ifi Zen CAN Review (Headphone Amp)

[BlackD007]

no need to worry. LCD-2C? With sensitivity of around 110dB/1V and 70ohm? Some people may think they are power-hungry because to go to maximum of around 135dB SPL they need over 4W. But who listens that loud? For 125dB (still destructive loud!) they need less than 0.5W. For 95dB they need less than 1mW

It's nice to hear that. I tried to compare Ifi xdsd gryphon(1w@32om) and Zen can with Lcd-2c amplifiers. And really hard to hear the difference. A blind test would definitely fail. I just heard a lot that these headphones require a powerful amplifier to open them.

 

[solderdude]

At 110dB/V (101dB/mW) you can drive LCD2-Closed pretty loud from a phone and only need 3V (0.3W in 32ohm) to drive them to impressively loud levels.
So... no... you do not require a powerful amp.
To open them you need a Philips head screwdriver.

 

[BlackD007]

To open them you need a screwdriver.

Good idea!

 

[pioterd]

the Zen CAN was not meant to be a super powerhouse. But at the intended retail price of 100 USD it would have been a market killer

Mr Loesch, and do you know anything about ZenAirCan? When looking into specs and at PCB it looks like original Can without balanced circuitry. But the maximum power rating is also lower, 1.2W vs 1.6W, lower maximum voltage etc. Could you please comment on this?

 

[niterida]

Up the point where it doesn't.



No, I mean drain any common mode noise (that 2-pin supplies cannot drain to earth) to earth.

Thor

Sorry for the off-topic post but I noticed you have an AV-298BT amp and was wondering if you would recommend them. I am looking at buying one to run 4 or 5 Tactile Transducers on my sim racing rig. Thanks

 

[odyo]

I'm not a subjectivist guy but casually switching cables (from 4.4mm bal to 6.3 single ended) i noticed a change in sound with my arya stealth. I wonder why this happened. Bal sound more spacious, precise and separated. Feels like more treble coming out the set the stage cues. SE sounds more claustrophobic and thick with a bit better texture and heft in lows. Then i remembered i did this change many months ago and i felt the same change. I don't think i have bias or anything. I don't really care. I'm just surprised because i use my headphones a lot and i'm used to how they sound.

They seem to have same power output at 33 ohm. I wonder if there is a change in crosstalk or class A bias or something like that between outputs.

 

[Nkam]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the ifi Zen CAN balanced headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $150 from Amazon including Prime shipping.

The design is identical to new line of budget products from ifi:

View attachment 143296

No, it is not just the pictures. The silver labels on brushed metal are almost invisible. I literally had to tilt the unit, changing lighting, etc. to see what they say. I suppose you get used to it after a bit but still, should have used black ink.

The back panel is unusual in that it provides another 4.4 mm socket for balanced input:

View attachment 143298

I didn't have an adapter for that kind of use so I limited my testing to RCA in. Power is provided by a Chinese generic 2.5 amp power supply and not the usual ifi one. Cost pressure and or requirements for voltage and current must have pushed them in this direction.

From what I recall, this is a discrete implementation so will be nice to see how it performs relative most of the market which uses IC opamps.

ifi Zen CAN Measurements
I used the lowest gain setting of 0 dB as that allowed unity gain for both unbalanced and balanced output for the dashboard. Let's start with unbalanced:

View attachment 143300

Distortion is at -100 dB which dominates SINAD. Interestingly it did not change when switching to balanced:

View attachment 143301

What is there is respectable but pretty far short of state of the art we see from other companies:

View attachment 143302

Signal to noise ratio is very good at unity gain:
View attachment 143303

50 mv output performance is above average but again, lags state of the art products:

View attachment 143304

So very sensitive IEMs may generate audible noise if you play above 84 dB.

Frequency response is flat and good:
View attachment 143306

As we have seen before xBass provides significant amount of boost and extends to nearly 500 Hz. Would be nice to see such a boost but limited to 50 to 60 Hz where it is most needed for many headphones. Make it adjustable and you have a winning feature. As it is, it either works or is too much.

