ifi nano ione
FOR Exciting, detailed; small and lightweight; Bluetooth AGAINST Sound lacks some subtlety and warmth
What was it your mother taught you about dropping your ‘H’s? We ’adn’t ’eard of ifi before the nano ione found its way onto our review schedule, but we’d be more than ’appy to ’ear more.
In its simplest terms, the ione is a Bluetooth compatible DAC, with inputs for USB and coaxial hardware. That means you can use it either as an upgrade to your existing digital source, or to add wireless capabilities to a system without a DAC.
Small but beautiful
It isn’t much to look at – and we mean that in a literal sense. Measuring only 100mm by 64mm, and weighing just 122g, the ione is truly befitting of its ‘nano’ tag. There’s no reorganisation necessary to fit it among the rest of your hi-fi system.
There’s little here to console those who’d prefer the more tactile heft of the Arcam IRDACII, recently reduced by £200 and now this product’s main competitor in the market. However, there’s a clue on ifi’s website as to why the DAC is so lightweight.
“How a product looks and performs matters, but so does its impact on the environment,” it says. “That’s why nearly every ifi product and its packaging are made from highly recyclable materials and why we refuse to use harmful toxins in our components.” You don’t get an extra star for environmental friendliness, but we have to admire the company’s approach.
The ione has a small face, but its features are neat. There is a button for Bluetooth pairing, a back-lit ifi logo to show the source being used, a switch to toggle between sources, and another to decide between the digital filter with the best measurements and that with optimum sound. No prizes for guessing our choice.
To the rear you’ll nd a space for USB, which can be used for mains powering or a source, a coaxial input, and output for your stereo interconnects. Our only quibble is the length of the cables ifi has provided. In all likelihood, you’ll have your own interconnects to link it with your existing system, but if not you might need some – the included cables are peculiarly short.
In the right
In honesty, we don’t really know what to expect when we plug the ione in, so we’re more than happy with what we hear having connected it to our Naim streamer and loaded up Radiohead’s Kid A. The album’s opening track, Everything
In Its Right Place, could almost serve as the ione’s tagline. In no time we feel the song’s driving pulse, Thom Yorke’s fractured vocal belies the name of the Kaoss Pad on which it was manipulated and there’s plenty of detail to be dug out of the padded keys. Within a couple of verses we’re treated to a cohesive, entertaining performance that has set the ione firmly on the correct path.
Perhaps the best showcase of the ione’s varied talents is near the middle of the album, where the drive and busy instrumentation of The National Anthem’s crescendo is juxtaposed against the gorgeously eerie solitude of How To Disappear Completely.
The ifi proves it knows how to excite, it knows how to tie everything together with its precise rhythmic understanding and hold it in front of your face so impossible to ignore; but with its next step it can draw right back, framing the vulnerability of an acoustic pine just as adeptly.
The Arcam’s IRDACII is now available at £295: that’s still an extra almost £100 on an ione, but when you consider the Arcam’s optical inputs and headphone out we’re looking at fairly well-matched competitors.
Play the same music through the IRDACII, however, and it's almost as if we’ve used different mixes. Now the performance is more spacious, with a greater dynamic range and warmth especially in vocals, but without the get-up-and-go of the ione. That’s an the aspect of the Arcam’s performance we noted when we first tested it, so it's no surprise that it’s still the case, but it provides quite a startling contrast in this context.
Switching issues
It seems harsh, perhaps, to give neither ifi nor Arcam five stars when there’s nothing else with these features at this price that we’d consider much better. But switching between them, we miss the assets of the DAC we’ve just heard and vice versa.
If the ione were to take on some of the subtlety of the IRDACII, some of those nuances and that warmth, it would truly be the one to beat. As it stands, however, we see two different audiences.
For those valuing insight and subtlety, it might be Arcam; but for an entertaining, musical performance that’s impossible to ignore, ifi is one of this month’s delights.
“An entertaining, musical performance impossible to ignore”