Zen ONE Signature - All in one Media hub - Bluetooth 5.1, Optical, USB, RCA. Full MQA High Res Audio DAC

The digital input favors spdif/coaxial over toslink/optical. so power cycle the dac to switch to toslink if you use the coax and want to use optical after. Make sure you update the bluetooth and dac firmware. Upgraded from a modi 2 uber with an akm 4396 to this. ifi uses a burr brown dsd 1793 chip that sounds warmer than akm, ess or cirrus logic chips. The sound is very clear. At 32bit 384khz pcm, it sounds like you are in the studio with the artist. Redbook cds sound good as does bluetooth aac. The connection is instant when you toggle bluetooth. I havent tried dsd dxd or mqa files. Very neutral and clear dac. Build quality is very good. Unit feels solid and looks gorgeous. Internally it uses top quality components like panasonic oscon and elna caps, goldplated connectors and a low jitter gmt clock. Also has kemet ceramic and tdk cog caps. There is an xmos 16 core chip for mqa, if you like tidal. Overall a solid dac that I enjoy. Includes great cables, that are a bit short but work perfect with my setup. I am using this with a thinkpad, and sony dvd player as a cd transport. I use the rca outs to a emotiva a100 and elac b6.2s and a debut 10in sub. Using hifiman he4xx from drop for headphones. Expensive dac for me at $350, but overall I am pleased with the purchase. Next step up would be a chord mojo at twice the price, so I am happy with my low budget 2.1 setup.

This is a fantastic DAC. I bought it because I have an ifi DAC v.2 Signature in a different system and they are no longer available. That is the dac included in this unit. There is a great sound stage, bass, and neutral sound. Highs are well controlled. I don't do Blue Tooth. I have used on USB and Coax.

I wanted something affordable to use to hear Spotify on my system. I did not expect much compared to my high end source components. Once it burned in (it sounded horrible for the first 15 minutes) it just kept getting better. After completely breaking in, the sound is amazingly good. I upgraded from Spotify to Tidal and the Zen ONE revealed the increase in source quality clearly. As far as the sound is concerned, I think my vinyl setup may still be better. The Zen ONE is not perfect in giving anything one could want from music, but it does nothing wrong. It is very easy to listen to and quite engaging for hours on end. The build quality does not include a $500 piece of art enclosure, but is is well solidly and attractively built with high quality resisters, capacitors, and other parts that I've not seen in components at this price. Most people will have to upgrade their sound systems significantly if they want to be able to hear all that this little device can produce.

This is a wonderful digital to audio converter that features a balanced output. Most DACs feature unbalanced RCA line-level outputs. Using a 3.5mm socket this DAC produces a true balanced signal output. A small adapter cable converts that 3.5mm jack to a pair of XLR balanced inputs for the next item in the signal chain. Balanced signals are immune to electronic interference and typically have a better signal-to-noise ratio down below 100dB. I connect into the DAC with an iPad and they connect with the highest possible bit rate available from Apple Music service. Musically it's invisible which is nice.

It's going back.​ In the product description it says "Connections include High Res Bluetooth 5.1" ... etc, etc. The product description goes on to say that "These connections allow you to use the ZEN ONE Signature with a plethora of audio equipment." My personal plethora of gear includes a very nice wireless bluetooth headset, the Mark Levinson 5909. Based on my reading of the product description, my expectation was that I would be able to connect my bluetooth headset to this unit wirelessly. However, that would require that this have a bluetooth "transmitter." This does have a bluetooth receiver, but unfortunately it does NOT have a bluetooth transmitter. I did not see this distinction in the product description. It is possible that I may have missed it (my apologies if I did). Knowing that this does NOT have a bluetooth transmitter would have saved me a lot of time and frustration.

I am using the iFi DAC mainly for music but also for television. I am NOT using the headphone outputs so I cannot comment on that. I also upgraded the power supply and using a home made music streamer with Volumio. Excellent sound quality with my Acoustic Energy loudspeakers and Schiit audio components, easily 5 stars!

Love the Burr Brown DAC sound out of this. I have to turn the unit off and back on the get the unit to recognize the input. Even when I cycled through the inputs it wouldn't recognize the source. That was a pain. The buttons seem cheap and having to keep using them to power down has my worried as another reviewer mentioned one of his buttons died. Too bad because it seems to have some high quality innards.

