Spdif purifier by iFi

amit11

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Hi Friends,

Does anybody use or have had chance to demo the SPDIF purifier by iFi?
It is basically a pass thru for spdif signal (either optical or coaxial), and is said to purify it by reducing jitter / reclocking etc. It sits between the transport and the DAC.

Normally our transport which outputs spdif signal has a clock of type nano/pico. This one takes the clock speed one step ahead and has more faster clock, called as femto clock. I read reviews and many are positive and few neutral and couple of negative. Either way it sounds promising.

Optical --> Optical
Optical --> Coaxial
Coaxial --> Optical
Coaxial --> Coaxial

https://www.amazon.com/IFI-iPurifier-Digital-Optical-Optimizer/dp/B01KKFTM5S


Amit.
 
Strongly urge you to consider if this (or any component) is really required. The goal of every audiophile should be to reduce and simplify, in my opinion. The best path is the shortest path.
 
all the DAC manufacturer highlight that all necessary clock and jitter reduction are built into the DAC. If we still need an external purifier I wonder how much difference it will make. Of course there will be some improvement for sure but will our listening environment and the material, type of music we listen to allow this improvement to be showcased is the question to be asked...minor improvements can be felt only in more than ideal situations.just my humble opinion
 
Well, it has been exactly two months I had got the spdif purifier from ifi. The reason for not writing any review so far was that from day 1 after plugging this i was going thru a roller coaster ride and i was not able to conclude to be able to write. The roller coaster ride was mainly because from day 1 onwards something broke in my system :( and i had no way to bring back my system to that same level of 'music memory' which I was used to. So comparing became a bit difficult.

I had thought of writing step-by-step what all difficulties i had to go through and the various permutations and combinations i had try out during these two months, but then i am keeping long story short.

Ifi spdif purifier shattered one belief. And for another belief, reinforced it.

a) digital is 1s and 0s and optical cables are same, either data reaches or it does not. :eek:

Well, that was the thing i used to believe, but no more. Since ifi requires one input optical and another output optical, i had to anyway buy another spdif optical cable. During these experiments after buying many cables, i can without a doubt say that optical cables can have their own sound signature, very much like an analog RCA cable. I had around six cables, and had to use two at a time. One before the purifier and another after that. Even swapping them made a difference.


b) Quality of power supply :cool:
I used to believe this since I had done this experiment before. After many weeks I found the culprit which was causing me to believe that 'ifi ipower' is good obviously and there is something wrong in my system. But it took weeks for me to realize that it was actually the power adapter which came with the purifier that was make me averse to listening music.
I removed it and tried with few old adapters and I found they were listenable compared to the ifi ipower. But still something was missing. Thats how I realized that normal adapters made the sound change.
Then i was thinking to buy some better power adapter or linear power supply, but LPS being expense dropped the idea.
Then i thought why should not i try something similar to what i am supplying my dac. a battery power.
Since purifier is 5v, it came to my mind that i can use usb power from my ipad, or phone to check how it works. Voila, it was sounding better than any of the power adapters. Then I thought of buying a power bank of mobile since i do not have one. To try out I temporarily borrowed a normal power bank (normal intex brand, nothing special) from one of my friends, and wow.. it was sounding now ever better.

I am now enjoying music after two months.

Finally my conclusion about this purifier is: :)
a) This will definitely bring about 5 to 20 % improvement in any system. The mileage may vary depending upon how expensive your DAC is.
b) The purifier is neutral, it will not change the sound signature of your DAC. It will neither do any upsampling. Your DAC will sound more expensive. We can say it will add 500 to 1000 USD to your DAC.
c) It will force you to upgrade your digital cables. It will shatter your notion that digital cable is about just moving about 1s and 0s.
d) It will force you to experiment with power supply.

Definitely I am keeping it and have noticed that whenever I remove it from my system, i feel i am missing something.

PS: I will have to now few components to my signature...;)
 
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