iFi GO bar - Ultraportable DAC/preamp/headphone amp

Product Information

GO Bar also has a +6dB High Gain mode. Unlike what happens e.g. on the GO Blu where gain selection follows an automatic system, on GO Bar it’s the user who has to manually set the device on High or Low Gain mode. The frustration points doubled up because I actually liked the sound overall. I came away more disappointed than anything; like a good idea or two got lost along the way somewhere and were left behind. I will be editing, but this is what I have thus far... sorry for the literal cut-and-paste from my "edit" space. All but one utilize a USB Type-C Connection, with the odd man out being the somewhat older AudioQuest DragonFly Red; a DAC that sports the Type-A connection traditionally seen in the standard flash drives of the past.

Compared with the Apple dongle and using my Solaris, the UA5 is much better: it sounds more natural, softer, and less brittle. It has a lively, energetic quality, thanks in part to the treble emphasis, although because the bass is also emphasized (but not overdone, as with the Apple dongle). The overall tuning is reasonably balanced. String and brass instruments have better tonality than from the Apple dongle, but not the complexity or refinement I heard from the iFi dongles. The UA5 could do with a bit more richness and warmth. At one end of the GO bar is an asynchronous USB-C input. At the other resides two headphone outputs: a fully balanced 4.4mm output enabling headphones equipped with a balanced connector to make the most of the GO bar’s balanced audio circuitry, and a 3.5mm ‘S-Balanced’ output which cuts noise and cross-talk by 50% with SE headphone connectors. Both outputs are gold-plated for quality and longevity. I heard a boost to the upper mids, which added presence and detail, but on the Arya, which has its own upper-mid boost, it was a little too much. Overall, I found things to be a little closed in and dull. Regarding voltage swing into very high impedance drivers (600Ω) GO Bar easily promises (and delivers) the highest figure on the “dongles” market today, a whopping 7,2V. That’s significantly higher even compared to Apogee Groove’s 5V on 600Ω. Ifi does not declare (and I couldn’t measure) the swing on 300Ω (Groove’s stays just a bit below 5V there).

Technical Specifications

For my direct experience, Host Volume Sync works as intended on my Android devices, and on my proprietary-Linux small transport, the Tempotec V1. It works “erratically” on my Windows 10 laptop. It does not work at all on any of my different-distro Linux boxes. Input​GO Bar offers a single input, being the USB-C port which is therefore supposed to carry in both digital data and power. While the features are abundant for a small little dongle DAC, I am not a big fan of how to determine what settings you are on. Over time, you can memorize or just remember what things once you get the hang of it, but the tiny LED dots, and the tiny text is already likely hard to read, but then you add in the fact that they chose a light grayish-blue (periwinkle?) text color on top of a dark gunmetal gray shell design, makes it exponentially harder to read, no matter how much light, what angle its coming from, or how much you squint. It's barely legible, if at all for me, as someone who doesn't require eyeglasses for anything. Host power requirements​I didn’t analythically measure GO Bar’s power requirements, yet there are quite a few things that can be said based on iFi’s published data, and subjective experience.

I’ve posted impressions elsewhere from a previous loaner tour, and my ambivalent feelings about this dongle haven’t really changed, which is why I didn’t buy one. I prefer the tonality of NOS but find it constrained, closed in, and dull; OS, by contrast, is less congested and constrained but has a thinner and weedier tonality. It’s still somewhat lifeless and flat.

Scores

iFi utilizes its 16-core XMOS controller and a 32-bit Cirrus Logic DAC. The other tech features are as follows;