The very first DAC/amp in the world to drive xMEMS technology. The Diablo-X is the first DAC/amp on the market to support the revolutionary xMEMS solid state monolithic speaker technology.
This unique technology features:
Brian Lucey, 8-time Grammy Winning Mastery Engineer, calls it “truly disruptive’ with “phase performance unlike no other speaker technology”. Discover why in 3 minutes.
This level of performance requires a higher voltage solution to drive it, so iFi have partnered with XMEMs to produce the Diablo-X – a first to drive a first!
The xMEMS micro speaker technology uses the piezoelectric effect to create a paper-thin solid-state speaker. These micro-speakers offer great potential to push the boundaries of IEM and headphone performance.
As xMEMS themselves say, “The inverse piezoelectric effect is created by applying electrical voltage to make the piezoMEMS contract or expand, converting electrical energy to mechanical energy. This energy excites an integrated silicon membrane to move air and generate acoustic sound waves…. xMEMS’ piezoMEMs actuators offer an increased range of movement enabling rich, loud audio”.
The Diablo-X focuses on pure unadulterated performance, meaning that much attention has been applied to the power supply circuitry.
Battery power provides ultra-clean and stable DC current avoiding the issues of mains electricity – dips, spikes and noise-inducing RFI/EMI pollution. BUT there are sonic downsides resulting from low output voltage and inconsistent output impedance as batteries discharge.
In order to make less e?cient headphones, like planar magnetics, sing, the voltage needs to be stepped up from 3.7V to +/- 15V. We use a step-up converter running at 1.2MHz – a frequency far beyond audibility that is easier to filter than a typical switch-mode supply, enabling high linearity and ultra-low noise.
