RMAF 2013: iFi Audio

Darren Censullo of Avatar Acoustics was showing off a whole suite of nifty widgets from budget-minded iFi Audio. He had the entire lineup, stacked, which made for a rather interesting presentation -- but the sound of that stack was absolutely undeniable and completely brilliant.

I’m not going to go into the value of using “USB cleaners” like the iLink or the upcoming Purifiers — you’re going to need to hear this for yourself. Needless to say, I have seen the light. iFi is now making single-ended and dual-ended USB cables, too, pretty much completing the chain.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the iCan headphone amp and iDAC for a while now (Brian Hunter of Audio-Head reviewed them here), but I’m hoping to explore the contributions of the individual new elements, too — stay tuned for reviews on the new iTube buffer, the iPower (USB power) and the forthcoming USB “Purifier” device.

Also on display was a truly sweet looking desktop system that bundled the entire iFi-Audio product line — and added loudspeakers and wrapped it up in some cool retro chic. I have no idea when this will hit, but Darren was waxing poetic. Unfortunately, this was absolutely the worst place to demo it, so any semi-formal comments will have to wait. But it really looks like it’s a killer.