The base of the iFi Go Link’s USB-C connector is too wide to use with many Android phone cases. The great news is that the Go Link’s DAC sanded off those sharp edges and gave at least some extra body to the tracks. Chic sounded terrible with the Apple adapter: brittle and thin. The real test came when listening via Spotify, which still streams its music in less-than-CD quality almost two years after they promised a lossless option was coming soon. That’s generally not the experience I’ve had with MQA streams played through high-end DACs, so I’d attribute this more to the particular limitations of the Go Link than to the MQA tech. Switching the Go Link, the overall sound was dramatically improved, but I preferred the results I got from Qobuz and Apple Music. When listening to an MQA Master streaming from Tidal via the Apple dongle, the track had solid bass, but there was a decided harshness in the strings and vocals. “Good Times” is streaming in high-res lossless at Apple Music, and the improvement was just as pronounced when switching from the Apple adapter to the iFi Go Link as it had been with Qobuz. What iFi has made here is an entry-level DAC for people who are just curious about higher-resolution audio or not yet able to make an investment in high-end audio gear. If you’ve invested in high-end headphones, you want a high-quality DAC and headphone amp to drive your purchase. That brings up the use case for this device. To be fair, the Gryphon is loaded with features the Go Link doesn’t have, and the gap between the two DACs was far more noticeable when I switched to my Focal Celestee over-ear headphone, which costs roughly ten times as much as the Sony MDR-7506.Įven with an added Lighting adapter, the iFi Go Link DAC seems impossibly small. There was certainly an improvement with the Gryphon, but it wasn’t nearly as pronounced as you’d think with a DAC that costs ten times as much. The real shock came when comparing the iFi Go Link to iFi’s $599 Gryphon xDSD DAC and listening via the Sony headphones. The soundstage widened, the legendary Edwards bass part filled out and dominated the track, while Rodger’s era-defining guitar part sparkled. I first plugged in via Apple’s Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter and then switched to the iFi Go Link using the included Lightning to USB-C adapter. I started with Qobuz, which is streaming a 192kHz version of the track. Listening to the iFi Go Link with an iPhone To keep in the spirit of a $59 dongle, I used my pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones, which are still the best wired headphones under $250, even though they sell for less than $100. Both devices were up to date with the current versions of their respective operating systems. I used an iPhone 13 Pro Max and a OnePlus 10T Android phone for playback. Plus, listening to “Good Times” 25 times in a row is a supremely enjoyable experience. It’s available as a high-resolution track on various music services, so it seemed like a great test. I decided to pick one song for specific comparisons between an array of music sources and landed on the 2018 remaster of “Good Times” by Chic, a legendarily well-recorded 1979 track written and produced by band leaders Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers. The iFi Go Link’s playback quality is stunning for a device this small and this inexpensive.
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