Find your ZEN with this super-affordable compact DAC/headphone amp. It makes your music move you.
This superb hi-res USB DAC/headphone amp delivers a level of specification and performance that punches above its super-affordable price tag.
Compact enough to use as a USB DAC/amp on your work desk with your much-loved headphones.
Stylish enough to use in your home system as a USB DAC. Just add your favourite active speakers or amp.
The ZEN DAC supports PCM and DXD to 32-bit/384kHz, DSD256 and MQA. DSD remains ‘bit-perfect’ thanks to the True Native Burr Brown chip design.
Our R&D maxes out the circuitry with bespoke, easy to install firmware to bring you the joyous musicality of hi-res. The ethereal music quality will leave you grinning ear to ear.
We’ve used a balanced design for the analogue stage – rare and not found at this price point. This makes it pretty special for the best sound quality. With super-low noise performance, it will remain quiet even in noisy situations such as yachts or RVs.
The ZEN DAC sports Balanced 4.4mm balanced outputs at both the front and back. On the front, there’s also the popular 6.3mm headphone socket. You get both headphone options.
Switch effortlessly between ‘variable’ and ‘fixed’.
Set to ‘Variable,’ use the ZEN DAC as a pre-amp to feed a power amp or active speakers.
On ‘Fixed’ to bypass the volume control. Connect to an external pre-amp or integrated amp.
Our headphone amp has PowerMatch – switchable gain to perfectly match your headphones.
IEMs are high-sensitivity, Leave PowerMatch at its lower setting for hiss-free listening.
On/over-ear types with relatively low impedance require more oomph – press PowerMatch to increase the level of drive.
The ZEN DAC boasts TrueBass. This proprietary tech is a switchable ‘bass boost’ operating in the analogue domain. There’s no DSP with iFi gear.
TrueBass enhances the bass but does not muddy the mid-range. Perfect for use with IEMs or open-back headphones which often lose out on bass.
So, in the words of the great Eric Clapton and from the film Back to the Future, Heaven is One Step Away.
Go find your ZEN.
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.
TrueBass® – delivers genuine bass with realistic depth and definition.
Everything from timpani to a bass guitar, to an electronic bassline, is conveyed with power and poise.
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.
The Burr-Brown True Native® chipset means file formats remain unchanged or ‘bit-perfect’. This means you are listening to music as the artist intended in the format in which it was recorded.
At iFi we use Burr Brown extensively in our products having selected it for its natural-sounding ‘musicality’ and True Native architecture. Our experience with this IC means we know how to make the most of it.
Hi-Res True Native® playback of all music formats from MP3 to DSD256, PCM384 and DXD384.
Listen to Master Quality Authenticated audio straight out of the box. Connect to Tidal Masters and check the option to stream MQA.
MQA is an award-winning audio technology that enables music fans to stream the original master recording into their home, car or on their mobile. In the words of Gilbert O’Sullivan, iconic Irish-born singer-songwriter, “The great thing about MQA is that it delivers the finesse that was there in the desk sound. It’s tremendous, it sounds really good.”
Our video tutorials on You Tube show you how.
Using Mac or Linux? Then check out our exclusive iFi firmware. Download ‘Limoncello’ 5.2A to unlock DoP256 for Mac/Linux.
Fancy adding the special GTO filter first introduced in our flagship DAC, the Pro iDSD? Use ‘Cookies and Cream’ 5.3C. More on the GTO filter here.
It is a superior method to the traditional single-ended circuit approach. Balanced circuits reduce noise and crosstalk. Less Interference – clearer sound.
You normally find this set-up in products at the higher end of the price spectrum such as the Pro iCAN Signature but iFi is now using this across its range to produce the best quality audio for all our customers.
| Input | USB3.0 B Socket (USB2.0 compatible) |
| Formats | PCM (384/352.8/192/176.4/96/88.2/48/44.1kHz) DSD (256/128/64), DXD(384/352.8kHz), MQA (Decoder) |
| DAC | Bit-Perfect DSD & DXD DAC by Burr Brown |
Line Section | |
| Output | Audio RCA (SE) — 2.1V fixed 1V / 3.3V max. (variable) 4.4mm Pentaconn (BAL) — 4.2V fixed 2V / 6.2V max. (variable) |
| Zout | <= 200 Ohm (BAL) <= 100 Ohm (SE) |
| SNR | < -116dB(A) @ 0dBFS (BAL/SE) |
| DNR | > 116dB(A) @ -60dBFS (BAL/SE) |
| THD+N | < 0.0015% @ 0dBFS (BAL/SE) |
Headphone Section | |
| Output Power (@1% THD) | 4.4mm Pentaconn (BAL) [email protected] Ohm; [email protected] Ohm; 16 Ohm - 600 Ohm Headphone 6.3mm S-BAL (SE) [email protected] Ohm; [email protected] Ohm 16 Ohm - 600 Ohm Headphone Note: Using 5v power. If powered from USB, power output may vary. |
| Output Impedance | < 1 Ω (BAL/SE) |
| THD & N | < 0.005% (125mW @ 32R) |
| SNR | > 113dBA (6.2V BAL/3.3V SE) |
| Power consumption | < 1.5W via USB power OR 5v DC (power supply not included) |
| Dimensions | 160(w) x 117(d) x 35(h) mm 6.3" x 4.6" x 1.4" |
| Weight (Gross) | 0.8 kg (1.8 lbs) |
| Warranty period | 12 months |
I bought this as an upgrade to my dragonfly red 1st generation. I use it my with Adam audio T5V studio monitors connected to PC.
