Damn, that quality increase! I've been here a long time and it makes me feel so great to see your channel improve with each and every video! Also bought the JDS Labs Atom amp and DT880 on your recommendation, and I'm loving each second of it. Well done, Noel! Have a good one!
Since the Sundara is kind of "bright" I suggest you the Magni 3+. I have the Sundara, the Magni 3+, and sold the Heresy (sold O2, Atom) cause of the SMSL SP200 and paired with Shiit Modi Multibit have the best results (liked better than with the Asgard 3). I have the liquid spark too but haven´t figured out why I prefer the Magni 3+ on Sundara.
Thank you very much for this review Noel! This one along with yours + Metal571's review of the DT770 helped me pull the trigger on my first nice audio setup :)
I love my iFi gear. I have the xCAN, the iDSD BL, and, recently, the Hipdac (with my HiBy R3 Pro velcroed to it for portable power). I don't have the ZenDac (yet...). I'm kind of an iFi fanboi ;)
Great review, are you an engineer? whether you are or not, you surely feel like one with your objective approach. This transparency is much respected and appreciated, thanks.
Thanks. Not an engineer in the traditional sense. Although I did work as an IT infra engineer. You do learn a methodical approach for fault diagnosis and problem solving.
Great review! I would be interested to see a review of the, sub £100 (£93.99 Amazon), allegedly all metal, Blon BL-30, full size headphones with 70mm dynamic drivers rated at 150 ohms impedance. 70mm drivers at this price? Notwithstanding , I will keep watching. Good work, thanks!
I have a zen dac and a X2. The zen dac is great, online the X2 can sound a little bit harsh at times. Looking for a new can which is great for immersive gaming (nog competitive). Watched your 4xx and 712 review. You liked the 4xx for gaming, but it seems you changed your mind?
@@WheezyTech Thanks. Will try the 712. Have you paired the 712 pro's with the zen dac? And how was it? Keep up the good work. I like the way you review those headphones. Much detail and in a understandable way.
Am i being monitored XD? This popped up in my recommendation. litteraly just bought the HE 400i 2020 few days ago and my old fiio Q1 mrk 2 is kidda struggle to power it ( not sure why, cause the 400i is only 35 ohm) and i find my self maxing out the volume very often. This is exactly what i wantted, a reasonable price DAC/AMP combo with balanced and bassboost while the Fiio K3 isn't really an upgrade from Q1 mark 2 and the Q5 pro being lack of those mentioned features
Hey, I bought this exact combo just under a month ago (HE400i 2020 + ZenDac) and it works great. The HE400i lacks some bass in my opinion, but with the ZenDac, you have the bass boost feature, which works great and isn't over the top. I'm into bass and it's enough bass for me. I somtimes get a faint clicking sound in the headphones when used with the ZenDac, but it might just be a grounding issue. Putting it into anything else, my phone for example, the popping goes away, so it's just an issue I'll have to figure out. I suspect it's in the cable adapter, but I'm not sure. Overall, I'd recommend the setup, the ZenDac compliments the He400i perfectly.
HE400i 2020 and Zen DAC is a good combo especially with that True Bass, I really enjoyed pairing them together. Gonna be sad to post this DAC back to iFi.
i ve got question. Just noticed recently that when i press the ear cup toward my head (while wearing it) i heard rattly metallic noises, is that normal for planar headphones to do that? And noise on the right side is louder than the left for some reason. Anyway good job on the vid mate 😉, picked my self the Zen Dac today. Wish they included a longer USB cable tho...
@@rc-intensively1297 sounds like a bad pair, contact their support at customerservice@hifiman.com and they'll give you advice (they seem to be prone to doing RMA's, so getting a replacement shouldn't be difficult). They were very helpful when I contacted them about the clicking in my pair and the issue wasn't in the headphones to begin with.
@@magnh I was thinking about buying the 400i 2020 and ZenDac as well. Are they loud enough just powering the Zen off of USB? Or are you using an external 5V power supply? Also, did you figure out what caused the clicking?
You say (at 6:28 in the video) that with the Zen Dac/Zen Can combo we can still continue to use the Zen Dac headphone jack instead of that of the Zen Can. I connected my Zen Dac AIR to the Zen Can (by RCA), indeed I can choose to connect the headphones in the Zen Dac and receive sound in the headphones, except that by doing this the Zen Can is cut off from the headphones, and therefore manipulating the different "Gain", "3D" or "xBass" settings of the Zen Can will not produce any effect. My headphones are DT 990 Pro, 250 ohms.
