I have a Zen Dac v2 that is driving directly the Edition XS headphones. It's my first HiFi setup - I didn't know anything when I bought this from local shop. Now I've learned that Zen Dac doesn't have enough power to drive the very low impedance phones as Edition XS.
I had a look. The single-ended output should provide around 1.4V into your headphone. It seems that the headphone should produce 109dB SPL with 1V signal and 112dB SPL with 1.4V. This is quite loud.
So I think the Zen DAC can "drive" your headphones to high levels.
I was actually planning to get rid of Zen Dac and get either amp+dac stack or combined unit. And yes, I was shopping by numbers and charts.
Before you accept someone's numbers as evidence for something that matters to you listen to music, you should ask them for solid scientific evidence that their numbers somehow reliably (as in better numbers = better sound) correlate with what you seek.
If I understood you correctly you are saying that the Zen Dac v2 is actually a better DAC than can be said by the measurement results? So perhaps I should keep it and just add a suitable amp?
I am not saying any such thing.
I am saying that I designed the Zen DAC (V1) upon which the Zen DAC V2 is largely based to provide "good sound".
And I designed it to measure adequately well, so that normally it's noise and distortion are not the limiting factor in an audio system.
I am implying in this that there is actually no reliable correlation between "good sound" and "good measurements", but I am not explicitly saying this.
Some other DAC's are also designed for "good sound" as priority (they often have unhappy panthers in Amirs tests) and tend to be very expensive.
Most cheaper DAC's from the far east tend now to be designed to get happy panthers. If that makes you happy when listening, so be it, but it cannot be reliably be expected.
If you ask me for buying advise?
First, understand your "taste". Understand what kind of "sound" makes you want to listen to more more music and gives you greater pleasure listening, improves your moode and get's you an emotional connection with the music.
This is like finding which wine you like. To me most white wines are the same, a touch sour, drinkable but expensive ones are still a little sour. Now there are white wines like Tokaji, sauterne, Spätlese, Icewine etc. that are different and I love these and yes, I taste differences between them and have preferences.
But Saugvignon Blanc? Chardonnay? Cheap? Expensive?
On the other hand among red wines, while I love cheap easy drinking sweetish reds for casual drinking I get different Red's just fione and some of the really good ones I had a chance to try (I said"good", not expensive) were spectacular experiences. If I could afford them I'd drink a glass or two everyevening.
Then find gear that suits your taste in sound. Maybe it is exactly the sound produced by the highest rated products here? Maybe (like to me) these are more to you like dry white wine to me. It's ok, but I would not drink it if I have a different choice.
Go to concerts of music you like. If possible, acoustic/unplugged is what I recommend and what informs my consideration of "good sound".
So go to shows, shops etc. Ignore anything sales people say. They are experts in misdirection, it's their job.
Ignore what reviewers say. Ignore what experts on the internet say. Ignore what I say about products. Just because I like what I created doesn't make it "good" to you.
Bring your own music, your own headphones. Match levels when listening (use a multimeter). Relatively small differences in loudness can give a strong preference for the louder item that disappears or even reverses with level matching.
Listen without pressure and try not get to be amazed and befuddled by sonic fireworks that impress on first listen but are tiring after one hour. Check how you react emotionally as well as what you perceive as "sound".
Because you need to try a lot of stuff, buy second hand and buy cheap. Haggle like you would with an armenian rug seller over price. If you sell, try to get a lot of your money back, the less you pay to start with, the less you loose.
This may not be what you want to hear. If so, just ignore what I say.
I'd like to leave you (and others reading) with the following:
"The high-fidelity initiate, bewitched, bothered, and thoroughly confused by the staggering selection of components he must choose from, often turns to a high-fidelity expert to assist him in assembling his dream system. The expert may be a local consultant, a dealer, or a magazine that the prospective buyer trusts as a source of accurate, down-to-ear information.
...
The best that any expert can do is to lead you to components that are intrinsically excellent. You will still have to make up your own mind about such matters as cost and appearance and flexibility, and you should try out a few different loudspeakers in your home to find out which ones suit your acoustical environment and your taste in reproduced sound. The expert cannot, and will not if he has any sense, choose
the components for you, because your ear
is the final judge in the last analysis. If
no combination of really good components sounds good to you, then you probably don't really want high fidelity, and can forget all about the expert opinions. They don't agree anyway."
And my own sign off using a quote from Anthony De Mello "On waking up":
"Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up.
That’s the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up.
I hope I’m going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep.
It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, "Wake up!"
My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it fine; if you don’t, too bad!
As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens."
Thor