If you're a Windows wo/man pre 10, you first install the XMOS driver. This blessedly accompanies your shipment on disc so you needn't download it. Not only does íntimo then show up marked as W4S USB Audio in your sound device window, you also get a control panel to adjust finer parameters like the buffer setting.

íntimo's foot print and height make it an ideal desktop denizen that should slip beneath most monitor screens without a hitch. If your active computer speakers don't digitize their analog inputs—our Essence do not—íntimo can feed them and in the process upgrade their internal D/A conversion.

Just park that control panel icon anywhere on your screen. Or make your settings, then delete the desktop short cut.

At this stage in any headfi amp review, adventurous shoppers want to know. Just what can they drive with it? In our collection, HifiMan's Susvara are hardest of hearing. They need the highest input signal to come alive. That rates them as properly inefficient or of very low sensitivity. It makes them my default "if it drives them, it'll drive anything" thermometer. On that score, íntimo ran quite the fever. Even on a Jazz piano trio recorded at lower median levels to want extra juice, Susvara had easy lift-off at 1:30 on the dial. On a Sezen Aksu pop recording, I had to back off a good hour to compensate for more red-lined mastering. Unless you mean to abuse your hearing, ± high noon on the volume with a Susvara load fed USB data should have you all set. With six more hours of headroom, you could have a deafening party.

Really persnickety listeners now want to know about mission critical. Can Wyred's built-in USB transceiver still be outdone by an external so-called USB decrapifier? If your mission runs on Susvara caliber cans; if you have a USB bridge of Audiobyte Hydra X+ or Mutec MC3+USB pedigree on hand, perhaps even with a €3'500 Ref10 master clock – then yes, you can still polish up USB from the computer and remove faint rust of minor grit/grain between and around the notes. If you call that unfair, even in-house DACs up to €9'000 aren't immune to such 3rd-party enhancements. It's why the Denafrips Terminator in our big system is fronted by Soundaware's D300Ref USB bridge via I²S over HDMI. Unless you care deep enough however, don't mind more box clutter, extra cables and expense, this paragraph was just frilly detour to be honest. It's no ding on íntimo's smooth front panel. It's why even Wyred4Sound make external USB reclockers. At what stage they become ineffective—€40'000 MSB DACs?—I don't know.