Ifi Audio
Wired headphone and in - ear monitor ( IEM ) fans now have a new option when it comes to hear mo - perfect digital audio on the go : Ifi ’s new $ 449 Go Bar Kensei occupy one of the bestportable headphone DAC / ampsand tally two made - in - Japan applied science .
On the exterior , the Go Bar Kensei ’s chassis is made from Nipponese untarnished brand — an homage to the blades maintain by legendary Japanese swordsman that also impart the DAC better geomorphologic unity .
Ifi Audio
On the inside , however , is arguably the more important Japanese part — JVCKenwood ’s K2HD Technology — which Ifi aver “ works to restore music to the same quality as the original skipper , reviving it with the plentiful , natural harmonics ” that are apparently lost during digitization .
The title is that , since certificate of deposit - quality audio ( which uses a sampling frequency of 44.1 kilohertz ) only preserves hearable relative frequency of up to 22kHz , these digital recordings fail to capture the extended high frequencies ( and their accompanying harmonics and overtones ) that be in natural sound recording .
K2HD attempts to restore these higher frequency by upscaling audio files to a sampling absolute frequency of 192kHz and apply K2 parameters for wave shape shaping , which processes the time demesne , not the frequency domain . In hypothesis , these upscaledhi - res audiosignals should tender the equivalent of hearable frequency extension service of up to 96kHz .
K2HD is n’t the only applied science that attempt to improve CD audio frequency by making fitting to the time demesne . MQA , a digital audio format supported by the Go Bar Kensei , claims similar melioration .
Whether K2HD makes an appreciable conflict to your music or not , it ’s one of several selectable digital filters on the Go Bar Kensei , include Ifi ’s own bit - perfect , received minimum phase angle , called Gibbs transient - optimized ( GTO ) , plus two analog filter , XSpace and XBass+ .
Interestingly , Ifi suppose the Kensei outperforms its other Go Bar modelling when it do to audio quality thanks to its enhanced big businessman and clock circuitry , which provides a all-embracing soundstage , resolution of “ every melodic shade ” and deeper , cleaner basso .
As with Ifi ’s other Go Bar models , the Go Bar Kensei has both a balanced 4.4 mm output and an sick 3.5 mm turnout , along with a selector switch that can can engage Ifi ’s IEMatch engineering for either port . This attempts to abbreviate noise when using highly tender IEMs .
Each port should be able to drive even the most demanding headphones and IEMs , with the balanced jack offering a claimed 477 milliwatts at 32 ohm and 7.2V at 600 ohms , and the unbalanced jack declare oneself 300mW at 32 ohms and 3.8V at 600 ohms .
In addition to being a full MQA decoder , the Go Bar Kensei can handle PCM audio up to 384kHz , and up to DSD256 audio .
The Kensei comes in an inscribed wooden corner , along with USB - C and Lightning - compatible cable television , a USB - C to USB - A transcriber , and a carry case .
