Hi My hip-dac led lights that show what the quality of the music that is streaming stays green and does not change color no mater what resolution I’m streaming. Is that a defect?
Thanks
It could be a firmware version as well. I would go on the website and check the version notes for the version you have and see if they disabled the LED color for PCM frequencies. My Zen DAC is like this with the latest firmware. It only changes colors between DSD, PCM, and MQA and that’s it. If firmware is a no go I would contact IFI on the website and go that route.
I’m having the same problem! I used a friend’s Hip Dac with my same files and setup and the lights turned white, that’s when the soundstage and separation opened up… Mine started off green. Going into sound settings and turning the output to ‘32bit 192000 Hz studio quality’. The light turned yellow, which stated on the box is a stage up…Yellow sounds a bit better, but it’s still not there. I’m gonna keep using it and see if the changes, but so far nothing. It’s day 2 of owning it. I’ve even gone through ALL the firmwares. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi! Welcome to HFGF! Sorry to hear about your Hip-Dac. I think if you’ve tried all the firmware and a different unit, it’s time to contact iFi. 
I did. They weren’t much help. I should mention, this is the third unit I’ve owned and the problem persists. Can it take a while for the sound to improve? I’ve seen threads that talk about DACS ‘kicking in’. Right now it just sounds like a good quality amp, but doesn’t provide the dac sound… I’m gonna keep using it and see if there are any changes. Amazon has 30 refund, so it doesn’t hurt to keep fiddling around and using it.