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.
This OV series operational amplifier is another example of a top-notch component used to get extremely low noise, low distortion (0.0001%) and wide bandwidth.
Learn more here.
TDK C0G (Class 1 ceramic) capacitors offer high stability and low losses for resonant circuit applications. 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) |
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| 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 |
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| Dimensions | 158 x117 x35 mm 6.2" x 4.6" x 1.4" |
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| Net weight | 515g (1.14 Ibs) | |
| Warranty period | 12 months |
We’re working on it — check back soon!
“If anything can impress me, the ZEN CAN can.”
As a Zen DAC user, I’d often found that I really needed to crank the volume on some of my headphones so when I saw a matching amp was released I knew I had to have it.
Arrived the next day and packaged as you’d expect.
Connected it up with the supplied RCA cables (also supports 4.4mm balanced which I’m in the process of making) and plugged in.
OMFG this thing has some power, using a balanced cable I can’t go past 11 o’clock on the dial (about 3-4 on a 1-10 chart). This thing has loads of clean power.
Also has a balanced output on the rear which still works even with headphones plugged in.
In essence, if you want a powerful, well made headphone amp, this it exactly what you need
Simply very good and also beautiful and well-made headphone amplifier. Sufficient power for almost all headphones.
For me personally, the amplifier has a very small and fine sound signature. It’s very neutral, but there is some coloration. I imagine I can hear the advertised “Class A Discrete circuit” here. The sound has a bit of the positive qualities of the Class A amplifiers that were current a few years ago. The device also gets a little warm quickly during operation. My THX AAA789 amp always stays cold. So is the subjective sound for me: The Zen Can sounds significantly warmer and darker to me than the colder and brighter THX. I tend to like dynamic drivers (e.g. Focal Elegia, BW Signature P9, Sennheiser mod. HD58x, Pioneer SE Monitor 5) more on the Zen Can than on the THX. With planar magnets (e.g. Sundara, M1060C) it is the other way round. But we’re talking about nuances here,
All in all a great product from ifi! And this time the price is really more than attractive.
I bought this amp pretty much a poke as soon as I saw the release on the Anglo-Saxon manufacturer’s website. I am so in love with this brand that I have not waited to read reviews and opinions. Apart from some small oddities (the British are particular and must always stand out such as, for example, using the Pentaconn for the balanced) I find ifi products unmatched for value for money.
Specifically they have produced a headphone amp that comes to deliver 7v for less than 200 €. The competition dreams of certain performance at this price. Anyway … I tested it with 250 Ohm Beyerdynamic dt1770 Pro, Beyerdynamic dt 1990 Pro and Sundara (very power hungry) … well with the gain at 3 out of 4, you can’t get over half the volume.
Impressive how any headset handles: authority and ease, quantity and quality. Aesthetically beautiful, robust and refined. I got another one to keep in the studio. They will accompany my ifi Zen Blue and Hip Dac. Highly recommended.
after using the zen dac for over a year i started to get some better headphones,like the senn 58x and sony mdr1a hi-res and philips fidelio x2hr but started to feel i needed a bit more power and options to tweak the sound a little,well soon as i heard about the zen can i was instantly intrested.
after linking it to the zen dac via rca for now untill 4.4 pentacon male to male is released,i was amazed how much it boosted my headphones also the with more clarity,i found it give a bit of life to older songs but using with tidal just blew me away,plus stacked there look great and i would recommend easily,very nice piece of kit,only bad point is the lack of a 4.4 balanced cable which would have been nice as this was meant to be stacked using one for much better and more powerfull sound,these are impossible to find anywhere unless you get a custom one made for alot of cash.
still love the zen can though,go buy one and match it with the zen dac youll be amazed.
The perfect compliment to the Zen DAC! For the past several months I have really enjoyed my Zen DAC. It’s performance is spot on by itself, with it’s optional power adapter… the thing comes alive. Then the Zen CAN came along. Pairing it to the DAC fixes everything that you just can’t fit into such a small and already great package.
The amount of power these two pump out together is insane. I certainly can’t recommend this pair for people running less than 80ohm headphones. All you need is the Zen DAC for that, but if you’re craving some sheer power out of your DAC, get the CAN.
