Long gone are the days of the built-in headphone jack. It feels like only yesterday that you could pick up one of the best phones and find a hole designed for a pair of cans, ready to play your music at top quality without the battery-draining power of Bluetooth.
Now, thanks to the implementation of USB-C ports and the proliferation of the best Bluetooth headphones and wireless earbuds, the 3.5mm jack is pretty much extinct. But a handy little dongle like the iFi Go Link Max doesn’t just add a headphone jack back into your iPhone — it makes it a fully-fledged audiophile listening device.
What is the iFi Go Link Max?
This isn’t your average headphone dongle. The iFi Go Link Max is around 3 times as big as the dongle you used to receive with iPhones when Apple ditched the headphone jack (and started the trend), and it’s made of metal. There’s a USB-C connector on one end, and then a pair of headphone jacks on the other end.
Why is it so big? Not only does it add a way to plug some of the best audiophile headphones into your phone, but it also packs in a potent little amp for more power-hungry headphones and a separate DAC (or ‘digital to analog converter’). That’s for decoding the high-quality tracks that you might find on the best music streaming services like Tidal or Qobuz better than the DAC inside your phone.
Just plug it in, connect up your headphones, and get listening — and, thanks to the addition of a balanced connector, you can use balanced headphones for a distortion-free time.
How does it work?
A small description of how a DAC works I think is in order. When you listen to music through any streaming service, or on any computer, laptop, or other digital source, the origin signal is a digital one. You don’t want to listen to those 1s and 0s pre-conversion — our ears only understand analog ones. So you need a device that converts that digital signal into a listenable analog one that your ears will understand and subsequently enjoy.
That’s where a DAC steps in. It’s a digital-to-analog converter, and it turns those digital tracks into the analog ones that your headphones play to your eardrums. Not all DACs are created equal, however.
As with all things HiFi, if you want the very best, you want a separate device to get the best quality possible — and that’s what the Go Link Max gives you. And while its small, it sure does pack a punch.
Is it any good?
I’ve been testing the Go Link Max for the last couple of weeks, putting it through its paces with a range of source devices, headphones, streaming services and my own collection of hi-res lossless music.
Now, as I bop along to ZZ Top instead of doing any real work, I’ve found in the little DAC dongle a fantastic way to dip your toes in the world of audiophilia.
Trying the dongle out with a pair of entry-level wired cans, my Sennheiser HD599SE, the GO Link Max does a great job of bringing more air and greater space to proceedings. There’s more detail than you’ll find with a pair of Bluetooth headphones or using a more simple dongle, and it really lets the headphones shine.
I should mention that this whole setup costs less than a pair of the best Bluetooth headphones — the HD599SE are often found for around $80, and the Go Link Max costs $79, bringing the total to $160. Not a bad deal at all.
Having got my fill of the cheaper side of the spectrum, I stepped things up to something that needs a bit more power to run. The Audeze LCD-X aren’t the most thirsty of headphones, but they do require more power than your average device can pump out.
The Go Link Max did need the volume cranked for a suitable desk-bound working volume, but the performance of the little dongle was remarkable. The low bass response of the headphones hit like a train, as it should, with the sub-bass extension represented much better than with a standard dongle.
Focus’s Sylvia showed off some wicked dynamic range, with well-defined guitars, and some great space around the instruments. Where the Sennheisers and the Go Link Max were an eyebrow raiser, the LCD-X and DAC dongle combo was a one-two punch of “ah, that’s the ticket.”
Of course, they’re not the be-all and end-all of portable DAC and amp technology. If you’ve got something that needs loads of power, like the Sennheiser HD800s, then you’re going to find a lack of ‘oomf’. That’s where you’ll want something more potent, like the far more expensive Chord Mojo 2, or the iFi HipDAC. Avoid those power-hungry headphones north of $1,000, though, and you’ll be fine.
It had no problem with any file types that I threw at at the iFi Go Link Max, handling everything from FLAC to OGG and even massive DSD files. And it did it all with poise, panache and a great sense of energy.
If you can’t tell already, I love this little thing — and if you’re even remotely interested in seeing what your music is capable of sounding like, you should drop those 80 bones quicker than you can say “What’s a hi-res stream?”