Pocket-Size Hi-Res Head Amp, DAC, and Preamp
The GO bar is iFi Audio'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, 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, Lightning to USB-C (no need to buy a Camera Connection Kit), USB-C OTG cable, and 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. The iFi in-house team has programmed the XMOS firmware to optimize sound quality and ensure a perfect partnership with the GO bars 32-bit Cirrus Logic DAC chipset.
A customized digital filter minimizes pre-echoes and ringing artifacts. An iFi GMT (Global Master Timing) precision clock system ensures ultra-low jitter. The GO bar offers ultra-res PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz via USB, Native playback up to DSD256, 2x DXD, and full MQA decoding.
Tailor the Sound
To enjoy your music the way you want to hear it, the GO bar gives you four bespoke digital filtering options for tailoring the sound to your ears. Bit Perfect provides no digital filtering, no pre or post ringing. Standard gives you modest filtering, modest pre and posting ringing. Minimum Phase delivers slow roll-off, minimum pre and post ringing. Choose Gibbs Transient Optimized for minimum filtering, no pre-ringing and minimum post ringing.
You can also use two analog processing modes. XBass+ is an analog bass boost to add back lost bass response for more accurate reproduction of the original. XSpace is a holographic sound field that opens up your music to give you the spaciousness of a live concert.
Smart Alloy Case
The GO bars smart alloy case sports physical buttons for precise volume adjustment plus controls to select between various sonic tuning options. A column of colored 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.
At one end is an asynchronous USB-C input and at the other a pair of headphone outputs. Also provided is a 4.4mm fully balanced output so that headphones with a balanced cable/connector can benefit from the fully balanced circuitry of the GO bar. Or use the 3.5mm S-Balanced output iFi's S-Balanced tech cuts crosstalk and noise by 50% with regular single-ended headphones.
Powerfully Small
Despite its diminutive size, the GO bars 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 amps design combines sonic purity with power, delivering 475mW into 32 ohms and 7.5V into 600 ohms. No headphone amp of such a diminutive size can match the GO bars ability to drive tricky headphone loads or work with a wider variety of headphones.
The GO bar also incorporates two power tuning technologies iEMatch and Turbo. iEMatch attenuates power to suit high-sensitivity headphones and IEMs, removing background noise and increasing usable volume range. Turbo ramps up the gain by 6dB to satisfy more power-hungry headphones.
