iFi GO bar - Ultraportable DAC/preamp/headphone amp

Product Information

And yeah, I actually prefer ESS but it’s obvious a lot of companies are jumping on that bandwagon and it can be kind of irritating. Even so, I love what Hidizs has done with their S9 Pro. Basically made it 1/3 of the price of the stupid Cobalt while implementing the exact same 9038 chip. You love to see it. I can’t stand AudioQuest, to be honest. I recommended their DF Red for many years because I truly thought it was great, but it’s now just another overpriced dac in a long line of many. Sound and power​GO Bar sounds well, and I should actually remark “very well” indeed, from its balanced output port. Sound differences: Both have a similar sound signature: Warm-Neutralish that at least goes up a few levels above the UA5 to me, more highs info than the RU6 and more defined lows also than the RU6. The mids to me on both dongles aren't tasty to me like the RU6 (since I prefer how the OG R2R sound handles mids), but they won't lie to you and is very defined with vocals and not sounding too upfront. GOld Bar however is the better unit than the regular Go Bar, it is at least two levels up IMO than the Go Bar and I see why people really like to get their hands on the GOld Bar. I think the GOld Bar is for the serious music listener who want the best a dongle can perform without lying to you if the recording is good or bad. The RU6 on the other hand has the OG R2R sound that messes together, and I prefer that if I had to be honest. Oh yes, RU6 has more sound staging over the Bar units but not a lot more. iFi Go Bar + GOld Bar: Both Dongles will be similar in IO and sound signature, but differences if you read below. Lets get the IO out of the way, it's fully button based with no OLED/LED screen. To see what is turn on/off, the bottom of the unit uses LED lights to tell you bitrate and options on/off. I'm not a fan of this at all, but since both units don't use a screen then in theory the units will last longer since on the other units you need the screen to see what options you are adjusting. So if the screen dies out, you are semi-screwed. On the side of the unit it has buttons plus iFiMatch switch. Another button is to turn on xSpace and xBass DSP stuff, which I didn't use at all. Hold both volume buttons and you can turn on/off Turbo Mode. Turbo Mode makes a good difference on sound quality and it made the DD drivers in my Kato preform better. With that being said, it might be best to not use Turbo Mode on really sensitive IEMs. The higher capacity battery offsets the power-hungry THX amplifier, and battery life ranges from about 6-9 hours (about the same as the BTR5), depending on volume and output choice.

I also find it interesting to note that SNR and THD+N promised values on BE and SE ports are dramatically different. On BE port iFi declares 132dB(A) SNR and <0.002% THD+N. The former value in particular is really outstanding. Additionally, the Hugo 2 offers a four-function filter (warm, soft, transparent, and incisive) and a digital crossfeed function with three operation modes. Always divisive, users will either love or hate Chord’s distinctive styling and four spherical control buttons, which illuminate with color-coded information. Input​GO Bar offers a single input, being the USB-C port which is therefore supposed to carry in both digital data and power.Going further down with load impedance GO Bar’s power drops rapidly (as noted above the device has a sort of hard cap on output current at approx 115mA), thus delivering “only” circa 200mW on 14Ω and circa 140mW on 10Ω. Again, such figures are higher than those on most of the direct competition, yet not quite at dongle market’s top (E1DA’s 9038SG3 delivers something similar to 600mW onto 10ohm…). Overall, I would say that the iFi power draw is reasonably efficient; in line with others. If I get a chance to play with it again, I'd take a reading specifically at 1.0Vrms or 1.5Vrms (into 20/75Ω) to get a more accurate point of comparison. The iFi Go Bar I am reviewing is actually from Headphones.com and was sent to me from Precogvision of their team many months ago, but I still have it here for now. It wasn't a straight up double-blind A/B-switch test setup, but spread out across the table for a few hours, this was overall a fun experiment and I enjoyed the time spent. It was also interesting to take notes on the items BEFORE seeing price or specs -- the inherent biases that I know I have get taken out of play.

The sound had a cookie cutter feel to it. Part A meets Spec B, without any real promise of nuance. The very top may be a bit too sharp if your headphones run bright. I noticed it with HD280, and that is very much a "not bright" headphone sub-8Khz. This is to say that I’m not too overly concerned with specs outside of Power Output and Output Impedance, though Bit-Depth and Sample Rate certainly come in handy when determining which kinds of files can be played. SoundBelonging to the group AMR (Abbingdon Music Research Group), which is one of the largest audio equipment manufacturers in the UK, iFi Audio is a manufacturer of several DACs and amplifiers, as well as other accessories for computer & home audio. As for voicing GO Bar definitely marks a diversion from that warm and midbass-accented iFi’s “house sound” typical of many other models e.g. Hip Dac, Nano iDSD BL, etc.

The frustration points doubled up because I actually liked the sound overall. I came away more disappointed than anything; like a good idea or two got lost along the way somewhere and were left behind.

Design

BP (“Bit Perfect”) – this actually corresponds to not applying any digital filtering. No pre nor post ringing is involved (of course). At one end of the GO bar is an asynchronous USB-C input. At the other resides two headphone outputs: a fully balanced 4.4mm output enabling headphones equipped with a balanced connector to make the most of the GO bar’s balanced audio circuitry, and a 3.5mm ‘S-Balanced’ output which cuts noise and cross-talk by 50% with SE headphone connectors. Both outputs are gold-plated for quality and longevity. I also threw in the Gryphon, hip-dac 1, and hip-dac 2 for good measure, and again, not much in the way of differences. However, the Mojo 2 offers an audio upgrade over its older brother, with greater extension and a more spacious presentation. Detail retrieval is also boosted, and the Mojo 2 sounds exceptionally clean and natural. The first Mojo was great, and the Mojo 2 simply brings more to the table. Where to buy If all this sounds like I'm gushing, I am. I'm sure I could have found some flaws. But I was simply having too much fun, and at some point, I think it's reasonable to say that a setup sounds good enough for me.

My friend AudioPhil is really into his headphone gear. Recently he acquired the product above and asked if I might want to play with this for a few days... Sure, this looks interesting!Today we are taking a look at what is probably the smallest piece of gear I have ever reviewed, the iFi Audio GObar. The GObar is what typically gets called a USB Dongle DAC/Amp nowadays. I’ve spent time with a few of these types of devices over the years, but it seems that in the last two years or so the availability of options on the market has absolutely exploded. It seems to be the case nowadays, especially from so called “Chi-Fi” companies, that they all have at least one product of this type in their line up. This type of product and its form factor does seem to have advanced rapidly in its capabilities, the GObar being one example of this. iFi is a fairly consistent example of pushing the amount of features available in a device in its given market space and form factor, and the GObar does seem to continue this trend. Certainly the more “pasticy” sounding out of the bunch. More closed off and all the instruments seem to be made out of plastic with this kind of low end puch going on. It is also the hazyiest of all 4 of these. Besides no onboard features (which you may or may not care about) this is an excellent DAC at a sensible price point and I haven’t had any issues with it. Verdict While you can drive pretty much any headphone with the standard gain, the “Turbo” mode is suitable for additional headroom on the most power-hungry headphones. I only had one headphone that needed it, and that was the Dan Clark Aeon Flow Closed.