iFi Audio Hip-dac2 Portable USB DAC and Headphone Amp

The hip-dac2 replaces the inferior DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) and amp circuitry in smartphones, tablets, PCS, and Macs to vastly improve headphone sound.

Thanks to the XMOS 16 core tech, the hip-dac2 is now an MQA Decoder rather than a Renderer only. This enables you to playback MQA audio files and streams, delivering the sound of the original master recording. The LED glows green or blue to indicate that the unit is decoding and playing an MQA stream or file, and denotes provenance to ensure that the sound is identical to that of the source material. It glows blue to indicate it is playing an MQA Studio file, which has either been approved in the studio by the artist/producer or has been verified by the copyright owner.

The amp stage features switchable gain, which iFi calls PowerMatch. This matches the level of drive to the load presented by the headphones, by adjusting input sensitivity and thereby signal strength. Use the lower setting with high-sensitivity headphones. If your headphones require more drive, use PowerMatch to increase gain.