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We switch to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and the Zen responds with enough in the way of punch and rhythmic drive to keep us listening. We like the openness of the presentation and its generally even-handed nature. Tonally, this is a well-judged unit, having just the right degree of smoothness at high frequencies to prevent low bit rate or thin-sounding music streams from getting annoying. The leading edges of notes are precise but not over etched, and there’s a good sense of authority to the sound. We listen to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and are impressed by the iFi’s expressive dynamics and its ability to reproduce the piano’s harmonic richness convincingly.
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The Zen DAC clearly outperforms our MacBook Pro laptop easily, sounding clearer and more detailed. Most budget digital-to-analogue converters aren’t particularly inspiring to listen to and don’t tend to offer much of a step-up over the soundcard of a computer.
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This works subtly enough to be useful, adding extra weight and authority to thin or lean sounding cans. There’s a button on the front that offers a choice of output levels to take into account the large difference in sensitivity between headphone types, and another that adds a degree of bass boost. IFi has tried to optimise the sound for a wide range of headphones. Still, that hardly makes the inclusion of such outputs a negative. While it’s commendable that iFi has gone to the trouble of implementing such a design, it’s also true that the bulk of price compatible kit that will be partnered with the DAC won’t be balanced or capable enough to make the most of it. There’s a choice of having a fixed or variable output through the line connections, which means that the Zen can operate as a digital preamp in a system if you want to use it that way. The inclusion of balanced outputs is unusual at this price, but also points to the fact that the Zen’s analogue output stage has a fully balanced layout. It can also decode MQA, which is impressive at this price.Īs for outputs, there are 6.3mm and 4.4mm balanced Pentaconn jacks on the front, a stereo RCA line output on the back with another 4.4mm balanced option next to it.
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Despite its budget nature, the Zen can handle PCM files up to 384kHz and up to DSD256.