🔷 iFi Hip-DAC

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories Portable DAC/AMPs & Dongles
142

The hardest part about the hip DAC is actually trying to find one on sale

It seems perfect for me (though my headphones aren’t very bright I love the feature set since mqa might be useful if I stay on tidal and i need something to use on a laptop nonstop) because it’s basically a zendac but the size of a DAP (I need my dac to basically be the length of an LG smartphone).

but amazon doesn’t have it and music direct is always waiting for more

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143

Looks like headphones.com has it in stock

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144

Hip hip hooray :+1:

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145

Would using a 4.4 mm 2 pin cable on the starfields and connecting to the balanced output on the hip dac make the starfield balanced? Sorry for the possible dumb and probably obvious answer. Haha. Or could i get a 3.5mm to 4.4mm adapter instead? Or Will that not make it truly balanced?

146

The cable terminating in 4.4 would make them balanced. The adapter would potentially cause grounding issues giving a balanced feed to a single ended cable.

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147

To be clear you can’t use a balanced to SE adapter on the OUTPUT of almost any amp without the potential to damage the amp.
You in effect short 2 signal lines from the amps output together, if your lucky the amp designer protected against this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
The 4.4 balanced cable would be fine.

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148

Got the hip dac a couple days ago. It pairs REALLY well with the Starfields. The warmth makes it all ooey gooey. The bass boost can be too much at times but when its good it thumps. Here is my Tidal playlist for my Starfields if anyone is interested

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149

what is the size difference with this and the zen dac

because if the zendac is a fine size for my bed and its cheaper i could just do that

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150

Hip dac is like 4x3 inch and 0.5 inch thick. Zen dac is like 5x4 and 1.5 inch thick

152

It’s kinda hard to compare because there isn’t really a line out for the dac

153

Yea, I was wondering about a portable dac/amp to use that could potentially replace my d10 in the dac department to help fund it’s purchase but then realized this doesn’t have a line out. What do you think it would take for a portable dac/amp combo where the dac can perform on a similar or better tier compared to the d10? Assuming the portable dac/amp has a line out to utilize.

154

In a similar price tier what about an xduoo xd05? No need to recable to be balanced and is a cleaner sounding dac, but I think the d10 is a bit better but it’s hard to compete with desktop dacs on a price to price basis

155

I think I’ll just stick to looking at dongle dacs and bluetooth dac/amps around 50 dollars in that case then.

156

What about the d10 compared to the dac of the iFi Nano iDSD Black Label? Both compared when using an unbalanced connection and also compared when using the ifi balanced to an amp with balanced inputs.

157

For the most part I think they are on a similar tier, the nano bl is going to be smoother and warmer, not as bright as the d10

Depending on your amp this can get sketch so it would depend

158

Hello,

I am new to the Hifi world and I have to say I learn a lot through this forum :grinning:

I am currently “equipped” with the following :

  • Meze 99 Classics headphone
  • iFi Hip-DAC
    I connect the DAC to a laptop (old Macbook Pro) and use mainly Qobuz for the music source.
    To my humble ears I find that both Headphone and DAC pair very well together (without DAC bass boost activated though, since Headphone is already bass friendly)

I have a few questions related to the Hip-DAC.

I recently had issues with the DAC emitting a little “scratch” noise and disconnecting during use. I was worried it was a problem with the device but it seems due to the blue USB cable provided by iFi. Using another one did not reproduce the issue. Did someone encounter the same problem?

I’ve read the previous posts related to the use of the balance output.
I use it sometimes with a simple 3.5-4.4 adapter plugged directly to the original cable provided by Meze. Do you think that I should use a specific balanced cable instead?

Also do you know if there is a sound difference between the Hip-DAC and the Zen-DAC?

Thanks!

159

Welcome to HFGF!

I haven’t noticed this issue but I also have not used the iFi provided cable much (or at all?). I’ve been using USB extension cables from Cable Creations that have worked just perfectly.

I’m assuming the original cable is unbalanced. Generally, balanced-to-unbalanced adapters don’t work very well. They combine two signal lines that aren’t meant to be combined and put a potentially dangerous load on your amplifier. However, if you’re using a balanced cable already then a 3.5mm balanced to 4.4mm balanced adapter will work just fine.

160

Thanks a lot for those advices! :smiley:

161

Would this be a good option for a desktop/mobile hybrid? I have an asgard 3, could I basically use this as a DAC for that while I am home?

162

So for that use case, the ifi idsd nano black label might make more sense imo as it has a line out where the hip dac does not. What headphones are you using?

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