The multi Award-Winning hip-dac2 replaces the inferior DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Convertor) and amp circuitry in smartphones, tablets, PCs and Macs to vastly improve headphone sound. Connect your playback device via USB, plug in your favourite corded headphones or in-ear monitors and the hip-dac2 delivers a sound brimming with bold dynamism and fluid refinement. The Burr-Brown DAC chip is selected for its fluid, highly ‘musical’ sound quality and True Native architecture. Together with iFi’s custom circuitry this enables the hip-dac2 to deliver excellent sound quality across digital audio formats, including bit-perfect PCM, native DSD and MQA. Thanks to the XMOS 16 core tech, the hip-dac2 is now an MQA Decoder rather than a Renderer only. This enables you to play back MQA audio files and streams, delivering the sound of the original master recording. There are two USB ports – Type A for audio data and USB-C for charging. The Type A port features a male connector to provide greater mechanical integrity than a USB/micro USB ports commonly found on other DAC/headphone amps. Two outputs are provided – a 3.5mm socket for headphones with a single-ended cable/connector and a Balanced 4.4mm output enabling headphones equipped with balanced connectivity to take full advantage of the hip-dac2’s differential amp design. In addition, the 3.5mm output benefits from iFi’s proprietary S-Balanced circuitry, cutting crosstalk and related distortion in half when used with regular, single-ended headphone connections – this is especially beneficial with high-sensitivity in-ear monitors.