iFi's ZEN DAC is BIG on beginner-bang-for-buck

this video is brought to you by auralic  makers of the altair g1 digital streaming deck   click to arlik.com for more information do   so this is the first in a series of three videos  about entry level dax and if you're watching for   anything other than just entertainment please wait  until all three go live until you buy something   now my high-end audio system wilson tune tots  gato amp 150 it needs a dac there's no dac inside   this amp we need to add a dac to the system to  get digital audio flowing and a dac converts   the digital signal that comes from streaming  into analog that then can be amplified by the   amplifier it's also worth pointing out that dax  do significantly affect the sound of a high-end   hi-fi system and obviously the more resolving it  is the more we hear the influence of upstream dax   but dax really don't they don't matter to  sound quality as much as the room speakers   or the amp so you need to kind of get those sorted  first as i have here because if dax didn't make a   difference to a high-end audio system we would be  quite happy using the headphone out on a macbook   or a windows laptop or a smartphone and to  me feeding those kinds of analog outputs   into this amp and the wilson speakers it  sounds as weak as water i do not enjoy it   so for example i've reviewed this before this  is the topping d10s usb dac in the context   of the high-end audio system that i have set  up here today so the gato and the wilsons   it's it's crisp and clean but it's a little bit  lean in the low end it's not what you would call   a rich sounding dac but i keep this around for  two reasons the sample rate display on the front   and also because it can serve as a usb to speed  of converter but this dac being around 100 euros   also provides the context from which  we can assess this dac this is the ifi   zen now this is the original version  a new version has just been announced   just my luck but i'm a bit slow with this review  so this is a dac and headphone amplifier proper   headphone amplifier and on the back we can see  analog outputs that we feed into our amplifier and   then a digital input in the form of a usb socket  so the first thing i noticed about this zendack   was its weight it feels much heavier in the  hand than the topping now that's obviously nice   you know sure fire sign of quality but it's still  interesting and it's still something worth noting   so like the topping this converts pcm  up to 32 bit 384 kilohertz if you have   such formats i don't know i don't know who has  that kind of level of audio i guess they exist   somewhere but i'm just all about the red book  and even more so these days and that means   you know my interest in this dax mqa support is  extremely limited as it generally is with most   high-res stuff as i explained in my previous video  about the pi running volumia which i've got here   which is what i'm using as a source device to you  know assess this dac also unusual on this deck is   we've got a 6.4 millimeter headphone socket  that's kind of standard but we've also got   something called a pentagon connector which is  a 4.4 millimeter balance connection that was   developed by sony that's for headphones we've  got one on the back as well so if you want to   go balanced into a hi-fi system a loudspeaker  system if you can get a cable adapter for that   you can also run balance but i've been using  the single ended outputs only for this review so before we get to talking about the zendak in a  loudspeaker system i just want to say a few words   about its headphone capabilities because not only  do we have the option for balance which is very   rare at this price point but even using the single  ended output into a pair of drop sennheiser 6xx we   get a more substantial more impactful sound than  even this dak magic 200m which i'll come to in   the next video but it is worth pointing out that  this headphone output sounds better than that one   and yet this dac headphone amp is significantly  cheaper than this one we also get something called   power match which is ifi's sort of fancy way of  talking about different gain settings so you can   adjust the gain to use very low impedance  iems on this thing i don't think you can   do that with the deck magic 200m we also get  something called truebase which is a non-dsp   a way of just giving the the low end a little bit  of a push so if your headphones are a little bit   bass shy you can engage that i didn't i kept  it flat i think this is a terrific sounding   headphone piece for the money and we don't  get any of these features headphone features   on the topping which are awkwardly placed over  here so yeah this is just a dac with a usb spin   of converter the i5 doesn't do the usb bit of  conversion it gives us very very good entry-level   headphone playback oh one more thing let me just  remove these headphones for a moment because on   the back of this there is a switch that allows  us to engage this as a fixed output as a variable   now i'm keeping it fixed and what's really  interesting what's really interesting is that   the volume level at fixed output is a little  bit higher than if we run variable and then   wang that all the way up to there just a thing  to note so it possibly possibly means that   when the fixed output is engaged the  signal is routed away from this volume pot   so as a dac in a high-end loudspeaker system  wilson gato compared to the topping the i-fi   isn't quite as crisp or as insistent in the top  end it's a little bit more diffuse it's a bit   softer now that doesn't mean it's warm or it's  dull but for me it is the better choice if you're   streaming lower quality masters or lossy audio  like from apple music or currently from spotify   it's more forgiving i guess in the top end because  that's where you tend to hear the most notable   differences between lossy and lossless streams and  the ifi also sounds a little bit more substantial   in the mid bass and the lower bass it gives  music a bit more push than the topping which   for me makes music generally sound more satisfying  over the longer term and that's especially true   with music like thomas philman's [ __ ] hipst  which is his latest sort of soundtrack album it's   electronic but with some kind of weird twists  in the middle but if i cut over to something   like fontaine's dc which is very raucous guitar  indie rock i'm more likely to kind of get that   sort of like wince feeling with the topping that  i am with this ifi and i guess with this zen we're   almost up there with the ease and the sort of the  more organic sound of the audio quest dragonfly   cobalt so i would say that the ifi stands tall  in the context of my high-end loudspeaker system   the topping less so and you know this zendak  it gives us a lot for our money for our 140   euros or whatever it is it's really hard to pick  fault with it at its price point i mean even the   volume wheel doesn't feel cheap or plasticky and  the you see the color that kind of the color ring   around the volume control that tells us what  sample rate we're playing that's a nice touch   i just you know it feels solid  it doesn't feel cheap at all   yeah it's just a terrific terrific  entry-level dac headphone amplifier i'm not saying this is best you can't know what's  best best depends upon you your music taste your   budget the rest of your gear your room there  are just so many different variables that feed   into what is the best for you but this i think  would please a lot of people just starting out   as a sort of first entry-level dac so if you like  this video please hit the like button down below   if you like my attitude towards high-end audio  in that i put entry-level dax like this and this   in a crazy expensive high-end audio system  in order to better magnify the differences   between the two i mean i probably wouldn't  run either of these with this amp and my   wilson speakers normally but i'd happily live  with this one not so much this one but anyway   if you dig all of that please subscribe to this  channel and as always thank you ever so much for watching

Channel: Darko Audio

Views: 121,312

Keywords: Audio, streaming, High-End Audio, Audiophile, head-fi, porta-fi, sound quality, Darko, reviews, show reports, berlin, techno

Id: gCprF3n4cOs

Length: 11min 50sec (710 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021