ifi Zen Blue Review (Bluetooth Receiver & DAC)

[PeteL]

It was sent to me by the company for testing months back and costs US $129 on Amazon with Prime shipping.

Is this a pre production unit? I'm surprised that from a large manufacturer like IFI there is no labeling at all, nor certifications marking on the back.

 

[VintageFlanker]

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

Or get any LDAC/Apt-X HD digital transport from AliExpress for 25$/€ if only used that way...

 

[Helicopter]

Thanks Amir. This is great news. Impressive transport performance for BT. At this price, you can just pass it to a DAC if you want SOTA performance. I never expected BT to get here. I thought we would need some WiFi implementation for this level of performance. Great work ifi!

 

[FeddyLost]

I have one of previous revision. Plays very nice while connected to Adams by RCA. Very flexible and useful device.

 

[_thelaughingman]

FYI,
I have tried using RCA out on this device to my Denon amp and it’s no where near has the resolution or bandwidth that the toslink provides. Pretty obvious that analog performance on this isn’t great but that ldac performance is tops.

 

[Zensō]

It would be interesting to see this tested with an iPhone over AAC.

 

[restorer-john]

So @amirm, let me get this straight as i'm old and confused. You are recommending this product purely as a LDAC wireless to SPDIF bridge, as all the other functionality is sub-par?

*struggling to see the point of it*

 

[Kachda]

Would have been good to test aptx and aac/sbc since not all devices support ldac. I understand the limited bandwidth makes the tests less useful but at least we could have seen if they were broken for some reason.

 

[_thelaughingman]

It would be interesting to see this tested with an iPhone over AAC.

I have tried AAC via Iphone, biggest negative with AAC is that the iphone limits the max volume due to internal clipping limit. I performed a simple test of playing the same song from spotify over LDAC and AAC with external amplifier volume set to the same level for both formats and AAC is few dB's lower than LDAC, it is a crude methodology but I was able to discern a difference in resolution and volume.

 

[xema]

The thdn of a digital output is nonsense, you shoud do the jtest instead.

 

[trl]

@amirm, can you please test D90 or D90SE when streaming on BT via Roon and your Samsung phone, measurements to be done on the analogue outputs? Thank you!

 

[Zensō]

I have tried AAC via Iphone, biggest negative with AAC is that the iphone limits the max volume due to internal clipping limit. I performed a simple test of playing the same song from spotify over LDAC and AAC with external amplifier volume set to the same level for both formats and AAC is few dB's lower than LDAC, it is a crude methodology but I was able to discern a difference in resolution and volume.

I would expect to hear a difference in volume, but I’m surprised you could hear a difference in resolution, hence why I’d like to see this measured.

 

[PeteL]

So @amirm, let me get this straight as i'm old and confused. You are recommending this product purely as a LDAC wireless to SPDIF bridge, as all the other functionality is sub-par?

*struggling to see the point of it*

There are not so many good Bluetooth receivers that offers a digital output, the vast majority don't, so it's a key selling point and it seems to be the one with the best tested performance so far. Most of us already own a decent DAC, so even if it's the only worthwhile option, that's the one I'd go for, so for my use case it's a relevant "recommendation", and Amir do specify that the recommendation is "purely" is for it's digital pipeline.

 

[_thelaughingman]

I would expect to hear a difference in volume, but I’m surprised you could hear a difference in resolution, hence why I’d like to see this measured.

My uneducated guess is that the LDAC has greater amount of bandwidth for transmission compared to AAC which i think is much lower, sounds sacrilegious but there is a possiblity that more data throughput can lead to better resolution.

 

[trl]

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.

Taken from their main page: "And future codecs can be added with Over the Air updates", so I guess the V2 has the ability to decode newer codecs in the near future by installing over the air newer firmwares, although not sure what other codecs are in process of developing right now.

L.E.: Also adding "The low-jitter crystal clock has been updated to provide >20dB better performance" that can only be read on the V2, so I guess this is an improvement over the V1 too.

 

[amper42]

Looks like this review is of version 2? Since the internal DAC is below average it's hard to see what you get with the ifi ZEN Blue for $159 that you don't get with a $100 RPi4 setup running Moode which supports UPnP?

 

[PeteL]

The back side shows some interesting options:

View attachment 140796



Switching to balanced output gets you more voltage but not more performance:

What balanced outs are there? is it the small connector on the far left? if so what type?

 

[PeteL]

Looks like this review is of version 2? Since the internal DAC is below average it's hard to see what you get with the ifi ZEN Blue for $159 that you don't get with a $100 RPi4 setup running Moode which supports UPnP?

You can get a RPI4 with DAC and SPDIF bridge for 100$?

 

[MCH]

I have tried, over the years, to build a bluetooth based system at home, with very little success. Everything becomes a mess very easily, it is difficult to know, let alone to predict, what BT device is connected to what, as each one has a different connection preference setting that often you cannot change. Then the range, then the sound quality... And the big bottleneck, the lack of good transmitters with a decent range... Wifi is so superior in everything! A couple of raspberry pi, (with a selection of dac hats for every pocket available) and you are done.
It would be a dream if bluetooth worked for this purpose, as it is so straightforward, but let's face it, it works perfect for its main application, phone to car and phone to headphones on the go, for the rest.... :-/

 

[PeteL]

I have tried, over the years, to build a bluetooth based system at home, with very little success. Everything becomes a mess very easily, it is difficult to know, let alone to predict, what BT device is connected to what, as each one has a different connection preference setting that often you cannot change. Then the range, then the sound quality... And the big bottleneck, the lack of good transmitters with a decent range... Wifi is so superior in everything! A couple of raspberry pi, (with a selection of dac hats for every pocket available) and you are done.
It would be a dream if bluetooth worked for this purpose, as it is so straightforward, but let's face it, it works perfect for its main application, phone to car and phone to headphones on the go, for the rest.... :-/

Don't leave your unused Bluetooth devices ON?