![]() This little unit feels really good quality. ![]() It’s just compact, neat, great looking and does the job REALLY well. Highly recommended for anybody looking to drive a really nice set of headphones without spending a fortune or needing loads of cables and a big box. Small and easy enough to transfer between computers, and the fact that you can power straight off the USB bus is great as it means you don’t need an extra power-brick under your desk. The main volume knob has a lovely damped ‘hi-fi’ feel to it and it’s built like a little metal brick. The build quality is second-to-none as well. The Truebass button on the front works a treat with slightly-bass-light headphones such as my Grados, but it’s not required for most of my over-ears. I’ve not had an opportunity to try out the 4mm jack as I don’t currently have any ‘phones with that size input, but apparently there’s a bit more oomph through it. Easily connects to your computer (PC and Mac in my case) and really makes the signal sing a lot more than the on-board soundcards. My electrostatic headset “HIFIMAN HE400i” forms an ideal unit with the “iFi Zen DAC” you must have heard both devices interact. The technical details are described in detail and well in numerous articles, so I save them.įantastic-sounding (very neutral) DAC. the more I acquired knowledge, the more candidates there were from the pre-selection. In the end, the selection narrowed more and more and in the end only the “iFi Zen DAC” remained.Ĭonclusion: The search was more than worth it. A week-long, endlessly nerve-wracking search for the motto: Help yourself, otherwise nobody will help you. Of course, everyone praises their product as the very best. It was the search for the literal needle in the haystack. Since I had set an upper limit of 200 euros, the search narrowed down considerably. The more I dealt with the subject of DA / headphone amplifiers, i.e. made the great performance it contained, audible without loss. above-average good DA converter / headphone amplifier for the high-tech headphones, which upgraded them as a link in the audio chain, i.e. Now it was a matter of finding a “dignified” i.e. These headphones are, without exaggeration, one of the best in the world and come very close to the wickedly expensive electrostatic headphones from Stax. I bought the magnetostatic headphones “HIFIMAN HE400i”. “iFi Zen DAC – HiFi digital-to-analog converter with USB 3.0” With all of that being said, this is a wonderful product that will make most people very, very happy.” 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. The company even mentions this in their literature. This is more related to an analog signal rather than the actual unit itself. This can happen when the volume knob is turned down at a low level. On a side note, I have not run into any imbalance issues some others have reported. I cannot more highly recommend this item. I also love the “truebass” function this unit provides. It is so well worth picking up a nice balanced cable if your current headphones can support it (not all of them can). The inclusion of the balanced headphone output is just one of them. You get many features that are not common to units in this price points. I use this exclusively as a dedicated headphone dac/amp unit. “I absolutely love this dac/amp combo! You just cannot beat the value this unit provides. 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…. Overall a very enjoyable listen and more substantial sounding than the red. Sometimes you will almost find too much detail, it will show up the quality of the original recording. The sound is also lively and toe tapping. Instruments sound realistic and we’ll defined. After about 15 hours of use they were comparable and by 30 hours this is now superior especially in the bass clarity. But compared to what I was getting from the dragonfly red it sounded compressed and less detailed. If you’ve come from a headphone output of a laptop or phone then straight away it will sound good. It is after all much bigger so all the chips are not crammed into one area. The zen DAC is supposed to provide better isolation. The dragonfly still sounds good but my monitors are prone to background noise and you get a whine sometimes. ![]() I use it my with Adam audio T5V studio monitors connected to PC. I bought this as an upgrade to my dragonfly red 1st generation.
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