The dragonfly still sounds good but my monitors are prone to background noise and you get a whine sometimes. The zen DAC is supposed to provide better isolation. It is after all much bigger so all the chips are not crammed into one area.
This needs quite a lot of burn in time. If you’ve come from a headphone output of a laptop or phone then straight away it will sound good. Much better. But compared to what I was getting from the dragonfly red it sounded compressed and less detailed. After about 15 hours of use they were comparable and by 30 hours this is now superior especially in the bass clarity. There is a lot of clarity. Instruments sound realistic and we’ll defined. The sound is also lively and toe tapping. Sometimes you will almost find too much detail, it will show up the quality of the original recording. Overall a very enjoyable listen and more substantial sounding than the red. I find the headphone output is higher quality than the RCA (better sound) so run a 3.5mm to RCA out of the headphone jack which is what I was previously using anyhow….
Check out this review of the ZEN DAC V2 and the comparison with our very own iDSD Signature!
“I absolutely love this dac/amp combo! You just cannot beat the value this unit provides. I use this exclusively as a dedicated headphone dac/amp unit. You get many features that are not common to units in this price points. The inclusion of the balanced headphone output is just one of them. It is so well worth picking up a nice balanced cable if your current headphones can support it (not all of them can). I also love the “truebass” function this unit provides. I cannot more highly recommend this item. On a side note, I have not run into any imbalance issues some others have reported. This can happen when the volume knob is turned down at a low level. This is more related to an analog signal rather than the actual unit itself. The company even mentions this in their literature. Keep this in mind if you are planning on using this unit for highly sensitive iem’s (which don’t need much to drive them) rather than full size over the ear headphones. With all of that being said, this is a wonderful product that will make most people very, very happy.”
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.
This is a type of audio circuitry topology that uses individual left & right channels.
It is a superior method to the single-ended circuit approach. Balanced circuits reduce noise and crosstalk.
While single-ended is used by most at this price level, iFi is implementing balanced circuits across the Zen range which is quite a step-up.
Let’s talk headphone cables.
An unbalanced headphone cable has a left + and right + wire, for each respective side. The other, the third – wire is shared by both left & right channels. As this is shared, this gives rise to undesired coupling noise which is commonly referred to as ‘crosstalk.’
A balanced cable has the same left + and right +. But it has a separate left – and right -. With totally separate wiring ‘crosstalk’ is negligible.
Therefore, a balanced connection is the superior headphone wiring configuration.
DACs convert digital information, stored or streamed by computers, into music we can hear through speakers or headphones.
Every device that’s a source of digital sound has a built-in DAC (TVs, games consoles, CD players, phones, portable music players etc). Dedicated external DACs sound much better than standard DACs used in digital devices such as phones.
DSD is a very high-quality digital audio format that’s even better than CD quality. The higher the ‘DSD rate’ – DSD64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024 – the greater the amount of music information available, which means better sound quality.
Files can be remastered to higher file rates to improve sound quality. The pinnacle of this is DSD1024. Not many machines out there are capable of this feat.
Gain is the amount of increase in audio signal strength. Gain is often expressed in decibels (dB).
IEMs stands for In-Ear Monitors.
These fit inside your ear. You’ve been using them for years. You just called them something else.
You will also see these referred to as earphones, ear buds and CIEMs. CIEMs are Custom In-Ear Monitors – IEMs made specifically to fit your ear shape.
MP3 – this is the most popular format, every device in the world can use it.
DSD – Direct Stream Digital is a very high-quality audio format, better than CD quality. The higher the number (sample rate), the better the recording – DSD64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024.
PCM – Pulse Code Modulation is the most common format for CDs and DVDs.
DXD – Digital eXtreme Definition is a very high-quality PCM format. It was developed to edit hi-res (high quality) recordings recorded in DSD.
MQA is an award-winning British technology that delivers the sound of the original master recording. The master MQA file is fully authenticated and is small enough to stream or download. More here.
Zen emphasises rigorous self-control, meditation-practice, insight into the nature of things and the personal expression of this insight in daily life, especially for the benefit of others. Discover more here.
