Comments on Profile Post by Merrick

Will refrain from posting in the Zen DAC thread until this unit has more time to warm up and I have more on ear time with it.

On another forum, an iFi rep said the Neo Stream DAC is equivalent to the Zen One Sig. I hear the former as a little dark, a little soft.

Hows the bluetooth? I liked my Zen Blu a lot when I had it.

@Gazny Didn’t even hook up the antenna because all my bluetooth sources are AAC.

@wbass Kind of annoying it doesn’t have the same sound as the Zen DAC Sig, since the One Sig is the only Zen DAC with coax and optical inputs.

interesting, I thought it worked best on iDevices when I had one.

@Gazny Interesting! I'll hook up the antenna then.

What firmware are you running?

@JK47 I bought it used and the seller didn’t mention updating the firmware, so I’m guessing whatever the original firmware is. I did check iFi’s site and the only firmware updates are Bluetooth and USB XMOS updates.

Well, damn it, the USB on this sounds considerably better than the other digital inputs. Given that this is the most expensive Zen DAC and it seems to be specifically because of the extra digital inputs, I am having a hard time understanding the rationale for this device.

The USB input sounds much more like how Marv described the Zen DAC v2, which was the thread that got me intrigued to try this DAC. I figured the Pi2AES would be a better source than USB, which is why I went for the Zen One specifically, and now it seems like it was thrown in as an afterthought. Maybe the coax sounds better from the balanced output, but in SE the USB spanks it.