iFi Audio ZEN One Signature Review

Great Clarity & Separation

That’s the main and most important speciality of the Zen One Signature. It has a very dark background so it’s easy for the listener for separating the elements of a song. It provides a clean delivery with good focus. The overall clarity in the mid-range is the most impressive part, so if you give importance to your mid-range delivery then this is a great option. Mids sound very engaging, lively, and organic. I would’ve liked a bit more musical delivery with more fullness here though.

Treble is very well under control and articulated. The extension is fairly good as well. The staging performance, although being a bit narrow, is good and the stereo imaging is very very nice for this budget level. The unit doesn’t have an incredibly natural presentation. It’s rather a bit “digital”-like, and it would’ve been nice to have a more organic and life-like approach with more body and warmth. Also, the staging experience is not quite holographic and it feels a bit shallow and one-dimensional at times. Those aspects are understandable for the price point, however, as we shouldn’t expect an incredible performance for $349.

A Perfect All in One DAC for Starters

So overall ZEN One Signature presents a colourless, detail-oriented and flat sound. It has good dynamics and energy, with excellent separation and resolution. You can add the character of your other gear on top of that flat and neutral signature. I think it’s good that this device doesn’t add anything special to the sound. In my case, I enjoyed the great sound with the Flux Labs FA-22 and Hifiman Edition XS.

So subjective matters like warmth, bass quantity, and treble sparkle are not there to distinguish. The ZEN One Signature produces the sound as flat and detailed as possible so that you can modify the sound to your liking with other gear you attach to it. On top of that, iFi improved the dynamic range, background blackness and layering with superior circuit design over the previous offerings.

Conclusion

To me, the ZEN One Signature proves itself as a very good home audio device from start to finish. Considering the competitive price and the clean output, I think this is one of the best all-in-one solutions from iFi. You can basically do anything with it. It has all the important features of a modern sole DAC with every possible input and great wireless performance.

The new ZEN One Signature not only provides many possibilities versus the only wireless solution of the ZEN Blue, but it also improves the sound with a darker background and clarity. For the price of 349$, it’s a great feature set and performance with a very clean sound.

As a result, the iFi ZEN One Signature makes its way to our Best DAC/Source Recommendations List!

Page 1: Information About iFi Audio & Zen ONE Signature, Packaging

Page 2: Design & Build, Overall Experience, Sound Quality