ifi Zen DAC and Headphone Amp Review

[pioterd]

I could not get useful volume without Power Match activated.

How is that possible?! What do you mean by useful volume then? ZenDac, without power match, gives maximum 1V output SE, and 2V output BAL. Even using SE it means you can drive most headphones to 95-105dB SPL level with ease (considering sensitivity /1V ). I’m using 250ohm beyers dt150 (97dB/0.5V), relatively inefficient Akg k612 (101dB/1V) and akg k712 (105dB/1V), and with all of them I do not need to turn on powermatch. I usually listen at home with volume knob at 12 - 15 o’clock, with -14dB LUFS normalization (Spotify, Apple Music). It is completely useful, even with some quiet recordings.

 

[Deleted member 58722]

I have ifi Zen DAC powering Audio-Technica MSR7b, using iFi iPower, USB from Macbook Pro.. Sound is excellent, right up to full volume ( I like loud ).
No distortion, bass boost not necessary, but fun on some Dub Reggae tracks.

 

[pioterd]

powering Audio-Technica MSR7b

Efficient (101dB/mW), low impedance headphones. Pushing it to the end of scale of ZenDac volume (without powermatch gain) means that you listen at around 116dB SPL… VERY loud! With powermatch ON it would be 126dB - self-destructive. Maybe it’s time to become concerned about your hearing?

 

[Deleted member 58722]

Oh no, I use the gain! Not full ALL the time, but some tunes just feel like it..... Too late to worry about my hearing... 40 or so years working in live music touring has given me robust hearing..

 

[Deleted member 58722]

Oh no, I use the gain! Not full ALL the time, but some tunes just feel like it..... Too late to worry about my hearing... 40 or so years working in live music touring has given me robust hearing..

Point is - no distortion!

 

[Deleted member 58722]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ifi Zen balanced DAC and headphone amplifier. I purchased it from Amazon last week. The Zen DAC costs US $130 including free shipping.

I must say, I am not a fan of the look of the Zen DAC. It hearkens back to 1960s furniture style which would look out of place on most desktops:

View attachment 38811​

Despite commonality of aluminum in audio products today, the Zen must be using some kind of steel for its shell as it is quite heavy for its size. And sturdy to boot.

The controls are confusing. "Power Match" seems to just be extra gain/power and nothing to do with ifi's "IEMatch" products which lower output volume. Despite having plenty of space on the front, the "balanced" headphone output is 4.4mm jack which is much more rare. These guys have made such a mess out of this business of "balanced" headphones with so many connectors. I had to pay $25 to buy an XLR to 4.4mm adapter as I could hardly find the 4.4 mm plug itself to make my own cable!

I forgot to measure the Truebass effect. I did listen to it and it seems good if not somewhat overboosted. I wonder if it sounds as an improvement over longer listening period than when you first turn it on.

The rear follows ifi's proclivity for not following standardized connectors:

View attachment 38812

The USB connector is 3.0 but I wonder if it actually negotiates and uses the much higher power capability of such an interface. They supply a cable but it is just 6 inches or so. Even if you have USB connection to your monitor this is going to be awfully short.

No DC 5 volt adapter was supplied even though it seems the packaging had space for it. And something about it is taped over in the documentation.

I like the fixed versus variable analog output. But again was not a fan of the 4.4 mm for line out. Who uses that? I did not have a cable to test that so no measurements on that.

Overall, the packaging is fine especially at the price but someone went out of their way to make things different and possibly not for the better.

DAC Audio Measurements
I set the rear connector to fixed output and ran our usual dashboard view:

View attachment 38814

ifi is a fan of using these Burr-Brown/TI DAC chips which severely limit distortion ratings to neighborhood you see. They are long overdue to switch to an ESS or AKM IC to get much better performance. As it is, performance is just not competitive:

View attachment 38815

We have distortions that pierce the noise floor of 16-bit audio even.

Noise performance is better though than distortion:
View attachment 38816

Filter response is the typical, default, a bit slow response we see in DAC chip implementations:

View attachment 38817

Our 32-tone test signal resembling "music" shows a bit better performance than the dashboard indicates, now clearing 16 bit performance:

View attachment 38818

Linearity is "good enough" but not as nice and flat as I like to see:

View attachment 38819

Intermodulation distortion versus input signal level shows clear deficiency:

View attachment 38821

We start with higher noise level but then distortion takes over at around -17 dB and keeps getting worse.

Jitter response looks better than it is due to higher noise level:
View attachment 38822

Finally, sweep of distortion+noise versus frequency tells us that performance is universally sub-optimal:
View attachment 38823

So really, the DAC foundation here is quite weak.

Headphone Amplifier Audio Measurements
Let's start with seeing how much good power we have into 300 ohm load resembling performance of driving headphones in that class (e.g. Sennheiser HD-650):

View attachment 38824

That's not good. A desktop product should be able to produce a lot more clean power. I like to see 100 milliwatts here as to future proof the device for any high-impedance headphone you may own or buy later.