Be aware that this DAC does not have any volume control capabilities. It is always at max volume. If you want to use this as a computer DAC you will not be able to control the volume from the system level settings on your computer. You will need to adjust volume from either individual source applications or by using the volume controls of the external amp it is connected to. The computer driver does not allow changing the volume from the computer's main audio controls, so things like keyboard volume wheels will not work, which is a shame.

I purchased this D.A.C. to use with the Zen Can Headphone amplifier(love it). This D.A.C. sounds great when connected to the amp with a balanced connector. I use the U.S.B. port for listening to Tidal on my laptop. I have a C.D. transport connected via tos link, and use blue tooth for late night television viewing. I also have the R.C.A. outputs connected to the "record in" of a very good J.V.C. tape deck. In all of these applications this D.A.C. sounds amazing. I like it as much as I like my Chord Q-Test which is 4 times the price! The ultra small footprint makes it easy to fit into any system. It can be powered via U.S.B. but the external wall-wart that comes with it is a very high quality power supply which I recommend using. I doubt that one could find a better D.A.C. at this price.

Este Dac me parece genial, lo use para mejorar mis monitores amplificados The Fives, y creeme mejoró el sonido. También adquirí el amplificador Ifi Zen Can Signature, ya que había visto algunas reseñas que recomendaban tener dicha combinacion Dac y Amplificador. El resultado es genial y agradable para mis oídos.

Ifi ha fatto un buon lavoro con questo dac, quasi perfetto. La costruzione è massiccia ma la forma potrebbe non essere di gradimento a tutti come anche il colore, sono aspetti soggettivi, a me piace 7/10. I cavetti rca in dotazione fate una cosa, appena aprite la scatola prendete delle forbici e tagliateli a pezzettini, sono così scarsi che vi faranno credere che il dac sia di scarsa qualità, pensate che stavo per fare il reso ma non volevo arrendermi a ciò dopo tutte le ricerche fatte per scegliere l'ennesimo dac per il mio impianto ed è stato questo che mi ha portato a comprare dei buoni cavi RCA Mogami 2497 (pagati sulle 70 euro per 50cm). Avevo ragione, la qualità musicale di uscita è stata completamente diversa, roba da non credere come faccio veramente difficoltà a capire Ifi che si prodiga nella progettazione di questo magnifico dac e poi va ad elemosinare sui cavi.... Sarebbe proprio da chiedergli il perché... Passiamo al display altra cosa che dovrebbe spiegarla ma forse qui un motivo un po' più valido c'è, contenere i costi e investirli nella compontistica di qualità interna,questa scelta rispetto ai cavi ancora posso accettarla. In ogni caso il display è seccante, solo dopo un po' di tempo inizierai a ricordare i vari colori a cosa si riferiscono: risoluzione, bitrate, dsd, mqa, ecc. purtroppo lo hanno fatto così.... Il suono, ecco una cosa in cui non c'è proprio nulla da dire è il suono, che è quello che interessa principalmente a tutti... SUONA BENE! È un suono caldo, avvolgente, dettagliato ma non clinico, ti fa apprezzare l'ascolto nella sua interezza, dallo scintillio alla dinamica, dal basso preciso alle voci ben centrate e naturali, tutto è armonioso e piacevole(la componentistica elettronica interna è di assoluto valore!) Anche il Bluetooth è ottimo, supporta fino a LDAC e tutti i protocolli migliori finora presenti sul mercato. Esce anche un buon alimentatore se non volete usare USB, quindi lo collegate alla presa elettrica, connessione Bluetooth, 2 secondi e si collega e suona, e ripeto suona bene anche in bluetooth. Compratelo ad occhi chiusi, per il prezzo è sicuramente un prodotto ottimo!

Yo lo conecte a un zen blue v2 y el resultado fué extraordinario.!! Funciona como un dac mas completo me gusta.

I own other ifi products and thought that I’d give this one a whirl. Impressive build quality and use of high quality internal components. Awesome little digital hub and works perfectly for my requirements. I can stream Tidal via Bluetooth and use the Burr Brown dac for my cd transport to integrated amp via coax cable. As one reviewer put it, for the price, the One Signature is a bargain, a bobby dazzler, a no brainer, whatever term you wish to use. You get a well judged set of inputs coupled with decoding that is sensationally good; balancing engagement, realism and the means to celebrate good recordings while flattering poor ones. This is the device that affordable amplifiers need in their lives and it is an unquestionable Best in Class.