Someone mentioned measuring crosstalk and they were right:

View attachment 143307

This is quite low for an amplifier. There is strong capacitive coupling between the channels. Would like to see this improved by 30+ dB, not for audible sake necessarily but for engineering excellence.

Channel matching was not great with disturbances early and going past my 0.5 dB threshold before a lot of attenuation:

View attachment 143308

Fortunately you have the 0dB setting for gain which should help you keep the volume from being too low.

The main theme of company's promotion is availability of power so let's start with 300 ohm unbalanced and then balanced:

View attachment 143309

View attachment 143310

Wow, in balanced mode this thing pumps out serious amount of power! My requirement here is 100 milliwatts and the Zen Can sails way past it in balanced mode to 645 milliwatts. And while distortion is not yet again state of the art, it is good enough to be competitive and not an audible concern.

Switching to the other extreme with 32 ohm unfortunately changed the picture fair bit:
View attachment 143311

View attachment 143312

I suspect the design is current starved as we can see it get worse as impedance goes even lower:

View attachment 143314

Ifi Zen CAN Headphone Listening Tests
It is a gorgeous day here with blue skies, temperatures in 70s F and little humidity. This apparently enticed my XLR to unbalanced headphone adapter to take a walk so my testing is limited to using balanced output of the Zen CAN only. There, I started with Sennheiser HD650. I am telling, this thing can pump some serious power into these headphones. Play some techno music with heavy bass, turn up the volume and your skull may literally shrink a millimeter or two after being pounded in the middle by this headphone and amp combination!!! The sound is powerful, detailed and with no hint of distortion I could detect.

I was very surprised how much performance dropped when testing with my Ether CX 25 ohm headphone, again in balanced mode. Turn up the volume past moderately loud and the sound starts to get distorted. Turn it up a bit more and bass notes cause momentary muting, and distortion is abundantly audible. Now "normal" listening may be before all of this happens but still, I would not recommend low impedance headphones with this amplifier.

Conclusions
Despite paving its own path here, ifi gets a number of things right. Price is very attractive for balanced headphone amplifier. Feature set is very good. Most importantly this thing produces a ton of clean power into high impedance loads. Down sides are poor crosstalk, and inability to drive low impedance headphones well or at all.

I am going to give a conditional recommendation for ifi Zen CAN for high impedance headphone use only. It is one of the best in that category if not unique with the incredible amount of power it has together with balanced I/O and multiple gain settings. Outside of that the weaknesses of the design stand out too much to recommend over many other alternatives.

-----------
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/

is the bad channel matching at low volume because of the low quality Volume Potentiometer it uses?

im assuming that is it.

thanks

 

[staticV3]

is the bad channel matching at low volume because of the low quality Volume Potentiometer it uses?

Correct.

 

[Nkam]

Correct.

thanks for the reply man.
super appreciate it
im assuming that’s why they say to use it past 11o’clock ?

i have the Ifi ZEN CAN Sig and it’s nice. I don’t listen to headphones much , but it’s really good with my Beyer 1990 ( I eq that peak out)

could I have the potentiometer changed out by someone knowledgeable to something better?

Thanks again

 

[staticV3]

could I have the potentiometer changed out by someone knowledgeable to something better?

Probably, yeah.

 

[Nkam]

Probably, yeah.

thanks

also , i wouldn’t benefit from a different PSU since I use 250ohm headphones if I read correctly right?
the 4A 5V PSU will make lower impedance headphones work better.

did I understand that correctly?

 

[Curupira]

4A 5V PSU will make lower impedance headphones work better.

Theoretically, yes. Mr. Thorstein (the circuit designer) complained that at his time on the company ifi pushed for the ifi psu line to be bundled with the zen can signature and as a "solution" for a better psu for the other lines (aside the higher end, which have internal linear psus). That one caps at 1.5A which is kinda low for the Zen Can, so using a more current able power supply might make it perform better at lower loads.

HOWEVER, I've heard that people like GoldenSound tested the unit while using beefy third party power supply's and the change didn't produce any improvement in power measurements. Moreover, the expected change from giving the amplifier more current is relevant only at very high levels and for very short bursts of time (no linear psu will maintain high current at crazy levels all the time).