The situation does not improve much with the other extreme load of 33 ohm:

View attachment 38826

Notice that in both cases the "Power Match" button simply removes a limit allowing the unit to get louder but at the expense of distortion.

Testing for "Balanced" headphone output, my load is 50 ohm so let's compare that to single-ended:

View attachment 38827

So you do get some advantage if you use the 4.4 mm connector, nearly tripling the output. Same rise in distortion exist though more or less so this is not clean power necessarily.

Noise performance is good at max power, but not so at low power levels which may be used with sensitive IEMs.

View attachment 38828


View attachment 38829

So you may experience some hiss there.

Another departure here from the norm of DAC+Amps is to use an analog volume control instead of using the digital one in the DAC chip. As a result, we lose the perfect channel match we normally see in such devices:

View attachment 38830

Headphone Listening Tests
I could not get useful volume without Power Match activated. Once there, I had decent volume with Sennheiser HD-650 headphones. Compared to my reference Topping DX3 Pro however, it just could not get as loud without getting distorted. And never had the clean output that the DX3 Pro had.

With Drop Ether CX low impedance headphones, there was no usable performance to be had using 1/4 headphone jack. Switching to "balanced" 4.4 mm jack, did provide some relief and I could listen reasonably loud. But turn up the volume past about 1:00 o'clock and distortion would set in in the form of harshness and brightness, eventually leading to clearly static and drop outs.

Conclusions
The ifi Zen on paper has dazzlingly good feature set for its price. Lots of connectivity is there together with a western company standing behind it. Alas, the DAC portion is yesterday's news and not competitive. Headphone output is low and distorts quite easily.

Redeeming the unit is availability of more power through its 4.4 mm "balanced" headphone jack and very low price for the category.

Net, net, it works and is adequately good. Won't hold a candle to higher end devices or separates. For $200 you can get a DAC and Amp combo that would run circles around it.

I can't recommend the ifi Zen DAC as long as I have my audio performance elitist hat on. You can choose to do otherwise without said hair covering.

--------
As always, questions, comments, corrections, etc. are welcome.

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Bit late to this..but. I have a Zen DAC, It sounds epic with my headphones, is as loud as fuck, and no distortion.... Worth every penny.

 

[raif71]

Got my Zen Dac out from its box for a spin... Used battery for extra power. It can work off the Hiby R3 Pro above but it will drain the battery quickly so the power bank comes to the rescue. It can power iems and my hd600 easily. Excellent sound.

 

[PaperBoat]

you might as well buy a much more performant DAC and not need a powerful PC for HQPlayer to boot.

Not really... I'm running HQPlayer (trial) with Sinc-L and SDM out settings on my forceless 8GB AMD dual core Windoz rig without graphics card which can effortlessly play up to 24-bit 384kHz files.

 

[uwotm8]

It isn't worth a dedicated thread so I'll type here.

I've owned Zen DAC (v1 as tested) for a while and overall liked it sound and appearance.

Now, after some relocations I decided to build a simple low-cost desktop system again and Zen Air DAC became an obvious and easy pick.
Same but without balanced out they said. Yeah, sound is okay.
What thwy did not say is that - get ready - Power Match button affects line out. Yes. Not just HP out.

Holy f***ing s**t, iFi. Why are you like that

Will get rid of that "plastic DAC 1:1 scale model with work simulation" for sure LOL

 

[G-rig]

It isn't worth a dedicated thread so I type here.

I've owned Zen DAC (v1 as tested) for a while and overall liked it sound and appearance.

Now, after some relocations I decided to build a simple low-cost desktop system again and Zen Air DAC became an obvious and easy pick.
Same but without balanced out they said. Yeah, sound is okay.
What thwy did not say is that - get ready - Power Match button affects line out. Yes. Not just HP out.

Holy f***ing s**t, iFi. Why are you like that

Interesting mate, I gather the air is a more basic version. I'm still using the zen DAC V1 and still enjoy it as well - Got the 4.4 mm cable ages ago and think it works pretty well to my headphone amp.

Sure, there are much better DACs out there but for a PC only set up I've never felt like upgrading it. Obviously, I'd prefer a unit with the same dimensions. Is the amp to stack it (789) but don't really think a similarly priced topping is really an upgrade.

 

[uwotm8]

I'm still using the zen DAC V1 and still enjoy it

It's good as I mentioned. I like it too. But making Air cheaper went too far, it's just ridicilous.

 

[G-rig]

It's good as I mentioned. I like it too. But making Air cheaper went too far, it's just ridicilous.

That's a shame. Maybe get rid of it. The zen is fairly affordable anyway.

 

[Noodles]

I seem to remember that one of the other Zen products they have (or on elf the earlier versions of the zen dac) had the same issue with the power match affecting line outs.
I don’t really remember which anymore, it’s been a while.

