Ifi Introduces Hi-Res Pocket Headphone Amp-DAC Combo for $149

Audio vendor iFi bowed the hip-dac Thursday, a portable USB digital-to-analog converter and headphone amp small enough to fit in a pocket. The $149 amp is designed to improve sound from smartphones, tablets and computers. Using a Burr-Brown DAC chip, hip-dac streams “bit-perfect” pulse-code modulation, native Direct Stream Digital and Master Quality Authenticated. Hi-Res PCM and Digital eXtreme Definition audio data is supported at sampling rates up to 384 kHz, with DSD support from 2.8 MHz-12.4 MHz, it said.