Nice. I like you, i like your approach. Do you think you want to test the $10 Apple USB-C to headphone dongle against the expensive DACs and headphone amplifiers? Obviously there's a limitation that you can't go TOO inefficient or high-impedance on headphone choice, especially if you get limited to EU version of the dongle rather than the NA one. But low-impedance headphones have their own challenges. I also don't know why so many companies don't just throw a simple headphone amplifier into their DAC. Even just something as filthy as MAX97220A.
Thanks :D The Apple dongle works on Android doesn't it? I have the Pixel dongle and its not terrible, much to my surprise. Might be worth picking up the Apple one to compare.
@@WheezyTech No, it doesn't work on Android very well at all, there's something wrong with the gain. It does work remarkably well on PC with Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or Linux though! And presumably also on Mac OS X. A simple USB-A to USB-C adapter is sufficient and it doesn't need a real USB 3.x port to run, USB 2.0 work just as well.
im having a hard time deciding if i want the zen or get the thx 789/Grace Design Standard DAC. somebody help me decide please! as of now i have a soundblaster g6 with the. spend the extra money on the 789??? i have the dt177x go by the way.
Have the portable version, the Hip DAC. So versatile, love lying in my bed and enjoying the sound. Having the MSR7b and going to grab a Sundara in the coming weeks. And your video quality has really gain in quality. Did you change the focal length/framing ? It is much better !
Yeah I got a new camera body and lens. Massive jump from the kit lens on the old camera to the new lens. The old camera always overheated too so this has been the best upgrade I've made so far.
Because it is cheap in comparison to the competition. For a combo balanced Amp / DAC this is a good price. Sure you could get an unbalanced unit for less. I have a review coming up of something more budget friendly btw.
hey guys, just have a question, zen dac's only input option is via USB right? are there any accessories I could use too if I wana use my phone as a DAP, or do I really need to get a ZAN CAN to have a 3.5mm input?
Let's point out the obvious first, production value upgrade.2 thumbs up :) I've recently added the zen dac to pair with my Sundara's(works nicely). 85% of my music plays fine. For the extra maybe over kill power I was thinking of adding the zen can or the topping L30 which is now on sale. I heard the L30 runs hot. It looks like you have the zen can, does it run hot ? My zen dac never gets beyond warm. Maybe all amps in this price range run hot or it's the power supply or the internal components that cause this. Your thoughts ?
Zen CAN review coming up either this week or next. You reminded me to talk about heat in the review. Stuff like the O2 never even gets warm but the ZEN CAN does get warm, but not hot. It does apparently use a Class A circuit design which runs hotter naturally. I've got an L30 which gets warm too, I'll put them side by side and see which one gets hotter.
@@WheezyTech Quick follow up. Just received the Topping L30.It does get warm as you said. Pairing it with my Ifi Zen Dac with power match and variable switched in the back to the L30 at +9db for more power it is very hard for me to tell the difference of power if I go back and forth straight out of the dac or the L30 matching volume. It's very possible it's user error or... Your thoughts ?
Thank you for the very informative review. Quick question in case you catch this but I was wondering if I should turn on the power match button for my 80 ohms DT 770 Pro. So far it's off, I hesitated because I didn't want to damage my headphones by over powering.
Awesome review. Thank you. My question is: if I use iPhone or iPad as a source to stream Apple Music lossless, would that be any concerns for using Zen DAC ? What kind of adapter or cable should I get for connection (lightening) to Zen DAC? Hope to hear from you soon
Has anyone tried this dac with the audio technica ath msr7b headphones? I'm getting these next week (110 euros on Amazon when the original price was 250!) and I'm onto a steep learning curve into the audiophile crazyness and loving it. I don't have the money to just splurge but I do like to hear my music as best as as I can. Is this DAC worth it? I also ordered the new Hiby R2 bundle with the FD1 dac and the Beans but I'm planning to use this combo as it is. The fact that the Zen Dac has a 4.4 balanced headphone slot makes this a prime candidate for my desktop dac with the new audio technica headphones. Any thoughts would be welcomed!
bro I have the dt 770 pros 250ohm with the Soundblaster g5 . and i want to upgrade to the zen dac v2 . what do you think ? is it loud and crisp enough? is it much better than the g5 ?
