This is a review and detailed measurements of Parasound Zdac v.2 DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. Even though Parasound is a "high-end" audio company, this seems to be their attempt at mass market product as the retail price from Amazon is USD $523 including Prime shipping.
The unit is pretty attractive in an understated way. Please excuse the lighting as I shot this at night with my desk lamp illuminating it:
We have the standard optical, coax and USB inputs. But also balanced output which is nice.
Also nice is independent volume controls for headphone and line out.
Dual headphone jacks accommodating either size is very nice. Hate using adapters with headphone cords.
All in all, the Zdac makes a good impression of simplicity and nice looks.
Let's see if the measurements match the positive impression here.
Measurements
As usual, we start with dashboard measurements. Here, I am showing balanced output but unbalanced was nearly identical as far as distortion:
I am happy with the output voltage but not the rather low distortion ratings. FFT shows why with pretty high amplitude second and third harmonic. But also a bunch more spikes thrown in there.
In our SINAD rankings, this puts it in the third tier next to pretty cheap portable DACs and such:
I have shown the Topping DX7s which has similar price and functionality yet produces far better distortion ratings.
The Zdac uses the Analog Devices now obsolete AD1853 DAC. Its distortion rating is such:
The minimum SINAD is 94 dB with the typical value of 104 dB. Sad to see Zdac hitting the bottom rating.
The news doesn't get any better from here on. Jitter and noise is pretty bad despite use of asynchronous sample rate conversion:
Just not clean.....
Linearity makes the news worse:
One of the channels in unbalanced is far worse than the other. In balanced, the two match but deviate from ideal as low as -80 dB.
Switching to headphone output, we get this performance at 300 ohm:
0.1 watts is pretty decent. The unit seems to be gain limited as we don't really hit clipping. The good side of this is that you can turn up the volume to max and know that any distortion is in the headphone, not the amp.
At 33 ohm, the picture changes as it should:
Power output is nearly 0.4 watts.
Measuring output impedance, we get 11 ohms:
I think we have a pretty good idea of the unit's performance so I will stop here.
Listening Tests
I did some brief listening tests starting with Sennheiser HD-650. Here, there was plenty of power to drive them hard.
I then switched to Hifiman HE-400i. Here, by the time I got to satisfyingly loud sound , there was fair bit of distortion. The experience was less satisfying than the HD650.
Conclusions
I have a good impression of Parasound as a company, and this DAC in the specific when I unboxed it. Alas, the performance of the unit is sub-par given its cost. Products such as SMSL SU-8 and Topping DX7s run circles around it. The Zdac v.2 seems to be a light attempt at producing a DAC plus headphone amp. Maybe it would do well 5 years ago but the landscape is quite competitive now with much better engineered products. So I am afraid I cannot recommend it.
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The unit is pretty attractive in an understated way. Please excuse the lighting as I shot this at night with my desk lamp illuminating it:
We have the standard optical, coax and USB inputs. But also balanced output which is nice.
Also nice is independent volume controls for headphone and line out.
Dual headphone jacks accommodating either size is very nice. Hate using adapters with headphone cords.
All in all, the Zdac makes a good impression of simplicity and nice looks.
Let's see if the measurements match the positive impression here.
Measurements
As usual, we start with dashboard measurements. Here, I am showing balanced output but unbalanced was nearly identical as far as distortion:
I am happy with the output voltage but not the rather low distortion ratings. FFT shows why with pretty high amplitude second and third harmonic. But also a bunch more spikes thrown in there.
In our SINAD rankings, this puts it in the third tier next to pretty cheap portable DACs and such:
I have shown the Topping DX7s which has similar price and functionality yet produces far better distortion ratings.
The Zdac uses the Analog Devices now obsolete AD1853 DAC. Its distortion rating is such:
The minimum SINAD is 94 dB with the typical value of 104 dB. Sad to see Zdac hitting the bottom rating.
The news doesn't get any better from here on. Jitter and noise is pretty bad despite use of asynchronous sample rate conversion:
Just not clean.....
Linearity makes the news worse:
One of the channels in unbalanced is far worse than the other. In balanced, the two match but deviate from ideal as low as -80 dB.
Switching to headphone output, we get this performance at 300 ohm:
0.1 watts is pretty decent. The unit seems to be gain limited as we don't really hit clipping. The good side of this is that you can turn up the volume to max and know that any distortion is in the headphone, not the amp.
At 33 ohm, the picture changes as it should:
Power output is nearly 0.4 watts.
Measuring output impedance, we get 11 ohms:
I think we have a pretty good idea of the unit's performance so I will stop here.
Listening Tests
I did some brief listening tests starting with Sennheiser HD-650. Here, there was plenty of power to drive them hard.
I then switched to Hifiman HE-400i. Here, by the time I got to satisfyingly loud sound , there was fair bit of distortion. The experience was less satisfying than the HD650.
Conclusions
I have a good impression of Parasound as a company, and this DAC in the specific when I unboxed it. Alas, the performance of the unit is sub-par given its cost. Products such as SMSL SU-8 and Topping DX7s run circles around it. The Zdac v.2 seems to be a light attempt at producing a DAC plus headphone amp. Maybe it would do well 5 years ago but the landscape is quite competitive now with much better engineered products. So I am afraid I cannot recommend it.
-----
If you like this review, please consider donating funds using Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).