Disclaimer: The iFi Go/Gold Bar units were provided directly by iFi Audio. The review reflects my sincere opinions as always. About iFi Audio When changing volume via +/- buttons the LEDs on GO Bar’s bottom faceplate briefly light up to give a visual representation of the volume level.

The build quality is flawless, and the manual volume knob is a pleasure to use. It uses Dethonray’s ‘Touch & Feel’ algorithm to make the volume adjustment smooth and accurate.Moving over to the IE Match switch, it has three settings. First is “Off,” which sets the standard gain for both outputs. Then, by moving the button either left or right, you can select a lower gain setting for either the 3.5mm or 4.4mm output. The lower gain settings are meant for high-sensitivity IEMs and the like. My main application for XSpace are those original jazz masters from the 60ies where mixing tended to be executed by hard panning each instrument on a single channel only: crossfeed is almost magical in those cases. The DACS we’re comparing today are all small, portable, and share similar weights, sizes, and dimensions. I also threw in the Gryphon, hip-dac 1, and hip-dac 2 for good measure, and again, not much in the way of differences.

Frankly, the only missing things are a replaceable cable and a Lightning-to-USB adapter for iOS devices. Of course, if you aren’t an Apple user, this will not impact you. Despite the need for a product like this to be as small and unobtrusive as realistically possible, iFi has nevertheless had a go at Doing Some Designing. The result is a USB ‘dongle’ DAC that’s a little bigger and heavier than the norm - but also one that’s very nicely built and finished. Groove swings 5V into 600Ω impedance cans which is a lot. It is indeed way short of GO Bar’s huge 7,2V although it’s worth noting that per se there’s little need for those extra 2V when driving high impedance dynamic divers. The iFi GO bar has a clean, crisp sound signature and, by default, does not emphasize the lower frequencies. This gives it a lively and resolving presentation that listeners can tune to their liking using the XBass and XSpace controls. Where to buythe more DACS I demo (65+ at this point), the more I’m starting to really believe that there are almost no differences between them (at least not any that you can actually hear). You also have a “Turbo” mode gain option, which gives you a considerable boost of +6dB for the most power-hungry headphones. This is accessed by pressing both volume buttons at the same time. After inquiring with iFi’s tech support I got no fix for the Windows problems, and I got confirmed that Linux is indeed not supported “by design”. This is bad, as this de facto prevents GO Bar to be used in pretty much any Linux Client-Server configuration e.g. in a Roon, or LMS, or similar infrastructure, unless by slamming its volume to 100% via its HW buttons, and then actionate on host’s Digital Volume which is of course far from ideal in terms of output quality. I will be editing, but this is what I have thus far... sorry for the literal cut-and-paste from my "edit" space. Certainly the more “pasticy” sounding out of the bunch. More closed off and all the instruments seem to be made out of plastic with this kind of low end puch going on. It is also the hazyiest of all 4 of these.

If you alternatively would love a more vulgarised approach, there’s my article about this (or many others on the web).

iFi Audio GO bar

And the Go Bar can work its magic no matter the standard of digital audio file you treat it to. It’s just as happy extracting some meaning from the marginal, information-light stuff Spotify hands over on its free tier as it is crossing the ‘t’s and dotting the ‘i’s on a full-fat DSD256 file. In every circumstance, music sounds fuller, more confident and more convincing after it’s been pored over by this iFi DAC. So in the case of GO Bar – much the same as in the case of Micro iDSD Signature or GO Blu – I guess that the practical value of the S-Balanced technology applied behind the 3.5mm port is limited to the xtalk improvement – which is nevertheless nothing to bin.