iFi is taking a democratic approach to the design of its forthcoming DSD DAC and headphone amp the Micro iDSD. The idea is that users suggest features and ideas for the ‘advanced skunkworks’ Micro iDSD via a page on the headfi site, iFi’s facebook page and plain old emails to the company. This has already garnered a strong response on headfi with enthusiasts coming up with technology, layout and engineering ideas. By way of an incentive the “top‐10 contributors whose features are adopted, will each receive the all‐new micro iDSD”, which seems pretty generous considering that the price looks like being in the region of £350. A pre-production sample is due to be unveiled at the High End show, Munich in mid May with the DAC expected to be on sale in June, so the (unspecified) deadline for ideas can’t be far away.
The spec is based on the existing Nano iDSD so it’s mains or battery powered and natively converts PCM, DSD and DXD but it will have dual stacked Burr Brown DAC chips. If you want to make suggestions for the micro iDSD these are the channels to use:
1. This thread on Head‐Fi will be the focal point
2. PM us via Head‐Fi
3. Message us on our official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/iFiAudio
4. Email us: design@ifi‐audio.com