iFi Go Pod Max Review

Design

• 24.5g (pods); 185g (case)
• IPX5 moisture resistance

It’s true there’s not an awful lot of stuff here for your money – but iFi has done its utmost to make sure what stuff you do get looks and feels appropriately upmarket.

So the pods themselves are made of smoothly finished burnished aluminium – and their relatively large surface allows plenty of room for capacitive touch controls. Everything from playback and telephony to the summoning of your source player’s native voice assistant can be handled, swiftly and reliably.

The detachable hooks that connect to the pods at one end and to your IEMs at the other is carefully shaped and made of hypoallergenic plastic, and is ergonomically sound to the point the GO Pod Max remain comfortable for the long haul even though they weigh an unpromising 24.5g each.

They’re stable too, even if you’re wearing glasses at the same time. And an IPX5 rating means sweat or precipitation shouldn’t be any kind of issue (well, not for the pods anyway). Dual mics combine with Qualcomm’s cVc noise-suppression technology in an effort to deliver competitive call quality.

The charging case is necessarily large – it’s designed to allow you to keep your IEMs attached to the pods when they’re in there.

Again, iFi has done what it can to make it look like a premium item – a quantity of machined aluminium makes up the angled lid on the outside, while on the inside a quartet of high-intensity UV lights do what they can to sterilise your IEMs while they’re in there. The case can be charged via USB-C and is also compatible with Qi-certified wireless charging pads.

Features

• Bluetooth 5.4 with LHDC, LDAC and aptX Lossless codec compatibility
• MMCX and 0.78mm 2-pin earloops supplied, other connections available
• Independent Bluetooth, DAC and amplification stages

iFi supplies two pairs of earloops in the GO Pod Max package – one is terminated with MMCX connectors (ideal for my Sennheiser IE900 and Shure 535 IEMs), the other with the same 0.78mm 2-pin connection they use to join to the pods. If you need Pentacon Ear or estron T2 connections, they’re available – but at additional cost.

The iFi use Bluetooth 5.4 for wireless connectivity, and are compatible with pretty much every worthwhile codec: SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, LDAC and LHDC are all catered for. Obviously it’s aptX Lossless that’s the most significant: if you have an appropriate source player, CD-quality 16-it/44.1kHz wireless streams can be yours.

Once the audio information is on board, it is handled in the established iFi manner: very thoroughly indeed. The GO Pod Mac feature entirely separate Bluetooth, DAC and amplification stages, and the amplification stage is a true balanced arrangement.

They’re the latest iFi product to use K2HD technology in an effort to restore the data that’s lost when a truly high-resolution digital audio file is compressed down to CD quality. And the charging case will automatically detect the impedance of your IEMs (provided they’re attached when you put them inside, of course) and intelligently adjust to one of four settings accordingly – even up to 300 ohms should your IEMs be among the world’s most high-impedance designs.

Battery life is an extremely acceptable seven hours from the pods, and the charging case holds another four full charges. 35 hours between visits to the mains is not to be sniffed at – and two hours on the juice will take the pods and the case from flat to full.

Performance

• Detailed and dynamic sound
• Big, properly organised presentation
• Good low-frequency control

As should really be the case with a wireless DAC costing this sort of money, there’s plenty to enjoy about the way the iFi GO Pod Max sound. There’s no doubt it’s quite a nice product that’s waiting for a very specific customer – but if that customer turns out to be you, you’re in for a sonic treat.

My Sennheiser IE900 IEMs remain, on a pound-for-pound basis, one of the best pairs of in-ear headphones I’ve heard – and on occasion I will admit to wishing I could use them wirelessly (usually when I’m testing a music player with no headphone socket).

So to wirelessly connect them to my daily smartphone and enjoy them this way is almost disproportionately gratifying. Even when playing via the AAC codec, the iFi/Sennheiser combination has plenty to recommend it.

A TIDAL-derived 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC file of Vampire Weekend’s Sympathy is delivered in positive and unequivocal style. The sound is full-scale and properly organised – even though the information is coming directly into the ear, the iFi create a large and spacious stage with ample separation. There’s plenty of width and no little depth to the soundstage, and it means every element of the recording operates without having to struggle against any other element.

The tonal balance is quite carefully neutral, and frequency response is similarly even. There’s plenty of extension both at the bottom and the top of the range, and the sweep from one extreme to the other is smooth and convincing. The iFi allow each area of the frequency range the same amount of emphasis as every other, and the overall sound is balanced and naturalistic as a result.

Switch to an LDAC-enabled connection to a FiiO M15S and a 24-bit/96kHz FLAC file of Cate Le Bon’s Sad Nudes and things take a decisive step forward. Detail levels, already pretty decent, become straightforwardly impressive – the GO Pod Max are attentive to even the most minor harmonic variations, the most transient occurrences in a recording, and are well capable of revealing them without being in any way showy about it.

There’s a stack of dynamic headroom available, and when it comes to low-frequency control the iFi are not messing about – they snap into bass sounds with fervor, and can express rhythms with real confidence as a result.

Those bass sounds are deep and textured, but they’re not so substantial that they start to dominate the presentation. The top end has a fair amount of body but, again, this doesn’t mean treble sounds are in any way short of brilliance or edge. And the midrange resolution is such that every scrap of information regarding tone, technique, attitude and character in a voice is revealed fully.

Should you buy it?