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hey Dave - hang on Dave Taylor here
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again and this time I'm looking at audio
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equipment again but not these headphones
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and not this cool HP convertible
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computer I'm looking at this this is the
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IFI audio eye DAC - and this let me
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unplug it and show you what we're
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talking about here this is a digital to
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analog converter and if you've seen some
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of the other stuff we've reviewed this
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is way the heck a lot larger but boy
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does this do some amazing things to your
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audio because here's the reality the
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reality is that your computer doesn't
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really do a great job of reproducing
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audio there's compression
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there's expansion there's noise there's
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all sorts of muddiness and resampling
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all sorts of stuff going on plug in one
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of these guys and you get rid of all of
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that because in fact the IFI ID act 2
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actually is built on and industry
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insiders will know what this is the burr
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brown chipset and what that means is it
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can do PCM and DSD playback those are
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proprietary super high fidelity audio it
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can do those without any resampling
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without any conversion without any
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compression and decompression nothing
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it's just clear the end result is that
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this thing might not be the world's most
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portable device but holy cow this adds I
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don't know like $500 worth of value to
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any headphones or even earbuds you are
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listening to now you can use it for a
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lot of different things you can see here
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on the back that it has a digital output
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along with the digital it's actually a
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USB 3 input but on the front you can see
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that there's also the RCA jack out and
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the headphone jack and it has its own
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volume control so this is one of these
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you know many different features that
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makes this an interesting device is that
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you plug this into your computer or even
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into any device that you can get USB
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audio right you plug it in and then it
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has its own volume control and
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if you have headphones that you're used
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to going well they're almost all the way
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up put it almost at full volume and it's
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okay you plug it into this thing and
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you'll be turning the volume down
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instead of up because it adds that much
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more to the music but it's not just
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volume it's not just an amplifier it's
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like it makes it louder but it also
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makes it wider it gives you so much more
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richness to the music it's really it's
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really pretty remarkable actually
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so as I said it plays all sorts of
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different formats and fundamentally it's
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actually really super easy to use so on
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my Mac or my PC I just use the included
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USB connector but it's really just a
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regular USB 3 on one end and USB regular
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more common plug on the other end so you
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plug one end into the I DAC to plug the
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other end into whatever device you want
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to listen to and let's see here we go
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and you're good to go and now all you
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have to do is plug in your headphones or
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of course using the RCA jacks you can
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plug in regular speakers and you can use
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this as the volume control for those
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speakers however you want to do it I
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have to say this is really something it
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is really not inexpensive either so this
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runs $349 but if you're an audiophile
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and you know you really want to just
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enjoy the best of it and if you have
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something really wonderful like these
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high-end Bayer dynamics or even better
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headphones then this is gonna give you a
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whole new level of listening really
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pretty much any headphones I will say
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even probably earbuds you plug them in
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and they're just kind of make them sound
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better this is just a really nifty
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device and I can see if you have a
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desktop computer just leave this
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permanently plugged in for me I've been
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known to travel with this and pull it
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out at a coffee shop and I imagine
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people look over to go the heck but I
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don't really care because the music's so
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lush and so beautiful that I have no
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idea they exist anyway true
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stories anyway hold on one more point
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and that point is not about this it's
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about my YouTube channel and I know that
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you're gonna want to click Subscribe
4:33
because you're not gonna whisk want to
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miss anything that I do and I produce
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tons of tech and gadget reviews so
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please go ahead and click the subscribe
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button thank you now I fi audio ID AK to
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349 bucks at amazon.com you can also
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learn more at IFI - audio.com
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this is Dave Taylor and I am tuning out
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so I'll catch you in my next video bye
