Human Bass
Addicted to Fun and Learning
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- Nov 25, 2018
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Thanks to Goldensound for doing work. Quite a shame that such expensive and cool form/factor product underperforms by a quite big margin
"Power: This is something I wanted to discuss early in this post as it’s an important factor in why many people may be considering buying the Diablo 2, and critically: The iDSD Diablo does NOT have 5W of power as iFi states on the product page and marketing material! It has 1.6W! First, a bit of info on how amplifier power is measured. The industry standard method of providing a power spec is that unless otherwise explicitly stated, the power spec given is a continuous RMS spec. Meaning that it is the level at which the amplifier can output/run continuously without exceeding 1% THD. So when you see an amp with ‘6W’ of power, it means it can run continuously outputting 6W, with distortion under 1%. Many amps may be able to output higher levels just with higher distortion (some may even provide a 10% THD power spec as well), and many amps also may be able to output higher than their continuous rating for short periods of time. For example an amp might be rated for 6W, but could supply 15W for very short bursts."
And they have being doing that for a long time.
"So if the Diablo 2 can only output 1.6W RMS, and 2.5W peak, why are they claiming 5W power on the box? Well, unfortunately this was also an issue on the original diablo, though even worse, that unit could only achieve about 0.8W RMS according to both my own and L7 Audiolab’s testing……"
iFi iDSD Diablo 2 Measurements - GoldenSound
The iFi Diablo 2 improves upon the original with many user requested features and changes. Though does not meet the claimed power output spec
goldensound.audio
"Power: This is something I wanted to discuss early in this post as it’s an important factor in why many people may be considering buying the Diablo 2, and critically: The iDSD Diablo does NOT have 5W of power as iFi states on the product page and marketing material! It has 1.6W! First, a bit of info on how amplifier power is measured. The industry standard method of providing a power spec is that unless otherwise explicitly stated, the power spec given is a continuous RMS spec. Meaning that it is the level at which the amplifier can output/run continuously without exceeding 1% THD. So when you see an amp with ‘6W’ of power, it means it can run continuously outputting 6W, with distortion under 1%. Many amps may be able to output higher levels just with higher distortion (some may even provide a 10% THD power spec as well), and many amps also may be able to output higher than their continuous rating for short periods of time. For example an amp might be rated for 6W, but could supply 15W for very short bursts."
And they have being doing that for a long time.
"So if the Diablo 2 can only output 1.6W RMS, and 2.5W peak, why are they claiming 5W power on the box? Well, unfortunately this was also an issue on the original diablo, though even worse, that unit could only achieve about 0.8W RMS according to both my own and L7 Audiolab’s testing……"