There’s a level of trepidation that friends and family members often experience when I start a sentence with “listen to this… Now listen to this…Can you hear the difference?” It’s a brutal position to put someone in, especially when you may just be hearing subtle differences, and all your guinea pigs really want to do is enjoy that glass of wine!
Heck, I have been the guinea pig too, visiting audio manufacturers who present their A / B comparisons that are so minor that it never warrants their gushing enthusiasm and exclamation that they alone have cracked the code to creating audio perfection. It can be rather embarrassing when the sound is better in A when the product being introduced is B!
Most often these A/B comparisons are toughest when we are reviewing DACs, the processor that takes those digital files and converts them from ones and zeros into something that we can hear. Every laptop, streamer, portable speaker and phone has some kind of DAC, but what we debate is just how good is the DAC embedded in your product and does it truly deliver your music files in the best possible way? For the casual listener the answer is usually “who cares?” and for the audio enthusiast the answer is always “you can do better with a dedicated DAC.” And usually when the casual listeners are exposed to an external DAC it becomes an Ah-ha moment. Just like flying coach is perfectly adequate to get you to your destination, business class generates a whole different level of emotion and luxury to the travel experience and so does a high-end DAC for your music listening. But not always. I have tested a number of portable DACs with such poor enhancements that I’ve concluded that those who actually buy these things must be experiencing some kind of placebo affect or are confusing some kind of volume enhancement as a testament to better sound! That’s why writing about iFi’s new portable DAC is not so much a review but a testimonial for product brilliance.
Recently, we were sent the “Go bar” Kensei edition from British audio manufacturer iFi, an audio accessories company that builds products designed to eradicate noise, distortion and hiss in order to improve the sound quality from your existing audio hardware. The Go bar is a legacy iFi product and the new-gen Kensei is a special edition portable DAC that not only uses Japanese steel for its construction, but also special Japanese audio processing known as K2HD, developed by JVCKENWOOD. K2 technology is designed to make digital files sound less digital and truer to the studio analog recording. More on K2HD here.
If you are the type of person like me, that likes shiny well-designed objects, you will be immediately attracted to the weight and solid build from this special edition Go bar. I keep it on my desk next to an East German Meyer-Optik camera lens hand-tooled from the 1960s, and also next to a Grace m902 headphone amp that although somewhat outdated, I just can’t let it go since it is so beautiful to look at.
The Go bar Kensei is designed to by-pass the DAC components in your phone or laptop and allow the digital processing to be completed by the 32-bit Cirrus Logic chipset embedded in the Kensei. The Cirrus Logic chipset is further enhanced with the Go bar Kensei using an XMOS 16-Core Chip for lightning-fast processing power. The Go bar then uses a series of digital filters to minimize any erroneous artefacts. While obviously small, the internal amplification in the Go bar Kensei DAC is rated at 477mW which is roughly ten times the power output of a new generation iPhone. This extra power allows the DAC to power larger driver audiophile grade headphones such as my Denon AH-D5000 that are simply impossible to listen to if plugged directly into my MacBook Air laptop.
There’s a lot of technical specs to digest and if you are the type of person that loves reading about specs, all the details of what’s under the Kensei hood can be found here. For me, I focus less on the specs and concentrate more on the emotion and enhancements that a product delivers, so lets go back to that question that I ambush far too many people with; “Listen to this… Now listen to this…Can you hear the difference?”
The unanimous response has been “wow!” When asked to elaborate on what you hear, the words most of used were effortless, crisper, richer, deeper and punchy. That’s not a bad group of descriptors and that’s what the iFi Go bar Kensei edition delivers.
We can often get too caught up in the jargon and extensive spec sheets and bit rate specs that define a product. Naturally when we play around with new gear, we fully admire the engineers who actually know what they are doing, to deliver such worthy sound enhancements. But what really matters is whether the product delivers a rewarding emotional experience? The iFi Go bar Kensei does just that.
We love that the Kensei is an ultra-portable DAC, roughly the size of a typical thumb drive, but includes powered amplification. We love that iFi has made this DAC special with other Japanese influences above the finish and circuitry, by adding a traditional wooden paulownia box known as Kiribako, as part of the packaging..Nice touch! We also love that the bass and spatial elements of a file can be manipulated with the push of a button. But mostly what we love, is the meaningful and obvious sound enhancements as soon as you plug the Kensei into your music source. Just like that business class seat; its tough to go back once you have had a chance to live and hear better.
iFi is exclusively distributed by Erikson Consumer. The Go bar Kensei edition DAC is currently available for $699.00 CDN and includes carrying case, USB-C and Apple lightening adapters .