ifi Zen Blue Review (Bluetooth Receiver & DAC)

[Acerun]

That's a very helpful explanation, thank you... Yes it is a digital coax cable from the Ifi zen blue to the surround sound processor.

I suppose it is a little confusing because there is so much attention put on the DAC measurements. Doesn't amir even mention in the review that you will get the full DAC potential being that the source here is so good? (PARAPHRASING)

 

[Adaboy4z]

I considered the Zen Blue, but bought the Go Blu for portability. I wonder how the Bluetooth measure on the IFi Go Blu. I have it connected to the Zen Can via 4.4mm cable. It sounds great. Bluetooth range is not very good though so it close by use.

 

[skiddo]

Had a revelation with v2 this morning and found an extremely handy tool in the process (at least if you are a Mac user).

Currently using an ifi Zen Blue v2 as an interface between my M1 Mac and a RNHP - but was struggling to obtain anything beyond a "blue" indicator light on both the logo on kHz circle (aka AAC @48kHz). After some research I discovered this thread and the "Bluetooth Explorer" application (provided in Apples Developer Tool Kit 11).

With Bluetooth Explorer I was able to force aptX and enable AAC at the highest allowable bit rate:

Going to experiment with highest allowable bitrate for now, but have gone 30 minutes now without any audio latency/cut out.

My unit is now displaying a white logo and white kHz indicator light - finally realizing this devices potential. The audio codec improvement has (subjectively) allowed me to push a much high SPL in my headphones without distortion.

 

[Andysu]

Had a

i like your pet Fox

 

[Acerun]

Would it be fair to say that Android phone Qobuz to Zen Blue into the Denon 3700H via optical will be better quality than the below?

1. Bluetooth to HEOS available on the 3700H
2. Qobuz app on Apple TV
3. Qobuz app on Firestick

I don't know how to gauge.

 

[Acerun]

Would it be fair to say that Android phone Qobuz to Zen Blue into the Denon 3700H via optical will be better quality than the below?

1. Bluetooth to HEOS available on the 3700H
2. Qobuz app on Apple TV
3. Qobuz app on Firestick

I don't know how to gauge.

I suppose hard wired by HDMI would be a better signal than wireless. Zen Blue via Optical better than HEOS as HEOS is SBC only.

 

[my_ears_are_up_here]

Would it be fair to say that Android phone Qobuz to Zen Blue into the Denon 3700H via optical will be better quality than the below?

1. Bluetooth to HEOS available on the 3700H
2. Qobuz app on Apple TV
3. Qobuz app on Firestick

I don't know how to gauge.

Wired > wireless, but if you go Bluetooth, you'll want to force LDAC @ 44.1/48k 16-bit for (close to?) lossless to make the most of the limited transfer rate. (Transients are noticably improved over higher sample rates, and I wouldn't trust them squeezing as much frequency data into the signal with 24-bit depth, but to be honest, an informal comparison doesn't have apparent differences between 16/24-bit.)

 

[Acerun]

Wired > wireless, but if you go Bluetooth, you'll want to force LDAC @ 44.1/48k 16-bit for (close to?) lossless to make the most of the limited transfer rate. (Transients are noticably improved over higher sample rates, and I wouldn't trust them squeezing as much frequency data into the signal with 24-bit depth, but to be honest, an informal comparison doesn't have apparent differences between 16/24-bit.)

I'm on the same page now. Thank you

 

[HayGuise]

Hi all,

I guess I need some technical advise to make sure if this behaviour is standard or if I might have received a defective unit. Im experiencing - in some parts - very strange behaviour. Other things might be normal. I connect the zen blue v2 via bluetooth to my yoga slim 7i Pro notebook. The ifi zen blue v2 is connected to Kali Audio LP-6 Wave 2 via RCA.

1. Is it possible to deactivate (even via firmware) the voice from this device, saying like "device connected", "device disconnected", "aac" - I really dont get the clue behind it. I connect and disconnect severall device all day long via bluetooth and this constant voice is a real No-Go
2. Not worse enough, the "default" volume seems super loud. This makes the voice assistant even more annoying, its super loud! Surely the devices already before I can set volume down in windows it self. Actually not sure if I can actually influence the voice assistant volume via windows volume. Feels like its some default in the ifi zen blue itself. Any ideas?
3. As soon I open spotify or youtube without playing music, the ground-noise drastically improves. It just starts after spotify or another media source is "on screen".
4. This is actually the most strange thing and I just dont understand what is going on:
   • Lets say I have two YouTube videos open in two tabs and let run both - as soon I stop one video, the sound stops on both videos (why the tab of the unstopped video is indicating it is actually playing sound - so it must be somehow connected to the bluetooth itself)
   • Same with spotify: If I have YouTube open and OnScreen, switching to spotify OnScreen BUT NOT PLAYING ANYTHING, instantly after alt-tabbing to spotify the sound stops. When I play it on spotify, both sounds - youtube and spotify start to play

Im pretty sure this is some kind of software / bluetooth driver issue. Im running windows 11 with a pretty modern laptop, having all drivers updated, I completed the pairing over and over again. Actually, if I manually disconnect my ifi zen blue v2 via bluetooth settings and reconnect, it seems to work for some minutes. It also works as it should if I just use my laptop speakers.

Any idea? Do I just have a defective unit or is my device just not compatible?

Thanks!

 

[Acerun]

I love hearing LDAC in the British accent personally ;-)