Reference streamer, DAC and headphone amplifier in a single unit
The iFi Audio iDSD Phantom is iFi's flagship: it brings together a reference-class DAC, an ultra-resolution network streamer and a very powerful headphone amplifier, designed in England for listening without compromise. It can sit at the centre of a system with active speakers or an amplifier, drive the most demanding headphones in the living room or serve as a complete system on the desk.
The chassis measures 256 x 185 x 120 mm and weighs 3.6 kg. It comes with the 15 V iPower Elite power supply, an infrared remote control, the OptiBox with SC-SC fibre optic cable, an RCA cable, a USB 3.0 cable and the antenna.
DSD2048 remastering and four Burr-Brown DACs
The Crysopeia FPGA engine, programmed by iFi, brings DSD2048 remastering into the home for the first time, processing that originated in Japanese mastering studios. Four Burr-Brown DSD1793 chips work in an interleaved configuration and natively decode signals up to DSD2048, with exceptional low-level detail. PCM up to 768 kHz and DSD up to DSD512 are supported, which remastering takes to DSD2048.
JVCKENWOOD's K2 and K2HD technologies restore the harmonic content lost in production or digital encoding, with extension beyond 22 kHz. A set of digital filters then allows the time-domain response to be fine-tuned.
Tube or solid-state, in Class A, up to 4,676 mW RMS
The analogue stage offers two fully balanced Class A circuits, selectable in real time: solid-state, with discrete J-FETs, or tube, with hand-selected and matched NOS GE5670 valves. Tube+ mode raises second-order harmonics by 6 dB for an even warmer, more fluid sound.
The amplifier delivers at least 4,676 mW RMS into 64 Ω (17.3 V) from the balanced output, with a peak of 7,747 mW, and at least 2,311 mW into 32 Ω from the single-ended outputs. XBass Pro is an analogue bass equalisation at 10, 20 or 40 Hz; XSpace Pro takes the soundstage out of the head with three settings at 30, 60 and 90 degrees. Stated dynamic range is at least 116 dB(A) in balanced mode.
Streaming, inputs and outputs
The streaming engine supports Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Roon, AirPlay, DLNA and UPnP, with Wi-Fi setup from the iFi Nexis app over Bluetooth. The digital inputs include USB-B 3.0, two USB-A and one USB-C host ports, coaxial S/PDIF, AES3 on XLR, network on RJ45, M12 and SC optical fibre, plus a BNC sync input.
There are six headphone outputs: 3.5 mm S-Balanced, 4.4 mm balanced, 4-pin XLR, a pair of 3-pin XLRs and two 6.3 mm jacks. The line outputs, balanced XLR and RCA, have two levels: up to 4.5 V (2.2 V on RCA) in Hi-Fi mode and up to 18 V (9 V on RCA) in Pro mode.
