Audio Nerdery
Early December, while I was in Lisbon, I noticed write-ups about a new digital-analog-converter from Astell & Kern, called the HC3 – link. It uses the ES9219MQ chip from ESS, is very small, and can be plugged into laptop with USB-C. The HC3 also comes with an adapter for the iPhone’s Lightning port. Price is around $200 and available sometime soon, in February I think. While looking into this DAC I came across this one, the Go-Link, made by an English company called ifi-Audio.
The chip in the Go-Link is the same one that powers the HC3. The Go-Link comes with a USB-C plug plus a Lightning adapter for the iPhone and an adapter for a USB-2 port, for computers that don’t have USB-C. I found the Go-Link at BH-Photo (link). The price is $59. The A&K looks cooler, perhaps, but is it nearly four times cooler? Plus, the Go-Link is available now. I pre-ordered in December and it arrived this morning.
I immediately plugged the Go-Link into my phone and used my Euclids to listen to a variety of lossless files (16/44.1 downloaded files on Apple Music, 24/96 files on Dropbox) and, while direct comparison is not possible, my impression was that the music felt more alive, more present, more dimensional. I really think this is the tool we were waiting for to be able to listen to high quality audio while on the move, without breaking the bank. Only a year ago, listening to this level of quality meant having a DAP (digital audio player), which costs at least $500 and can go up to $3,000 and more. And it’s one more thing to carry around. Now that Apple Music has caught up to Tidal and one can download hi-res files and play them back on the phone, or if one uses Dropbox in conjunction with a player-app like CloudBeats, the last barrier was how to get digital sound from the phone to your headphones. Bluetooth is practical, and I use it myself, but doesn’t sound very good. There were DACs, of course, but they weren’t tiny and they weren’t cheap. This Go-Link is the missing link, perhaps. I am psyched.
