The GO bar is iFi's top-of-the-line ultraportable USB DAC/headphone amp. Whether you are commuting, working remotely or at your desk or simply travelling for pleasure, the GO bar is the perfectly portable way to make headphones sound heavenly. Connect to your laptop, MacBook, tablet or smartphone or any other digital device with a USB port for sensational sound at home, in the office, or on the move. Accessories include a leather travel case and a Lightening to USB-C, no need to buy a Camera Connection Kit, plus a USB-C OTG cable and a USB-C to USB-A adapter.
Small. But mighty.
The DAC section of the GO bar uses a powerful 16-core XMOS micro controller to process the audio data received at the USB input. iFi's in-house team has programmed the XMOS firmware to optimise sound quality and ensure a perfect partnership with the GO bar‘s 32-bit Cirrus Logic DAC chipset.
A customised digital filter minimises pre-echoes and ringing artefacts. iFi's GMT (Global Master Timing) precision clock system ensures ultra-low jitter.
- Ultra-res PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz via USB
- Native playback up to DSD256
- 2x DXD
- Full MQA decoding
Four bespoke digital filtering options:
- Bit Perfect – no digital filtering, no pre or post ringing
- Standard – modest filtering, modest pre and posting ringing
- Minimum Phase – slow roll-off, minimum pre and post ringing
- Gibbs Transient Optimised – minimum filtering, no pre-ringing and minimum post ringing
Two analogue processing modes:
- XBass+ – an analogue bass boost to ‘add back’ lost bass response for more accurate reproduction of the original
- XSpace – a holographic sound field to open up your music to give you the spaciousness of a live concert
External affairs
The GO bar’s smart alloy case sports physical buttons for precise volume adjustment plus controls to select between various sonic tuning options. A column of coloured LEDs provides a handy guide to the format and sample rate of the digital audio currently playing, and whether XBass+ and/or XSpace are engaged.
- 4.4mm fully balanced output – headphones with a balanced cable/connector can benefit from the fully balanced circuitry of the GO bar
- 3.5mm S-Balanced output – S-Balanced tech cuts crosstalk and noise by 50% with regular single-ended headphones.
Balance of power
Despite its diminutive size, the GO bar’s analogue circuitry sports a balanced circuit design with symmetrical twin-channel output stage. This reduces noise and crosstalk in the signal path by fully separating the left and right channels. This is usually found in larger and more expensive amplifiers. The circuitry is packed full of high quality discrete components and special attention has been paid to power supply filtering too, dramatically reducing signal noise introduced through the USB input.
Purity and power
The amp’s design combines sonic purity with power.
- 475mW into 32 ohms
- 7.5V into 600 ohms
No headphone amp of such a diminutive size can match the GO bar’s ability to drive tricky headphone loads or work with a wider variety of headphones.
The GO bar also incorporates two power tuning technologies:
- iEMatch – attenuates power to suit high-sensitivity headphones and IEMs, it removes background noise and increases usable volume range
- Turbo – ramps up the gain by 6dB to satisfy more power-hungry headphones
