The “Street Beats” is a name given by iFi Audio to their OTG cables for on-the-go listeners. Let’s take a brief look at this iFi Audio OTG Cable, matched with the iFi Audio xDSD.
Disclaimer: This is a Picture Sunday post where we share our initial thoughts about a particular gear. The OTG cable was sent us by iFi Audio. Check out our recent Picture Sunday posts HERE.
iFi Audio makes great products to help your overall system to sound better. But they’re also pretty good when it comes to various accessories. They have functional and good performing secondary elements like the IEMatch, iPurifier, iSilencer, AC & DC Purifier and so on… This is just another quality accessory that you can get from iFi.
When I was reviewing the xDSD, I wondered why there wasn’t any OTG cable with the accessories. Sure, the xDSD has great Bluetooth performance with the aptX feature and all, but some audiophiles surely wouldn’t be satisfied with the wireless sound. They’d most probably go for a directly wired connection with their smartphones.
iFi Audio OTG Cable
With that in mind, iFi came up with their USB OTG cables as separate accessories. They cost around 15$ each, and the concept promises to give you a clean audio signal from your phone.
Just what your Android device needs to extract a perfect signal from your DAC.
Whether a USB cable changes a sound or not is still a huge debate among audiophiles. I’ll stay out of it and just shortly comment about the ergonomics and the durability factor of this cable.
First of all it’s a great piece of work in terms of build, and I bet you can use it for a very long time with your smartphone. It’s flexible to some extent, but quite stiff and durable to bends & twists at the same time. Believe me, you can count on it.
iFi Audio OTG Cable
It also has a female USB-A connector. That’s mechanically a more reliable solution, but that also means you can only use it with recessed USB connections like iFi has.
Usage-wise things are straightforward. Just connect the mini USB connector to your phone and you have an instant connection to your DAC/Amp. It works perfectly with the xDSD, and I hear the same crisp, high resolution sound like I heard when I was writing its own review (wired with USB of course). Although I praised xDSD’s BT sound quality, you’ll get a better sound overall with the OTG cable.
Again, the effects of different USB cables on the sound is a big debate, so I won’t assert any opinions regarding that huge topic. But what I can easily say is that; this is a very useful, very well built and ergonomic OTG cable. If you have a portable DAC/Amp device from iFi, I certainly recommend getting it. I would’ve expected them to include this cable in the actual content of those products, but this is a nice work nevertheless.
iFi Audio OTG Cable
