This is a review and detailed measurements of the ifi Zen Blue Bluetooth Receiver and DAC. It was sent to me by the company for testing months back and costs US $129 on Amazon with Prime shipping. There is now a version 2 of it. From my read of their description, it has a better antenna. Not sure what else is different.
The Zen Blue looks like the other recent ifi products:
The back side shows some interesting options:
The slide switch controls whether the output is digital or analog (can't be both). There is both coax and Toslink optical out. What is unusual is the balanced 4.4 mm that is normally reserved for headphones. Here, it is a mini balanced line out. Do not use it for headphone as it will play at full level and likely exceptionally loud!
ifi Zen Blue Measurements
From previous measurements of Bluetooth receivers, LDAC codec has shown to be most transparent. Other codecs degrade the signal quite a bit on their own, erasing hardware differences. So for this review, I am strictly focused on LDAC. Playback was through my Roon player on my Samsung Android phone. It defaulted to adaptive mode for LDAC. I set the bit depth to 24 bits and sample rate 44.1 kHz to match the test signals. Here is our dashboard using Toslink output:
This is exceptionally good performance. Distortion products are at -140 dB. Hook this up to your favorite high performance DAC and the wireless link is as good as using USB! Of course there is some latency involved but still, this is an excellent transport and best we have seen.
Switching to RCA analog output costs you a lot in performance:
The degradation is due to high distortion levels as signal to noise ratio is quite a bit better:
Switching to balanced output gets you more voltage but not more performance:
Yes, I had the channels reversed in this test. Can't be perfect all the time after stringing multiple cables and adapters to make this measurement!
The higher output voltage though may provide better signal immunity if you are sending it over long distances as would be the case in live sound.
Conclusions
The ifi Zen Blue is an excellent digital transport when used with LDAC codec and Toslink/Coax output. You can pair this up with a DAC and get any level of end to end performance you need. The internal DAC is not that good though. Like to see that improve by at least 15 dB to give us CD rate of 96 dB.
I am going to recommend the ifi Zen Blue for its excellent digital pipeline. Company has also been very good to work with over the the last few months which I appreciate.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The Zen Blue looks like the other recent ifi products:
The back side shows some interesting options:
The slide switch controls whether the output is digital or analog (can't be both). There is both coax and Toslink optical out. What is unusual is the balanced 4.4 mm that is normally reserved for headphones. Here, it is a mini balanced line out. Do not use it for headphone as it will play at full level and likely exceptionally loud!
ifi Zen Blue Measurements
From previous measurements of Bluetooth receivers, LDAC codec has shown to be most transparent. Other codecs degrade the signal quite a bit on their own, erasing hardware differences. So for this review, I am strictly focused on LDAC. Playback was through my Roon player on my Samsung Android phone. It defaulted to adaptive mode for LDAC. I set the bit depth to 24 bits and sample rate 44.1 kHz to match the test signals. Here is our dashboard using Toslink output:
This is exceptionally good performance. Distortion products are at -140 dB. Hook this up to your favorite high performance DAC and the wireless link is as good as using USB! Of course there is some latency involved but still, this is an excellent transport and best we have seen.
Switching to RCA analog output costs you a lot in performance:
The degradation is due to high distortion levels as signal to noise ratio is quite a bit better:
Switching to balanced output gets you more voltage but not more performance:
Yes, I had the channels reversed in this test. Can't be perfect all the time after stringing multiple cables and adapters to make this measurement!
The higher output voltage though may provide better signal immunity if you are sending it over long distances as would be the case in live sound.
Conclusions
The ifi Zen Blue is an excellent digital transport when used with LDAC codec and Toslink/Coax output. You can pair this up with a DAC and get any level of end to end performance you need. The internal DAC is not that good though. Like to see that improve by at least 15 dB to give us CD rate of 96 dB.
I am going to recommend the ifi Zen Blue for its excellent digital pipeline. Company has also been very good to work with over the the last few months which I appreciate.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/