First and for most I want to thank the iFi Team for allowing me the chance to have an in home demo with their xCan portable high-powered amplifier.
To get a grasp of it's performance I did test it rather exclusively with 2.5mm balanced input via the 2.5mm balanced line out the A&K Gen 1 Kaan. Headphones used were my HD 600 and Dan Clark Audio Aeon Closed 2 both with a 4pin XLR Balanced Cable.
Overall I did find the amplifier to be an improvement over the stock 2.5mm amp section of Kaan. I got better control of lows on A2C and overall better staging precision and overall detail with both headphones.
At no point did I feel the amp really had much coloration rather with all only the presence option selected. Simply put I found xCan simple offered a more powerful cleaner amplification stage with Kaan. What I wasn't as impressed with was it's performance with 3.5mm input especially when compared to some of the other portable amps I have. Still if you need both a high powered portable amplifier, Bluetooth connectivity and can use it's 2.5mm input it's an excellent choice. It's well built and simply works wireless with both Android and Apple.
At no point did I feel the amp really had much coloration rather with all only the presence option selected. Simply put I found xCan simple offered a more powerful cleaner amplification stage with Kaan. What I wasn't as impressed with was it's performance with 3.5mm input especially when compared to some of the other portable amps I have. Still if you need both a high powered portable amplifier, Bluetooth connectivity and can use it's 2.5mm input it's an excellent choice. It's well built and simply works wireless with both Android and Apple.
