

This budget DAC, which can be USB or mains powered (though a mains adapter doesn’t come in the box), is excellent in both the features and performance department for the money.Īt one end is a USB Type B input, plus RCA line-level and 4.4mm Pentaconn balanced outputs. The output of the Zen DAC can be switched between fixed and variable, meaning the iFi can operate as a digital preamp if you so wish. They pay off, as the DAC's current What Hi-Fi? Award-winning status demonstrates. It’s what iFi has done with its budget home DAC and headphone amp offering, with the original Zen DAC now making way for a ‘V2’ model that offers improvements in terms of processing, MQA decoding and circuitry. But at the same time we realise that in a competitive industry such as hi-fi, making the best even better off your own back isn’t necessarily a bad idea. The ‘if it ain’t broke…’ saying isn’t lost on us.
