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"At The Top of My 'Must Buy' List!"iFi is proud to present the premier product in its flagship Professional 'Pro' series. The Pro iCAN is a studio-grade headphone amplifier and audiophile line-stage preamplifier. Inside beats 'two hearts' as there is are individual solid-state and tube amplification sections, selectable on the go. "iFi Audio's iCAN headphone amplifier is very versatile with a variety of different types of headphones and comes with some unique additional flexibilities. It's a talented performer across a wide range of musical styles, but competes in an increasingly popular sector and is aimed at serious headphone listeners," reports Neville Roberts, Hi-Fi Choice, October 17, 2017 "The iCAN will be at the top of my 'must buy' list!" reaves Dwayne Carter, EnjoyTheMusic.com, February 2017. "If you are looking for a small form factor, audiophile quality, professional headphone amplifier/line-stage preamplifier; that will give you years of high-quality audio pleasure; the iFi Pro iCAN can." A Top-of-the-Line Headphone Amp and PreampThe Pro iCAN will for many be used as a top-of-the-line, headphone amplifier that drives anything and everything from IEMs to the most difficult to drive headphone ever made, the AKG K-1000. Gain is adjustable from 0dB, 9dB, 18dB. The Pro iCAN can output over 10 volts in single-ended mode and 20 volts in Balanced-mode. The 20-volt mode is equivalent to 100 watts into a 4 Ohm speaker. It's also an audiophile line-stage preamp. The Pro iCAN has at the core a Japan Alps motorized rotary volume potentiometer - the six-track version with four tracks used for a true balanced volume control. This is the litmus test for any amplifier to see if it is truly balanced or operates internally in single-ended mode. Those using two-track volume controls may offer balanced in and out, but they are not true balanced designs. The Pro iCAN however is fully-balanced from beginning to end. In terms of flexibility, offering three single-ended and one balanced inputs, plus one balanced and one single-ended output, the Pro iCAN is a full-function audiophile line-stage. Its user-selectable solid-state/tube amplifiers remain and are 3D Holographic for Speakers and XBass for ultra-fidelity home audio systems using proprietary iFi technology. Tube/ Solid-State Real-time SwitchingCompared to high-end headphone amplifiers, the tube stage of the Pro iCAN is different in two-ways. First, iFi doesn't use good-quality 6922s or similar. Instead iFi use the very best General Electric 5670, which is the premium variant with a different pinout. Second, and just as important, is the circuit design. Unlike other headphone amplifiers that have the same circuit and just switch in/out the tube section, the Pro iCAN is the very first of its kind that has two individual input circuits - one tube and one solid-state. This results in the best sonics of both worlds, because the signal path is the shortest, and there is no compromise to 'shoehorn' the tubes into an already existing solid-state circuit. This means you can enjoy both the sound of solid-state and vacuum tubes in a single package rather than as an 'effect type' add-on within an otherwise conventional solid-state design, and you are able to switch in real-time. For some recordings, headphones, or loudspeakers, solid-state may sound livelier. Otherwise the Tube and Tube+ modes (especially Tube+) will sound more luxurious. Select the one that sounds best for that particular moment, be it the recording, the mood or even the weather. After all, enjoying music is an experience to be savored and not a scientific research exercise. So what's Tube+? Sometimes there is a need for even more tube-like sound, there are two tube settings. Tube and also Tube+, which reduces overall loop-gain and thus negative feedback to the minimum. This gives a different trade-off between the tube's natural harmonics and the transient performance. Class A Solid-State, J-FETs, and Fully-DiscreteThe solid-state amplification section of the Pro iCAN is just as seriously executed as the Ttube amplification section. The amplifier audio circuit is a development of iFi's revolutionary 'TubeState' design. It is fully discrete, fully-balanced with either tube or J-FET input switchable, bipolar second stage and MOSFET-buffered bipolar Class A power stage (with Class AB for low impedance headphones at very high levels). The resulting circuit may be best described as 'tri-brid' where each device is used to its greatest sonic advantage while minimizing any drawbacks. Furthermore, the circuit is pure DC coupled to avoid using any sonically-degrading coupling capacitors. True Differential Balanced®At the upper end of the headphone amplifier market, things are not always what they seem. You may justifiably find yourself wondering, "Is this balanced design really balanced?" The majority of 'balanced' high-ended headphone amplifiers are actually single-ended amplifiers with balanced inputs and outputs. The balanced input will be converted into single-ended operation inside the amplifier, then converted back to balanced just before the output. The Pro iCAN however, is true balanced from end-to-end, from the input all the way through to the outputs. It operates with full-differential internal signaling, meaning that the signal is always remains two separate signals of equal level but opposite polarity. The Pro iCAN circuit is