So, tldr, don't bother. The changes will be most likely placebo or only present at unsafe listening levels even with hard to drive headphones. I've used my he6se with the zen can 6xx sig and with the 12/16db gain setting while @ 4V the unit was plenty enough.

 

[Nkam]

Theoretically, yes. Mr. Thorstein (the circuit designer) complained that at his time on the company ifi pushed for the ifi psu line to be bundled with the zen can signature and as a "solution" for a better psu for the other lines (aside the higher end, which have internal linear psus). That one caps at 1.5A which is kinda low for the Zen Can, so using a more current able power supply might make it perform better at lower loads.

HOWEVER, I've heard that people like GoldenSound tested the unit while using beefy third party power supply's and the change didn't produce any improvement in power measurements. Moreover, the expected change from giving the psu more current is relevant only at very high levels and for very short bursts of time (no linear psu will maintain high current at crazy levels all the time).

So, tldr, don't bother. The changes will be most likely placebo or only present at unsafe listening levels even with hard to drive headphones. I've used my he6se with the zen can 6xx sig and with the 12/16db gain setting while @ 4V the unit was plenty enough.

I didn’t see those Goldensound measurements with the added beefier power supply. Were those on the normal measurements Review?

my ZEN CAN SIG came with the 5V 3A power supply.

but I guess that my 1990 are fine

 

[Curupira]

Were those on the normal measurements Review?

No, I heard him say that at a local telegram chat.

my ZEN CAN SIG came with the 5V 3A power supply.

but I guess that my 1990 are fine

For higher impedance cans they are more than fine. Problems might only arise with these new planar designs that are coming to the market, like the Moondrop Para @8ohm or IEM's because of the lack of negative gain (but that can be fixed with the ifi iem match).

 

[Nkam]

No, I heard him say that at a local telegram chat.


For higher impedance cans they are more than fine. Problems might only arise with these new planar designs that are coming to the market, like the Moondrop Para @8ohm or IEM's because of the lack of negative gain (but that can be fixed with the ifi iem match).

ah ok.
thanks

I would like to swap out the potentiometer for a much better one though. For better channel balance.
any ideas?

cheers

 

[Curupira]

I would like to swap out the potentiometer for a much better one though. For better channel balance.
any ideas?

You'd have to open the unit and desolder the leads. But I don't know the schematics nor have ever opened mine.

I'll send you a PM with more help though.

 

[Nkam]

can someone explain the below to me please?
how audible is this?

so at -25db the channels begin to diverge ( by more than 0.5db) as you turn the volume down?
is that what’s going on?
trying to read the graph

thanks in advance

 

[Nkam]

@amirm
How audible is this if you don’t mind me asking ?

thanks !

 

[solderdude]

inaudible (this particular copy) until you get the the furthest left side of the volume control.
As Amir mentioned it is likely different (can be worse, better or just a bot different) between each copy.
This effect is seen with all 'regular' volume controls, the smaller the potmeter is in physical size the worse it usually is.
It is simply a matter of tolerance in manufacturing process (equality of conductive track), are the tracks behing each other or next to each other, how accurate is the wiper and its coupling to the shaft etc.
It manifests itself in a L-R balance difference at the lowest volume levels (in this particular copy it might become audible below -40dB attenuation.

How annoying that is depends on:
1: sensitivity of the used headphone
2: input level of the amp

 

[Nkam]

inaudible (this particular copy) until you get the the furthest left side of the volume control.
As Amir mentioned it is likely different (can be worse, better or just a bot different) between each copy.
It manifests itself in a L-R balance difference at the lowest volume levels (in this particular copy it might become audible below -40dB attenuation.

How annoying that is depends on:
1: sensitivity of the used headphone
2: input level of the amp

why do they say on their website to use the volume knob at around 11 oclock?

is that overstating it?

I have turned down my volume knob and when it is super super low right when the volume comes on the sound is only on the right side. But it quickly goes to both channels.

I super appreciate the info