iFi iCAN Phantom

Pros:

     Amazingly versatile capability

     Excellent Sound Quality, Space, and Detail

     Useful tuning buttons

     All-In-One Amp design

     Powerful

     Size

Mediocre:

     Price

     Looks

Bull:

     Nexis App

BLUF: The most versatile headphone amp in the world. The only downside is the price and looks, but they’re pretty subjective for what you get.

Up for review today is the iFi iCAN Phantom – continuing a long tradition of terrible names and weird capitalization from iFi. At least it’s somewhat better than the iFi micro iDSD Signature. Anyway, instead of a Pro iCAN Signature, or one of the multiple oddly named iDSD DAC/amps, we get the iCAN Phantom – whatever the heck that is supposed to indicate. Maybe iFi is trying to push the naming convention behind the xDSD Gryphon more to give each of their products a mythical creature name. I guess the iFi iCAN Voldemort would violate some copyrights. iFi, just call it the Phantom – you don’t see Focal naming their headphones the iHEAD Utopia or the iHEAD Clear – let the Apple nomenclature die. OK, moving beyond the terrible naming convention and confusing capitalization from iFi, the Phantom is actually a REALLY cool product.

This is one of the only headphone amps in the world that is ALSO an electrostatic energizer AND a tube amp AND it can run IEMs – that’s a 4-in-1. I can’t think of any other amps that can do this, though I’m sure it exists in some small boutique amp manufacturer somewhere, but certainly not in a mainstream audio manufacturer like iFi. That makes the Phantom the most versatile amp in the world to my knowledge – oh, and it can push out 15W – enough to drive the Susvara at 50% volume on high gain. If you have far too many headphones like I do, or you like switching between E-stat and regular but hate switching amp inputs/outputs, the Phantom is a product built for you. I really enjoyed being able to run my STAX SR-007A and with the push of a button, switch over to my Abyss Diana MR, then with another push of a button, change the sound by activating the tubes, then with ANOTHER push of a button, listening to the Campfire Audio Black Star – all from one amp. The versatility is epic. On top of that, iFi has added a bunch of software tricks and wizardry to tune the sound of the amp to your preference – more on that under the software section. So yes, this is a really cool amp, and it does all of this for around the price of a Benchmark HPA4 amp, which only does one thing – drive planar and dynamic headphones.

The Phantom also has just about every input and output you could want from a headphone amp. The inputs are balanced 3-pin XLR to connect to your DAC, and 3x RCA inputs to plug in all sorts of record players or whatever else you want the Phantom to power. The outputs at the rear are also dual 3-pin XLR and one set of RCA to send sound to a set or two of speakers. On the front, you have just about every headphone output you could imagine. There are: Dual 3-pin BAL XLR, 4-pin BAL XLR, 4.4mm BAL, 1x 6.3mm (positive phase), 1x 6.3mm (inverted phase), and 1x 3.5mm (with S-Balanced technology.) On the electrostatic side there is also: 1x 5-pin normal bias, and 1x 5-pin custom bias – quick note here, the normal is actually a 6-pin for older electrostatic headphones, I’m not sure why iFi lists it as a 5-pin – modern STAX headphones use the 5-pin “Custom/Pro” connection. There are also cards you can insert to change the voltage from 500-640VDC – you will likely only use the 580VDC most of the time – you can use less voltage than a manufacturer recommends, but never use a higher voltage. Also, this amp will NOT run the high-voltage Warwick Bravura headphones – those still need their own amp. The voltage cards are hidden on the back of the silver top piece in a magnetic black closure – easy to miss if you don’t know where to look. Also, on the back of each card, it will tell you which headphones are designed to work with which card – cool feature. You will need to insert a voltage card, then push the ESL Power button and wait a few seconds for it to power up before use. Then, you can select the resistance, which is similar to Gain on the normal headphone side, but the opposite since less resistance means more volume, and you can play with tubes or no tubes or even add bass to your E-stats. Good stuff.

Build Quality:

OK, the main issue most people have with this amp are the looks. That’s kind of odd because most amps just look like a square black or silver monolith. At least the Phantom is unique, though the black bottom and silver top are pretty weird in all fairness. I promise though, you get over it really quickly once it’s on your desk. If you have a silver DAC underneath it though, it might look odd – luckily almost everything I’ve ever owned has been in black, so the black bottom just blends in. The glass top lets you see the internals of the amp and the tubes glow a pleasant orange when they’re on (there’s also a built-in tube-time tracker to tell you how many hours you’ve used the tubes.) Overall, this thing is a tank – even the glass top feels extremely sturdy and the round metal vent in the middle of the glass looks great and performs well. The Phantom is also amazingly compact considering everything it can do, heavy for its size, but weirdly small.

