iFi Hip-dac2 - Portable Balanced DAC Headphone Amplifier for Android, iPhone with USB Input Only/Outputs: 3.5mm Unbalanced / 4.4mm Balanced – MQA Decoder

Due to vendor chicanery I rarely give 5 star reviews.I’ve only had this item on my wishlist for 18 months. Amazon had this is part of their spring sale, and because I had a little extra money I pulled the trigger.I bought this to upgrade my existing DAC/AMP. I hoped that this unit would drive my headphones a little better and I’m not disappointed.The first thing that I like is that is a powered unit. My old DAC/AMP was not powered, and since I listen to my headphones almost exclusively on my phone this alone was a nice upgrade.Once connected to my phone, the difference is impressive! I use a couple Pink Floyd tracks as my baseline. Well it didn’t take long to hear the difference, and while on the first track. At my age, and the ridiculous number of times I’ve heard that track - if something “new” popped out at me, I think this is impressive!I like the power match button. this is a neat feature. The “xbass” button is another nice feature. While most people like to listen to max bass 24/7, I do not. I prefer a pure, flat sound - the way it was intended - but different strokes/different folks. Anyway, the “xbass” button works WELL and really does a nice job for the THUMP!The volume control dial was the first sign that this was a full functioning AMP, and not a discount one.There are plenty of cords and connectors that will hopefully work for your equipment/setup. My iPhone 16 connectivity was uneventful, everything worked as expected right from the get go.As I keep rereading what I’ve wrote, I’m changing my review to 5-stars. This is a heck of an upgrade for me and didn’t break the bank. I feel like I got a lot of value for what I paid.I can’t address the battery life yet. As mentioned above, I set this up the moment I opened the box.As mentioned above, the controls work well, are easy to use and are marked well.I read other reviewers that said they put this in their shirt pocket. I’ll definitely be doing exactly that on my next visit to the grocery store.All in all I’m thrilled with my purchase. I would definitely recommend this product!

PIC: Under the phone is the HipDac 2.I bought the original HipDac and liked it so much getting the HipDac2 was a no brainer. The HipDac is the most powerful, portable and flexible DAC you can buy for under $200. Despite it being geared for headphone mobile us, after looking at the specs and the capabilities, I literally found it to be a quite capable desktop DAC. The only drawback in doing so is having to use a 3mm headphone jack for output to the rest of my stereo chain. I listen to Spotify or Tidal all day in my home office. I use the premium subscriptions for each Spotify for playlist listening, Tidal for reviewing artists and previewing for vinyl purchases.The HipDac goes into other low cost gear...from the HipDac it goes to a Fosi MM tube pre-amp that also doubles as a signal pre. From there it loops through a Bellari EQ570 and on to a Nobsound 6p1 tube amp. (Rolled to HQ tubes) from there out to the very excellent Wharfdale 80th Anniversary Dentons. I use the line matching button and extra bass, I run the level on the HipDac at about 1 o'clock and control the overall volume at the amp.Some caveats of using it as a HiFi system DAC. The major drawback is getting the streaming audio to it takes up some space on the rack. Yes, you can use a phone, PC, laptop or tablet but for phones and tablets, it is problematic to charge and play at the same time. I have had inconsistent success doing so with both Android and iOS devices. I ended up sticking with a Lenovo tablet and using USB Audio Player Pro's custom android audio driver for Tidal and native spotify use. USBAPP drive will take over chores and provide bit perfect streaming with their Tidal implementation. Using spotify native app is pretty much seamless. The Lenovo gives me 12-14 hours of playing time. Spotify premium allows 320 kbits steaming and frankly for all day listening I find Spotify audio quality very consistent and non-fatiguing. Plus they have excellent playlists for office/work music. Tidal MQA works well and is extremely high quality, so much so it will show you the true levels of the recordings complete with all the scratchy instrument hairballs and magnetic dust bunnies. This detail can be fatiguing to listen to.There is a learning curve to getting the highest audio quality possible for least amount of $$ possible. If you are into that quest the HipDac2 is a good place to start regardless how you use it, it is simply a really good device.If it is your first time using a DAC you discover things in your favorite music, in the recording and in the voices of singers and instruments that you never heard before because you were listening to a crappy DAC and low resolution stream. If you are already a long time audiophile and want to move beyond the limitations of wireless headphone listening or phone onboard DACS you will. be rewarded.

At my latest job, the Thinkpad laptops we have to use have very poor sound hardware. My high-impedance headphones need more power than the laptop is able to deliver, making all my music sound thin and watery. This DAC had an enormous impact on the sound quality, even more than I had expected. It has exceeded my expectations in every way. If you want to improve your computer audio even more, you can install ASIO drivers to allow the computer to communicate with the DAC more directly. My only (joking) complaint about this product is that using it every day is making my bluetooth headphones sound crappy in comparison. Hash tag first world problems.