iFi GO bar - Ultraportable DAC/preamp/headphone amp

Product Information

The sound had a cookie cutter feel to it. Part A meets Spec B, without any real promise of nuance. The very top may be a bit too sharp if your headphones run bright. I noticed it with HD280, and that is very much a "not bright" headphone sub-8Khz. For my personal experience with iFi devices, and for my tastes, I found the GTO filter viable on all iFi models I tried it onto, including GO Bar, with the sole exception of Micro iDSD Signature, where I found it “excessive”. You may want to read my take about that case here.

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. There’s plenty of power on hand for most headphones (160mW SE, 320mW balanced), and the FiiO Control application allows for even more output power using the “Boost BAL” mode. At the end of a day spent auditioning the dongles, the last combination I wanted to try was this one. Please bear in mind that I was a bit tired and my concentration not as good as it could have been. I was also fairly fatigued from a few hours’ of listening critically. But, holy cow, this was a truly amazing setup.There’s literally nothing about this DAC that justifies its price tag – in terms of sound or otherwise. Closing Thoughts iFi released two versions of the iFi GO bar, the standard ‘GO’ and the limited-edition ‘Gold’ bar, a premium-priced, limited-edition, gold-plated copper version of the original. Both feature the same internal 32-bit Cirrus Logic DAC and 16-core XMOS controller. Simply put, if you ask me GO Bar’s Single Ended output is to be disregarded, in favour of its Balanced Ended sibling.

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. Much like it happens on many other iFi’s models, GO Bar carries built-in IEMatch circuitry. The implementation does not exactly follow the same specs as the standalone IEMatch devices though. Thank you, Shanling, iFi, and yotacowboy for kindly making this loaner tour possible, and to rhythmdevils, shotgunshane, and jexby for organizing it. I count myself as fortunate to be able to participate in these loaners, not least because I’ve now found a nice new dongle. Lastly, GO Bar’s additional features (selectable reconstruction filters, high gain option, MQA decoding, Xbass, Xspace) are totally alien to Groove.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.