Some people have complained that the volume control doesn’t line up exactly between the on-screen numbers and the physical dial lines. I turned the volume dial all the way to the left when I got it and I’ve had no real issues with it lining up, even if it’s not exactly perfect. A really cool feature that all amps need is that when you turn the Phantom on, the dial will turn itself automatically from 0 slowly up to the last number you had it at – allowing you the chance to prevent ear blowout due to swapping headphones without changing the volume. Using the remote to change the volume or input also makes the physical dial turn – THE FUTURE! The dial on the left turns the amp on/off and mutes it while also allowing you to select the input that you want to use. Near the dials, there are also gain and tube switches, or you can just use the remote. On the black part underneath the silver on the front, you have multiple buttons that can change the sound of the headphones or speakers you have plugged in which leads us into the Software section of this review.

Software:

How much software can an amp actually have? Normally not a ton, but the Phantom actually has a surprising amount of software controls in the background. Not only can you use the IEM Match button to decrease the power output to allow you to output to sensitive IEMs (or headphones like the JM Audio XTC2.5), but you can physically add more bass or soundstage. The XBass button adds 10/20/40hz of extra bass which can take even your flat-sounding E-Stat headphones and turn them into bass cannons – it’s impressive as heck. Additionally, the XSpace button is some software wizardry that will physically increase the soundstage of your headphones/speakers by 30/60/90 degrees. I include speakers because my KEF LSX speakers weren’t that impressive when I got them, but after adding some XSpace into their presentation, they essentially transformed into Surround Sound speakers – from a 2-channel system. Super cool tech. Other than that, the Phantom turns on when you want it to and turns off automatically after 30 minutes of non-use – you can change that in the settings. The OLED display looks great with a pleasant blue glow.

Now for the less good. The Phantom has a totally unnecessary software app called iFi Nexis (yes, even this is spelled wrong – no, even the Brits don’t spell Nexus like this, just iFi.) I tried to connect the Phantom to my phone using this app, but the Phantom requires a 2.4 GHz wifi connection, which I don’t have – I only have a 5 GHz connection. I contacted iFi to see if there was a fix for this and their solution was to tell me that my wifi probably has a 2.4Ghz connection – it doesn’t because this isn’t the early 2000s, and in the U.S. 5Ghz is quite common these days since there is far less interference on this band than 2.4. So while I was never able to connect the Nexis app, it’s also relatively useless and I never needed it anyway. And while a firmware update would have been nice, I never once encountered any issues that needed some sort of update other than the Nexis software itself (to 5Ghz wifi.) iFi should probably stick with hard-connected tech for now and leave the software up to other brands like Apple, Google, or Eversolo – not everything needs an app, especially a completely analog amp.

Sound:

Sound quality is far more subjective than build quality and software quality. This is especially true when we’re talking about an amp that can change itself to match the user’s preference. Don’t like the lack of bass? Add more with XBass. Do you wish the amp had a bigger soundstage? Add more with XSpace. Think the sound is too sharp and detailed on the solid-state amp? Switch over to tube+ for a smoother sound quality. Don’t like how your Susvara sounds on the Phantom? Hook up a pair of STAX SR-X9000s instead and then add some bass to their low end. It’s almost impossible to characterize the sound of an amp that can change just about everything. The only thing it can’t do is tamp down some treble sibilance on headphones/DACs/songs that portray it sharply. There is no XTreble to select the treble quantity, so while the tubes dampen it a bit, I still had some songs that were pretty sibilant on certain headphones without any way for me to EQ that. It’s not the amp’s fault, but it would be nice to see an XMids and XTreble adjustment built into future versions to give you more control over the sound. Still, the Phantom allows a LOT of customization of sound for a headphone amp, usually the DAC does that, so it’s nice to have an amp that can do the same thing to an extent, and do it well.

Now, some quick notes here – the Susvara sound extremely good through the Phantom combined with an Eversolo DMP-A8, so do the Abyss Diana MR and the JMA XTC2.5/XTC2, etc. If you’re looking to power a Susvara easily, with the ability to play around with the sound, the Phantom can do it very easily. Heck, the Phantom can power just about any headphone I’ve ever seen including the HiFiMan HE-6 – all without going over 50% volume on high gain. 15W of power at 16Ohms from a balanced connection is very good and extremely similar to the Ferrum Oor’s 10W at 32Ohms. There are no headphones out there that the Phantom cannot power easily with extra headroom.

Conclusion:

This is a $3,800 amp, there’s no way to get around that. That’s expensive for sure, even on sale. However, the Phantom manages to combine multiple amps into one, amps which would often cost 1-2k alone. No, it’s not the best-looking amp in the world, but the level of versatility the Phantom provides makes it an excellent value for anyone wanting to power a bunch of different headphones/speakers. If you just want a cheap AMP, get a Schiit Magnius+. If you want an IEM amp with IEMatch and XBass, iFi sells the Diablo for ~1k. If you just want a powerful headphone amp, very few amps get close to 15 Watts of balanced power, but Ferrum will get you around there with the Oor for around $2k. And if you want an E-Stat energizer, STAX makes some pretty famous ones for around $1k as well. If you want all of those things in one, there’s literally only one option and that is the Phantom. The Phantom ears a solid 5 (Among The Best) due to its versatility and capabilities – all while not costing $6k, which it could easily do if iFi had wanted to go that route.

Bytes & Bull Overall Score: 5