xDSD EISA Best Portable DAC / Headphone Amplifier. Sounds great!

The award winner.

iFi’s new portable DAC and headphone amplifier, the xDSD, has won what’s sure to be the first of many awards.

EISA, the European Sound and Imaging Association, has awarded the xDSD Best Portable DAC/Headphone Amplifier for 2018-2019.

Victoria Pickles from iFi said:

“The release of the xDSD had us excited for a long time, so winning the EISA award for Best Portable DAC / Headphone Amplifier is the icing on the cake. The xDSD packs a punch and revitalizes the way people listen to music. The award is testament to the hard work of everyone at iFi in striving to create the best audio products possible for our customers.”

Praise for the iFi xDSD.

EISA was not only impressed by the xDSD’s ten-hour battery life and sleek, super-light magnesium case, but they also loved its flexibility:

“The DAC Headphone Amplifier turns smartphones, laptops and portable players into great sounding music centres. It exudes quality and is perfect for indulging in music on the move.”

They also loved its S/PDIF and USB inputs as well as switchable, digital filtering to allow the flow of unbeatable frequency balance.

With praise like this, it’s easy to see why the xDSD deserves its place on the winner’s podium.

The tech spec.

The award-winning xDSD is perfect for home or portable use. But don’t let its compact size fool you, because it’s packed with some big components:

• Wireless Bluetooth – Delivers CD-Quality music wirelessly to your headphones from your smartphone, DAP, laptop or smart TV.
• S/PDIF and USB inputs – Wired, the USB type A OTG/CCK connector offers the ultimate High-Res audio performance for smartphones, laptops and USB enabled DAPs. The 3.5mm coaxial/TOSLINK combo S/PDIF input gives older DAPs and CD players a new lease of life as a transport to serve High-Resolution audio.
• Burr-Brown TrueNative – Hear music as the artist intended. The Burr-Brown True Native® chipset means file formats remain unchanged for the purest sound.
• MQA – For MQA tracks, simply connect to Tidal (on your computer) and check the options to stream MQA.
• S-Balanced Performance – The iFi exclusive S-Balanced technology delivers the maximum performance from single-ended and balanced headphones alike.
• 3D+ & XBass+ – 3D+® creates a louder, deeper soundstage that puts the artist with you in the room with you. XBass+® corrects headphone/speaker bass response to deliver a more profound, tighter, richer bass.
• Cyberdrive – The Cyberdrive headphone amplifier stage is one of the pivotal new circuit designs in the x-series. This new design places all parameters of the analogue system under digital control for a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario.

It’s no wonder EISA was quick to award the xDSD the Best Portable DAC / Headphone Amplifier for 2018/19.

The xDSD, there’s simply nothing like it.

The retail price of the xDSD is US$399 (ex-tax) or €449/£399 (incl. VAT).

About iFi

iFi audio is based in Southport, UK and is the sister brand of Abbingdon Music Research (AMR). They design and manufacture portable and desktop ‘ultra-fidelity’ audio products and high-end audio ‘home-based’ components. The combined in-house hardware and software development team enables iFi Audio and AMR to bring to market advanced audio products.