I don't get it....I need to connect Dac to pc and headphones for enjoy MQA from Tidal so...do i need to go for Zen DAC ora Zen CAN? Which one offers best audio quality? Please help 😭
Is it good for gaming? The plan is to use only in PC with some SPH900, ARH-AD700 and Hyperx Cloud. Compared to anything in this price range. Did you recomend this or another one?
I cant tell you what to buy but the BTR5 and the Zen DAC are really aimed at different use cases. Go BTR5 if you want a portable DAC but if you're going to be listening from your desk/pc then I'd definitely I'd go Zen DAC.
congrats on the new MKBHD level visuals would you like to do a review on Sony WI-XB400 Wireless Extra Bass in-Ear They are like 30 Pound I think the sound wider than K712 Pro
Great video! What is the price range for diminishing returns? Have you ever compared 100-200$ DAC/amps with cheap sub 100$ products? Since you’ve mentioned the lack of audible difference of many DACs and amps in the former category, it could be fun to compare the two price ranges. How cheap do you get before you start hearing notable differences in blind tests? If there are differences it would also be interesting to see how cheap your headphones have to get so that the differences disappear or become irrelevant. I think the greatest challenge facing beginners like me is headphone / amp / DAC pairing. First there is the wading through tech specs and online calculators to figure out if your headphone power reqs can be met by the amp. Then there is the question of whether the DAC or amp is any good or not, especially with your headphones... But there is soo much quackery, technical measurements, comments by apparent audio superhumans that it is hard to get any type of answer except “more expensive is always better”. It’s so frustrating! There has to be a price range for diminishing returns! Anyway, sorry for the rant and thank you for shedding light on some of these questions!
great vid man thanks. I was wondering, what if you just sent audio out and back in via a DAC and interface multiple times to see what effect the DAC was having? I suppose my initial thought would be that you would end up with audible noise after enough cycles. beside that though i'm surprised no one is yet to try it. the reason i think its worth it is because even if you blind test, you can still sometimes convince yourself of things that aren't actually there.
Just getting in to headphones and picked up some fedelio x2hr really enjoying the sound out of them. I am just using an iPhone at the moment but was looking in to dac amps of my mac or iPhone to see if i can improve it even more. Would the zen be a good option for me? Thank you
will the zen dac shut off the line out when headphones are plugged in ? this seems quite critical as I need to adjust my powered speakers with them too. Any idea?
Hi dude. Why did you say that is great "especially for gaming". I also am leaning to buy this to go with my sph9500 ath-ad700 and hyperx cloud. I will only use in pc. Can you help me here?
@@PakoPnF Sure, the "true bass" on the Zen DAC gives you some meatiness/thickness/weight to the sound. If you're playing a game with good sound design, like Doom 2016, it goes a long way in the immersion factor. It also helps round out more detail oriented headphones, or open backs with lighter/airy sound presentation. For gaming I use: Sennhesier 599s, HiFiMan Deva wired, and the Beyerdynamic TYGRs (and a Mobius but you don't want to run that through aux). Both the 599s and the Deva are great for details in game environments but lack on low end impact. They're never going to rumble, but by using the true bass on the Zen it adds sufficient bass "roundness" without sacrificing the detail. For my TYGRS they already have ample bass so I skip the true bass toggle. The warm of the Zen can compliment a dark headphone like the TYGR but I still apply my own EQ profile to prevent the vocals from being too buried. I think the Zen is great for games where immersion is key. Set pieces have that home theater effect, not necessarily with separation but in terms of umpf.
@@dasninjastix So in terms of soundstage and instrument separation, you think is also good? Games like Assassins Creed and so that has a vast world, the soundstage is kye. What do you think about it?
@@PakoPnF I don't think the Zen DAC is going to do all that much to expand the sound stage. That's more on your headphone or if you want to opt for a tube amp. The Zen DAC is generally a warm, less analytical DAC amp with that option to add weight to your sound. Not sure if it's comparable to a Schiit multibit but I have 0 complaints about how it sounds or how much power it provides. I wish it had an optical input is all.
The Zen DAC is designed to power on/off automatically based on whether it's receiving power or not. If it doesn't turn off when you turn your PC off, your PC is still actively feeding power into the Zen DAC, so your PC probably goes into sleep mode instead of being powered off.
Can't comment on the differences really as I haven't tried it yet. But the K5 Pro does have optical in as well as USB which is a plus in my book, looks like it has a higher output too if that matters. Worth a look if you're not interested in having an option for balanced output.
