So, what’s the difference?
Active speakers have an in-built power amplifier and just need a power cable (or battery) to operate. Passive speakers require an external power amplifier to operate.
In short, you need an amplifier for passive speakers, you don’t with active speakers.
Fully-balanced. 1,600mW. Battleship headphone amplifier.
Laptops and smartphones have a really low power output of <1.0v. On a good set of headphones you’re always running out of juice. You never get to really hear what they can do.
Use a laptop, phone or DAC to feed your music to the ZEN CAN and connect your headphones. Pumping out 52x more power, now you’ll hear what you have been missing.
The ZEN CAN has trickle-down Class A discrete balanced circuitry from iFi audio’s US$1,699 flagship Pro iCAN. With 15.1v @300 Ohms on tap, it has serious power that will make even difficult-to-drive headphones thump to the beat.
Audio recordings are made for speakers and when played back on headphones, the sound is always driving you nuts by being only in your head.
Our 3D special sound circuit solves this:
Satisfies all listeners.
Behind XBass is our active EQ circuit which meets a common gripe with headphones head-on, a lack of bass.
Open-back headphones in particular, let all frequencies (especially those precious bass frequencies that the drivers generate so little of) leak freely out of the back instead of trapping and redirecting them back to your ears.
XBass equalisation is a much more elegant solution to bass correction than seen elsewhere. It consists of active and passive components and its frequency response curve corrects their low-end response problems with precision.
Underpinning the Balanced and Active EQ circuitry are:
A fully-discrete and balanced amplifier audio circuit. The full symmetric dual-mono headphone amplifier with gold-plated 4.4mm balanced connection. Premium engineering is more expensive but lowers the noise floor to a whisper-quiet levels.
Check out the tech note for the details.
Class A Discrete is a circuit that has come straight out of the iFi’s flagship headphone amplifier, the Pro iCAN, which at £1,699 is 11 times the price of the ZEN CAN.
As with many other iFi audio products, we’ve incorporated a custom OV Series operational-amplifier. This top-notch component contributes to the extremely low noise, low distortion (0.0001%) and wide bandwidth.
TDK C0G (Class 1 ceramic) capacitors offer high stability and low losses for resonant circuit applications.
Getting ever closer to the theoretical ideal of pure, frequency-constant capacitance, these capacitors reduce capacitor-induced distortion to vanishingly low levels.
They are pricey but are a perfect addition to our products.
Sonically superior – richer, deeper.
The XBass® analogue bass correction system corrects for the missing headphone/speaker bass response.
An ‘Out of Head’ listening experience. Our 3D Holographic® dual-analogue matrices place the artist with you in the room, not inside your head.
| Inputs | 4.4mm Pentacon BAL RCA L/R Socket SE 3.5mm Jack SE | 4.0V nominal @ 0dBFS, 24 kOhm Zin 2.0V nominal @ 0dBFS, 1 MegOhm Zin 1.0V nominal @ 0dBFS, 1 MegOhm Zin |
| Max Output | Balanced | >15.1V/385 mW (@ 600 Ohm) >11.0V/1890 mW (@ 64 Ohm) |
| S-E | >7.6V/196 mW (@ 300 Ohm) >7.2V/1600 mW (@ 32 Ohm) |
|
| Output Impedance (HP) | BAL SE | <2 Ohms <1 Ohm |
| Zout | Line out | <200 Ohms |
| THD & N | Balanced S-E | < 0.0007% (4V out, 600 Ohm, 1kHz) <0.006% (@ 100 mW/1.27V 16 Ohm) |
| SNR | Balanced S-E | >120dBA (@ 15.2V) >118dBA (@ 7.6V) |
| Max. Input | Balanced RCA 3.5mm | 7.4V RMS 3.8V RMS 1.92V RMS |
| Gain | 0dB, 6dB, 12dB and 18dB | |
| Frequency Response | 20Hz - 20kHz (+0dB / -0.03dB) | |
| Power consumption | No Signal Max Signal | ~5W ~13W |
| Input voltage | DC 5V/2.5A AC 100 -240V 50/60Hz |
|
| Dimensions | 160(w) x 117(d) x 35(h) mm 6.3" x 4.6" x 1.4" |
|
| Net weight | 515g (1.14 Ibs) | |
| Warranty period | 12 months |
We’re working on it — check back soon!
