ifi Zen DAC and Headphone Amp Review

[Jimster480]

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.

Makes no sense. The performance is horrible and was horrible back in 2019. There were devices for the same price which still had better performance all the way back in 2019.
It can't even achieve 16 bit performance on audio.

 

[G-rig]

Makes no sense. The performance is horrible and was horrible back in 2019. There were devices for the same price which still had better performance all the way back in 2019.
It can't even achieve 16 bit performance on audio.

Lol wot? You can't get cd quality from the Zen Dac? Sounds like you're doing it wrong. The ifi PC app confirms the bit rate, all the way up to 24 bit. Sounds like you haven't installed the drivers properly.

I suppose most of the chi-fi fans would probably recommend a topping this or that, they aren't cheap any more either and fairly clinical.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Lol wot? You can't get cd quality from the Zen Dac? Sounds like you're doing it wrong. The ifi PC app confirms the bit rate, all the way up to 24 bit. Sounds like you haven't installed the drivers properly.

I suppose most of the chi-fi fans would probably recommend a topping this or that, they aren't cheap any more either and fairly clinical.

What bit rate the app shows has nothing to do with the device performance. The performance you can see in Amir’s review. Not really something to write home about but probably not bad enough to really be audible. Much better (performing and price) choices existed then and now.

 

[G-rig]

What bit rate the app shows has nothing to do with the device performance. The performance you can see in Amir’s review. Not really something to write home about but probably not bad enough to really be audible. Much better (performing and price) choices existed then and now.

Oh right, well it is pretty decent for the price and haven't wanted up upgrade or anything. What would you recommend with the same features for the price?

So what is the bit rate if it's not what the device app says?

>probably not bad enough to really be audible.

Sums up most things on here, people stressing and worried about things they can't hear.

 

[G-rig]

Some people get sucked in the specs tech and graphs and you wonder if they even enjoy listening to music..

The headphones, music mastering and source files make the biggest difference, then it's a game of diminishing returns.

 

[uwotm8]

It's even funny to see some people getting that mad on iFi

Meanwhile I'm happy with Zen Air DAC but I newly bought Dropheiser 6xx just need more power (oratory1990 EQ preset negative gain is brutal).
At the same time, I couldn't get rid of stupid idea to connect Adam T5Vs using balanced input. So I started to looking for a proper chi-fi replacement, that has to 1) be reliable with no bugs 2) do all the stuff Zen does 3) have XLR connectors beacuse I'd like to use decent cables or at least not absolute trash a la noname TRS to XLR (cheapest balanced or fake balanced DACs tend to use TRS jacks) 4) be a nice product overall and sells locally in EU.

I ended up with Toppinng DX5 and Loxjie D40 Pro as a cheapest options for 350 and 500+ euro respectively. And there's still a room for reliability improvements sometimes according to what owners say. Hmm, but normal Zens are balanced (Air is SE only), what it there's a 4.4 to XLR cable? Hehe. Appeared that iFi has these. Long story short, I ordered 220-euroish Zen DAC 3 and balanced cable for 6xx (should be roughly 4x power what I have with SE now) and will get balanced cable for speakers then.

Should just get Zen DAC v2 before instead of Air, well, not a big deal anyway.

Haters gonna hate

P.S. I like Zen (Air) DAC(s) only as a complete desktop solution. I would't buy it as a dedicated DAC. Wouldn't buy a dedicated Zen DAC with no amp. Wouldn't buy their dedicated amps too probably; Air Can is stupidly low on specs, more expensive ones have enough decent rivals.

 

[uwotm8]

Just received Zen DAC 3 and it seems like a nice sonical improvement over the Air - soundstage, clarity, HF detail and so on. Like sort of veil went off. And gorgeous look ofc.

 

[Jimster480]

Lol wot? You can't get cd quality from the Zen Dac? Sounds like you're doing it wrong. The ifi PC app confirms the bit rate, all the way up to 24 bit. Sounds like you haven't installed the drivers properly.

I suppose most of the chi-fi fans would probably recommend a topping this or that, they aren't cheap any more either and fairly clinical.