 

[uwotm8]

Well, all that turned out in a very strange way.
So I contacted my friend who bought my previous system including Zen DAC (v1, it has no number, just Zen DAC).
And... you guessed it right? Power Match affects line out there too.
That means I was wrong claiming it does not. My apologies; I actually didn't ever use it with PM off.

But what's the real deal with both my Zen Air DAC and my buddy's ZEN - activating PM does not just change output level. Sound somehow gets more warm and pleasant, midrange, especially lower, definitely gets more meat etc etc. It feels that way with both headphones and speakers (line out I mean). When I realized the fact that PM affects line out, I switched it off and was listening that way for 2-3 days slowly realizing that I don't like what I hear.

This is not about just level and volume; I compared the sound as fast as I could quickly rotating knob in 2s pause when I was switching PM on and off. And if PM off even sound louder I didn't prefer it. It is definitely cleaner but "hollow" in midrange.

My only guess is that "magic" button may just switches OP amp - overall sound difference reminds me how it worked for Asus Xonar STX roughly 10 years before: there were diffrerent OP amps on HP and line outs and difference was noticeable.

After all I realized that I definitely like iFi sound wih PM active and definitely do not like when I turn it off.
Stranger things

 

[Noodles]

The change in volume is most likely the factor that creates the perception of boosted frequencies.
Or the Opamps are nonlinear (which is less likely). Or they tied the power match to their presence boost circuitry.

Either way we need measurements before and after

 

[G-rig]

Have never even played around with that switch, will have to see what mine is on. It's not the bass boost button but the switch on the back?
Don't think it would make much difference either way.

 

[uwotm8]

Either way we need measurements before and after

Definitely, but I didn't find any for now.

The change in volume is most likely the factor

That's why I compared it back and forth with rotating knob to make "PM off" sound even a bit louder after switching - as I noted above.
And I clearly hear more midrange and presence with PM ON. OFF feels like "loudness" tone compensation is on, in comparison.
PM ON just sounds, as Amir says, "right"

It's not the bass boost button but the switch on the back?

Not the Truebass button but next to it on front panel, smaller one:

Truebass sucks for sure. XBass+ on my Zen Air sucks badly

Back switch on Zen selects variable/fixed Line out level (with external amp w/volume control you should use it as fixed)

 

[G-rig]

Definitely, but I didn't find any for now.


That's why I compared it back and forth with rotating knob to make "PM off" sound even a bit louder after switching - as I noted above.
And I clearly hear more midrange and presence with PM ON. OFF feels like "loudness" tone compensation is on, in comparison.
PM ON just sounds, as Amir says, "right"


Not the Truebass button but next to it on front panel, smaller one:

Truebass sucks for sure. XBass+ on my Zen Air sucks badly

Back switch on Zen selects variable/fixed Line out level (with external amp w/volume control you should use it as fixed)

Ah ok - yep I have it on fixed as I'm running to a headphone amp using a balanced 4.4 pentacon cable. Can't say I've tested the PM button so assume that it's off. May not have any effect if I'm using another amp.

I do think it's just a case of louder sounds better though, but nothing wrong with you leaving it on if you prefer it more.

 

[G-rig]

Just checked my settings - yes have it on fixed lineout.
Also, the buttons on the front have no affect as I'm using it as a pre-out .

 

[G-rig]

Got ifi zen dac v2.

Tested with Audeze LCD-X, ATM50X, Fostex TR-50 mk3, HD25

Sound from the headphone amp is a total trash. AMP tries to play wide stereo image, but it brings so much distortion and "soap"... My Macbook Pro M1 built-in sound is much more transparent, clear and detailed.

Bundled cables are very bad.

So I've attached it to the Rupert Neve RNHP with my schulz mk2 cable. With discrete amp it sounds much better. Sound has interesting involving effect, some warmth and interesting mid/high coloration, but the overall quality is just a little above the average consumer level.

Then I've compared it with Focusrite Clarett+ 2pre + Rupert Neve RNHP. It's completely another level in details and clarity.

I've got clarett for $430 on sales. zen dac is about $200. It's twice cheaper but clarett also has 4 outputs, 2 inputs with preamps, low-latency drivers.

So this IFI is a fckng robbery. Audient id14 mk2 is far ahead at the same price.

IFI is a company for deceiving suckers. Review conclusion was correct.

Fair assessment mate - the iFi Zen Dac is a great starting point and still use the V1 as my desktop setup from PC. Obviously it's not ideal using the headphone output and sound effect/modes but alright for people until they buy a dedicated amp. Lacks depth and power. I've got it set as a pre-amp, connected to a Drop THX AAA 789 via 4.4mm pentaconn to XLR balanced cable, and it sounds excellent to me. Works well in Exclusive mode with Tidal and MQA (don't start about that but they do hi-res FLAC too, just nice when the led changes colours to confirm).

No doubt everything has increased in price but was hard to go past the Zen Dac when it was A$200 (~US$130) years ago. I looked up that Audient id14 mk2 device, looks like it's more for microphones but guess it's a DAC as well.