you won’t mistake an iFi Audio product for anything else.

iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier Product Packaging Box situated on top of a chair

The iFi Audio iCAN Phantom that we have in for review is the brand’s current flagship headphone amplifier. But calling it just a headphone amplifier is really not doing the product justice. The iFi Audio iCAN Phantom is powerful enough to drive any type of headphone with any of the most commonly used terminations. Whether your listening whimsy calls for dynamic or electrostatic headgear, the iCAN Phantom can effectively power both. To my knowledge it is the only such product out here with that ability. Balanced or single-ended connections? Meh! Child’s play for this amplifier. Solid-state or tube drive? Take your pick. Can’t decide which of your half-dozen electrostatic headphones you want to listen to tonight? Why whichever one you want, since the iCAN Phantom’s output voltage can be biased to suit any of them. It also includes a host of familiar iFi Audio sound-shaping adjustments in this purely analog product along with the ability to be used as a traditional stereo preamplifier if you choose.

In our upcoming review, we will be testing the iCAN Phantom, with a variety of headphones, including cans from Meze Audio, HIFIMAN, Dan Clark Audio, Beyerdynamic, and STAX.

At $3,749.00, it is a “Swiss Army Knife” of a product all wrapped up in the company’s unmistakable design language. Literally, “The one head-amp to rule them all.”

iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier Specifications
Frequency Response:

0.5Hz to 500kHz(-3dB)

Gain:

0dB, 9dB and 18dB, user-selectable

Maximum Output Power:

Balanced>15,000mW (@ 16Ω), Unbal>5,760mW (@ 16Ω)

THD+N:

Solid State Mode – Balanced: ≤0.0015%, Unbal: ≤0.007%

Tube Mode – Balanced: ≤0.002%, Unbal: ≤0.006%

Tube Plus Mode – Balanced: ≤0.012%, Unbal: ≤0.2%

Dimensions:

256 × 185 × 120 mm (10.1″ x 7.3″ × 4.7″)

Net Weight:

4.2 kg (9.3 Ibs.)

Type:

Headphone Amplifier/Electrostatic Earspeaker Energizer

MSRP:

$3,749.00

Website:

iFi Audio iCAN Phantom

Company:

iFi Audio

iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier with STAX SR-X9000 Earspeakers

We have reviewed a few products from iFi Audio here at SECRETS, including the iFi Go Bar Kensei Ultra-Portable DAC/Amp, the iFi Audio iDSD Diablo 2 Portable DAC/Amp, and the iFi Audio ZEN STREAM, but this is the first flagship-level product that the company has sent our way. After our initial unboxing and setup, we are impressed with the build quality, aesthetics, and feature set. Initial sound quality and usability impressions are quite favorable so, if nothing else, the iCAN Phantom has set expectations very high!

Be on the lookout for our full review to drop on the SECRETS website in the coming weeks.

See the complete review for the iFi Audio iCAN Phantom Headphone Amplifier.

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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