iFi Audio Valkyrie Review

In this review, I’m taking the iFi Audio Valkyrie for a whirl. The unit costs $1,699 USD and can be bought from iFi web store.

Disclaimer: iFi Audio is not related to Headfonia. They loaned me the iFi Audio Valkyrie to be featured on Headfonia.com.

iFi Audio

iFi is the sister-brand of Abbingdon Music Research (AMR) and is headquartered in Southport, UK. In 2012, AMR decided to create an offshoot company that would cater to the needs of portable and personal audio enthusiasts.

In the personal audio space, iFi used to be most known for their elongated micro iDSD Signature combo units, which offer DAC and headphone amplifier functions and a rechargeable battery for fully independent operation. Likely due to their less-than-pocketable size they were well-loved by desktop listeners as well. The culmination of the micro iDSD Signature range is the current iDSD Diablo 2, which I absolutely loved sound-wise.

For desktop listeners, the ZEN range of equipment offers good options for wireless audio, DAC, and headphone amplifier duty. When I reviewed the Zen 3 series of devices, I was impressed by the sonic signature on offer but had to acknowledge that the competition at the $300 price point is quite brutal these days. With that said, iFi have always managed to bring their unique twist to audio that I respect.

iFi Audio Valkyrie

When I first encountered news about the release of a “transportable” flagship DAC/amp from iFi, the company rep told me that I should expect a miniaturized tech from their desktop iDSD NEO. Many listeners whom I respect love the NEO, so I was interested to hear it. After having spent some time with the Diablo 2, which iFi call “portable”, I couldn’t wait to see why the Valkyrie was described as “transportable”!

The first sign of things to come was the 4.2kg weight of the incoming package. Have they gone mad? Maybe there’s something extra thrown in a complementary bottle of rum to coax a positive review from me? Not that iFi would ever have to do that. Turns out that the brunt of the weight consisted of the wooden display box the Valkyrie comes in. Does it mean that the device itself is petite? If only…

In essence, the iFi Audio Valkyrie is a spare-no-expense “portable” that promises to drive anything you plug into it. Great to see that lossless Bluetooth is finally supported, but sadly, not too many mainstream smartphones support it (neither Samsung nor Apple). Alternatively, wired connections can be used for a predictably excellent data transfer. iFi also promises 12 hours of runtime, but it’s unclear what the testing conditions were. A dinky IEM will suck on more power than a chunky full-size orthodynamic.

Features

• DAC chip – 4x DSD1793
• Inputs: Bluetooth 5.4, USB-C, Toslink, SPDIF, 4.4mm and 3.5mm analog
• Outputs: 4.4mm BAL, 3.5mm SE for headphones and unamplified line-out
• Bluetooth codecs: aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, aptX, LDAC, LHDC/HWA, AAC, SBC
• PCM data rate: up to 32bit 768kHz
• DSD data rate: up to Native DSD512, with DSD1024 resampling
• SNR: 116dBA (inaudible)
• THD+N: 0.002% (generally inaudible but higher than expected)
• Output power: BAL – 12.0V/2,250mW (@64Ω), 19.6V/640mW (@600Ω); SE – 8.5V/2,258mW (@32Ω); 9.8V/160mW (@600Ω)
• Output impedance: ≤0.3Ω via 4.4mm; ≤0.2Ω via 3.5mm
• Power draw: Normal 3.5W, Turbo 6.5W, Nitro 13W
• Battery capacity: 20 000mAh/74Wh (real capacity depends on depth of discharge and charge ceiling)
• Dimensions: 172 x 160 x 30mm
• Weight: 882g

Design, Build & Haptics

The build quality is pretty much perfect, I wouldn’t expect anything less from iFi. The iFi Audio Valkyrie is a 30mm thick, almost square slab of aluminum that weighs almost a kilo. Better get out your cargo pants and a good belt if you dare dream of pocketing it! Bundled with the Valkyrie is a purse that can assist in carrying the thing. Inside the purse, we get Velcro spacers, which should hold the thing pretty snugly.

There are also grommeted holes for cables, but they are a bit awkward to use with straight 4.4mm jacks because the hole is more centered and won’t match with the output that’s offset to the side.

With the iFi Audio Valkyrie, the main tech highlight is the use of a custom FPGA chip to resample just about any incoming signal to DSD1024. iFi themselves call it “remastering”, which isn’t technically true. Truly lossless sample rate conversion is an art in itself, so it remains to be heard what benefits it brings. Every incoming signal can be filtered using the following settings, as described by iFi tech documents: 

• ‘Bit–Perfect’ – No digital filtering is applied, one tap. This offers the best impulse response but loses high-frequency extension.
• ‘GTO’ – Minimal digital filtering – no pre-ringing, modest post-ringing, 32 taps. Proprietary filter aiming to be inaudible while attenuating unwanted ultrasonics. 
• ‘Apodising’ – Modest filtering, no pre-ringing, modest post-ringing, 128 taps. Aims to correct some of the impulse distortion during recording. The sound produced is fairly natural, with a slightly de-focused but enlarged sound stage and correct HF detail.
• ‘Transient Aligned’ – Max filtering, max pre-ringing, max post-ringing, 16,384 taps. Based on the theoretical, mathematical ‘ideal’ response, it results in an enlarged sound stage and very smooth HF.
• ‘Standard’ – Modest filtering, modest pre-ringing, modest post-ringing. It’s the typical FIR reconstruction filter used in many CD players and DACs, which results in a focused sound stage with controlled highs.
• ‘Minimum’ – Minimum filtering, minimum pre-ringing, minimum post-ringing, 32 taps. It’s an excellent compromise between Bit-Perfect and more complex filters, with a focused sound stage and correct HF detail.

To further tailor the sound to listeners’ preferences, we also get the all-analog filters like the XBass LF enhancer, XPresence midrange enhancer, and XSpace proprietary cross feed. I found the bass boost to work wonders with full-size open backs that often could use some help down low. The XPresence filter works well with TV shows and movies with shoddy dialog sound and enhances speech legibility. XSpace worked best with closed-backs and IEMs, which need a hand in soundstage. As with most cross feed implementations, the success was quite material-dependent.

Under the hood of the iFi Valkyrie is a quad Burr-Brown (now owned by Texas-Instruments) DSD1793 chip DAC, likely with each of the running in mono for better noise performance. Honestly, it’s refreshing to hear a solution that’s not based on ESS or Asahi-Kasei silicon. Judging by the power draw, the output stage is at least partly discrete but runs too cool to be purely Class-A. Historically, iFi have used interesting analog solutions to achieve their house sound.

Sound Signature and Technicalities

To put the iFi Audio Valkyrie through its paces, I used Maytak M6 CIEMS, Letshuoer Mystic 8 IEMS, ZMF Auteur Classic, Sennheiser HD6XX, DCA Noire X and Moondrop Para headphones. The sound staging was briefly tested by FiiO SP3 nearfields.

Operating the Valkyrie is a joy; all of the controls are snappy, and switching between the smorgasbord of filtering options was fast and without any noise. The volume control is an encoder, but as encoders go, it offered a nice knob feel.

Usually, iFi equipment runs on relatively high gain, but here, the Valkyrie has plenty of volume control range on offer, even with sensitive IEMs. Initially, I was concerned that I’d be forced to use IEMatch to reduce noise and gain, but on low gain, I was sitting pretty with the volume in the sixties.

The part on sound continues on the second page. Click here or use the links below.