I am pairing with the Zen Blue to stream from my iPad and TV. It all works flawlessly. I’m using with my Sennheiser HD660s headphones. Crisp, clear audio which defies Bluetooth as I knew it. Music streamed through the sir is now so much better than CD. This is HiFi! Those 3 bits of kit make the perfect HiFi ‘Audiophile’ solution. I don’t even consider using speakers now – much to my neighbours delight. Excellent build quality apart from the buttons which rattle. Apart from the buttons, it feels like something that would cost £200+.
The gain button is useful for taming the signal for high powered outputs. The goal is usually to go 50% on the device and 50% volume on the amp adjusting according so it’s at a nice volume. You can choose from 3 inputs via a button too. The XBass and 3D buttons give a little more bass and a slight change to the soundstage respectively. The degree to which these have effect really depends upon what you’re listening to. I test with Charlie XCX ‘Roll with Me’. There is a deep bass and a sharp constant click of fingers. The bass gets noticeably deeper upon pressing the Xbass button and the clicked fingers change position slightly on the soundstage.
Thoroughly recommended!
I’m following this brand closely now!
“…Thanks to its inputs and, above all, to its successful possibilities to adjust the gain, the IFI ZEN becomes an unbeatable device in its category… I have been unable to find weaknesses in their performance. In fact, it does its job in such a neutral way, that the characteristics in the sound will depend more on the chosen headphones. Therefore, this modest-looking amplifier with almost ridiculous cost, becomes a solid alternative to move all kinds of high-end headphones… Whatever the job you are entrusted with, whatever the sources or the headphones, the IFI ZEN CAN will always do it all perfectly and without surprises.”
Read the full review here…
I needed a dedicated headphone amp as I purchased a pair of high ohm Beyers and my audio interface was not giving me enough volume. So after much research, I discovered this unit. At first I was skeptical as it is a ChiFi and there were some people complaining about faulty units with noise issues so I thought I could give it a try and if anything I can send it back if something is wrong.
I must say that I am happy with my unit. I bought it directly from ifi (fulfilled by amazon) and it arrived in perfect condition.
It has 4 gain stages, perfect for handling anything, especially my high ohm Beyers, it has balanced output if you like that and a great analog circuit for adding bass or expanding the stereo image or both at the same time, I hardly use this feature but it may be an advantage for some people.
At $ 149 it is not a cheap product, however it is considered an entry level amp that I think everyone can like.
Please note this is not a DAC, it is just a headphone amp, so you need a proper audio input (RCA, 3.5mm or 4.4mm balanced).
This little iFi Zen CAN has it all.
I’ve had this amplifier for 3 1/2 months now. and I couldn’t justify replacing it with something more expensive without getting into the near $1000 price range.
Tons of power to drive just about any headphone, clean and dead silent discrete balanced Class A output circuitry, all the inputs one might want including a balanced 4.4mm Pentaconn, four gain options where most amps offer two or three, and then there is the magic XBass/3D button which does magical things one would expect from a DSP.
And if that weren’t enough, there’s a balanced 4.4mm Pentaconn output, perfect for sending signal to a set of powered studio monitors.
I’ve yet to find a negative review of this unit – or it’s brother the Massdrop/iFi Zen CAN Signature – or a review with objective measurements though I’d wager any flaws were below the audible threshold. The only issues I have, and it’s by no means a deal breaker, is there is a very slight channel imbalance for the first 10% of volume dial rotation, and finding the right interconnects in the right lengths was prohibitively expensive, so I built my own.
One of the best balanced headphones amps under $500
