- iDSD Valkyrie is iFi’s most high-end DAC to date
- It is $400 / £400 more expensive than the previous flagship, Diablo 2
- …but it also boasts 44% more power
At this point, you’d be forgiven for thinking iFi Audio, (the excellent sister company to Abbingdon Music Research, headquartered in Southport, UK) has been around for decades.
Actually, iFi was only formed in 2012, but in its short 13-year tenure this likable audio outfit has already brought us some of the best portable headphone DACs we’ve ever tried. Even a quick glance at our most recent iFi reviews is proof that this plucky specialist firm isn’t resting on its laurels.
So what new and affordable piece of hi-res audio excellence has it got for you today? Well, (how to put this?) this newest offering isn’t like your sub-$100 iFi Go Link Max.
No, this is a solid step up – towards the heavens, if you will. If the word ‘Valkyrie’ calls to mind both magic and the idea of rubbing shoulders with gods in the great halls of Valhalla, that’s what iFi wants you to think. Because although iFi’s iDSD Diablo 2 was, ahem, devilishly expensive, this is far north of that.
iFi iDSD Valkrie: what lifts it up high above the rest?
The chief piece of tech you need to know about in iFi’s iDSD Valkyrie is K2HD. This is JVCKENWOOD’s renowned coding solution that aims to restore the warmth and emotion of analog recordings to digital music (often considered a colder, or more clinical listen). The Valkyrie offers this tech in two flavors: ‘K2’ mode and ‘K2HD’ mode, where the former preserves the files’ original resolution.
Next up is iFi’s DSD 1024 remastering algorithm, powered by a custom-coded FPGA (which stands for ‘field programmable gate array’). Here, you can choose between the ‘Normal’ setting, in which DSD signals pass directly to the DAC and PCM signals go through a user-selected digital filter, or ‘Remastering’, with options to remaster to DSD512 or DSD1024 – aka seriously hi-res audio.
On to the main digital-to-analog conversion then, and the Valkyrie sports a quad DAC architecture – fewer than four interleaved Burr-Brown DACs. You also get six digital filters to pick from, including Apodising, GTO, Bit Perfect, Standard, Minimum, and Transient Aligned, giving you more ways to explore the nuance in your music
Valkyrie also features processing perks unique to iFi, such as XBassII (to amp up the low end), XPresence, and XSpace. It also houses a 20,000mAh battery for portability, boasting 18 hours of continuous playtime, with fast charging via USB-C in just 2.5 hours.
iFi tells us that, unlike other products, Valkyrie uses switchable analog circuitry for its EQ modes, rather than Digital Signal Processing (DSP). Why? It’s a further bid to preserve audio quality and allow for more natural frequency adjustment, with less phase shift and distortion.
And arguably the biggest deal here? Power. The iFi iDSD boasts 5,700mW peak output for driving the most power-hungry headphones. And for clarity, that’s approximately 44% more power than iFi’s aforementioned flagship iDSD Diablo 2.
Oh, and if you’re not using wired headphones, the absolute best quality in Bluetooth codecs are all supported, including LDAC, aptX Lossless, and aptX Adaptive.
Pricing? Yes, but brace yourselves. iFi iDSD is available from today (March 25) priced $1,699 / £1,699, so around AU$2,704, taking that US figure as an estimate – and knowing as we do that the Diablo 2 launched with a $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199 asking fee.
How good is the iFi iDSD Valkyrie? We’re working on that, we promise you.
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