Performance is trash. Driver has nothing to do with that. The actual hardware has trash performance. Not even 90 SINAD and not good linearity means that it definitely has audible distortion / errors of some kind.

Oh right, well it is pretty decent for the price and haven't wanted up upgrade or anything. What would you recommend with the same features for the price?

So what is the bit rate if it's not what the device app says?

>probably not bad enough to really be audible.

Sums up most things on here, people stressing and worried about things they can't hear.

It was never decent for the price.

Some people get sucked in the specs tech and graphs and you wonder if they even enjoy listening to music..

The headphones, music mastering and source files make the biggest difference, then it's a game of diminishing returns.

The entire point of this forum is to find out what actually performs well. "listening to the music" is something I do more than almost anyone else being in the top 1% of Spotify globally each year for the past 5 years. I can assure you that trash performing devices are definitely restricting musical reproduction quality in some way.
The performance of around 90 SINAD probably won't matter if you are using it with some speakers, especially lower cost or midrange ones, but there was no point to pay so much back then for bad performance and there certainly isn't a reason to pay that amount in the last years.
Topping devices as you mentioned aren't as cheap as they once were.... but there are cheap Topping devices and many other brands that also offer really nice performance for the money.

It's even funny to see some people getting that mad on iFi

Meanwhile I'm happy with Zen Air DAC but I newly bought Dropheiser 6xx just need more power (oratory1990 EQ preset negative gain is brutal).
At the same time, I couldn't get rid of stupid idea to connect Adam T5Vs using balanced input. So I started to looking for a proper chi-fi replacement, that has to 1) be reliable with no bugs 2) do all the stuff Zen does 3) have XLR connectors beacuse I'd like to use decent cables or at least not absolute trash a la noname TRS to XLR (cheapest balanced or fake balanced DACs tend to use TRS jacks) 4) be a nice product overall and sells locally in EU.

I ended up with Toppinng DX5 and Loxjie D40 Pro as a cheapest options for 350 and 500+ euro respectively. And there's still a room for reliability improvements sometimes according to what owners say. Hmm, but normal Zens are balanced (Air is SE only), what it there's a 4.4 to XLR cable? Hehe. Appeared that iFi has these. Long story short, I ordered 220-euroish Zen DAC 3 and balanced cable for 6xx (should be roughly 4x power what I have with SE now) and will get balanced cable for speakers then.

Should just get Zen DAC v2 before instead of Air, well, not a big deal anyway.

Haters gonna hate

P.S. I like Zen (Air) DAC(s) only as a complete desktop solution. I would't buy it as a dedicated DAC. Wouldn't buy a dedicated Zen DAC with no amp. Wouldn't buy their dedicated amps too probably; Air Can is stupidly low on specs, more expensive ones have enough decent rivals.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say as everything you wrote is unfortunately not really coherent.
If your Topping or Loxjie stuff failed; that is a shame and I can't blame you for looking to another brand. Just try to purchase some competent hardware and hope that it will last.

Just received Zen DAC 3 and it seems like a nice sonical improvement over the Air - soundstage, clarity, HF detail and so on. Like sort of veil went off. And gorgeous look ofc.

That DAC3 hasn't been tested, but having better performance isn't hard. If Ifi has been anywhere in the last years then it should perform much better than this older unit.

 

[tidusjc]

I am using zen air dac as a pure DAC
my setup: windows 11 Spotify ---> Zen air dac (powermatch ON, Xbass OFF)---RCA---> Topping L30 (on 9dB gain) ---> AKG K702, Hifiman 400i 2016
Both sounds superb!! significant better than using Zen air DAC headphone SE output, not only the volume but the dynamic range, soundstage, bass...everything just better)

Both headphone I had APO Equalizer on with oratory's Harman Curve on, this is my end game for now!

anyway I bought the Topping L30 thanks to Amir's measurement ! got it cheap second hand

 

[sulfuriq]

Will there be much improvement from Zen Dac 1 to Zen Dac 3? I much prefer Burr Brown chip compare to AKM or ESS which are sound signature boring to me. Or Cirrus Logic better?