fully-balanced with completely equal circuit sections for Positive (Hot) and Negative (Cold) signal phase of each channel. The Volume control has 6-Decks, two decks each control the volume of one channel, and the other two decks are used for monitoring the volume control operation. This exceptional volume control potentiometer is custom made for iFi by ALPS Japan and has no parallel from other makers. But, as the two halves of the volume control and the two halves of the amplification operate differentially, they effectively become a single stage. So the circuitry is highly elaborate in actual implementation, yet it comes down to the simplest design possible for a headphone amplifier: a volume control, a gain stage and a current buffer. Compared to a single-ended design with exactly the same circuit, True Differential Balanced design lowers noise by 3dB and also lowers THD dramatically over the. Additionally, it allows the signal level to be doubled, so True Differential Balanced circuitry also produces 9dB (or three times) greater dynamic range. 3D Holographic for Headphones®The iFi Audio 3D Holographic for Headphones technology is not based on a standard cross-feed system, as found in some high-end headphone amplifiers. Many so called '3D systems' are usually DSP-based that artificially effect the sound and add unwanted reverb in order to simulate a 'spacious' type of sound. It's true that traditional cross-feed tends to produce an 'out of head' sound, but with much diminished spatial components and a narrower soundstage, sometimes almost approaching mono. Most DSP based 3D designs produce an unnatural, echo-like sound, which may initially be impressive, but soon becomes tiring. By contrast, iFi Audio's 3D Holographic for Headphones, provides not only 'out of head' placement of the sound sources, but renders the whole sound field in a manner that strongly parallels listening to loudspeakers in a normal room, all achieved without the added reverb. This is the first system in commercial production to achieve this. 3D Holographic for Loudspeakers®3D Holographic for Speakers® from iFi offers something quite special. It takes high-end systems to another level of performance. It was drawn from the original ground-breaking work of Alan Blumlein, the 'father of stereo.' Firstly, it corrects the fundamental spatial distortion in recordings. And secondly, it increases the width of the soundstage beyond that of the speaker placement. The 3D Holographic circuit for loudspeakers corrects a distortion of the sound field caused by recording via microphones and playback via loudspeakers. This sound field distortion was first described by Alan Dower Blumlein and corrected by EMI in early 'Stereosonic' recordings. However, the original Stereosonic circuit tended to result in a narrower soundstage than if recorded straight and often overcompensated distortion of the soundstage perspective. iFi's 3D Holographic systems avoid this and instead, allow an expansion of the width of the sound stage. These modes can also be used to enhance the imaging of recordings that offer poor spatiality. XBass Correction System®Different recordings and different headphones exhibit different frequency responses. XBass is an analog signal processing (ASP) circuitry and it is sonically superior to Digital Signal Processing (DSP) systems. XBass is tailored to correct the bass deficiency in the headphone or loudspeaker and achieve the desired level. It is NOT a traditional tone or loudness control and provides a minimum of 12dB boost at 10/20/40Hz. Reference-Class PartsThe Pro iCAN uses TDK Japan-made C0G type capacitors and Vishay MELF type thin film resistors. These are complemented by Panasonic Japan-made ECPU Film Capacitors explicitly designed for audio use with extremely low distortion (<0.00001% @ 1V/10kHz). iFi also uses ELNA Japan-made Silmic II capacitors for the power supplies. These use special silk fiberpaper for the isolating barrier resulting in decreased odd-order distortion and reduced microphonics mechanical resonances. Despite its 'desktop' footprint, the Pro iCAN is absolutely chocked full of premium components yet with a 4-layer PCB, has the ultimate topology in signal path layout/grounding. There is just no more 'real estate' left to develop. It truly is deserving of the iFi flagship mantle. Overview
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2019 Editors' Choice Award – The Absolute Sound"...uncommonly quiet, low-distortion, high-powered and flexible." "...Though quite detailed, the amp prioritizes musicality over a strictly analytical sound. It is quiet enough for use with [custom in ear monitors], yet powerful enough to drive almost anything." - The Absolute Sound, March 2019 "iFi Audio's iCAN headphone amplifier is very versatile with a variety of different types of headphones and comes with some unique additional flexibilities. It's a talented performer across a wide range of musical styles, but competes in an increasingly popular sector and is aimed at serious headphone listeners." - Neville Roberts, Hi-Fi Choice, October 17, 2017 "The iCAN will be at the top of my 'must buy' list! If you are looking for a small form factor, audiophile quality, professional headphone amplifier/line-stage preamplifier; that will give you years of high-quality audio pleasure; the iFi Pro iCAN can." - Dwayne Carter, EnjoyTheMusic.com, February 2017 |
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