Got to play with the Zen DAC for a little while yesterday while our US iFi rep was in town.
It’s a very nice looking unit actually. I could easily see this stacked across office desks with their Zen Blue.
I just ran it USB from my Macbook and tried the Rosson’s out with it. The first thing I noticed was the noise floor was silent. I’ve been using the Micro iDSD Black Label as a DAC in a couple of chains lately and I’ve noticed that there is some background noise present but I didn’t find that with the Zen DAC at all.
The Zen DAC also has plenty of power. It seemed like and our rep confirmed it, that the ZenDAC has a more powerful amp than the Nano iDSD Black Label so if you don’t need the portability, the ZenDAC is going to be a very good option at $129.99.
We will also be having some units joining the Community Preview Program of both the ZenDAC and ZenBlue once the initial launch rush is over! It should make for a pretty good pairing for a lot of the Tier 3 and even some of the Tier 2 gear.