iFi ZEN Air CAN Amplifier
Enjoy a louder and clearer listening experience
The ZEN Air CAN is a powerful, hi-res home analogue amplifier that provides greater headphone enjoyment with any analogue source such as your PC, Mac, smartphone, tablet, streamer or TV.
It simply takes an input signal from a source such as those mentioned above and creates a larger copy of the original signal before it’s sent to your headphones.
Think about listening to sound with your hands over your ears and then removing them! Adding the ZEN Air CAN into your system is a little like that – back comes clarity of sound as well as volume.
The ZEN Air CAN comes with three gain settings so that it works well with every pair of headphones or in-ear monitors (also known as IEMs).
What is gain? Gain in audio terms refers to an amplifier’s ability to increase the amplitude (size) of the signal from the source (input) to the headphones or speakers (output). More gain equals a stronger signal.
You will need to adjust the gain depending on the sensitivity of the headphones or iEMs you are using. For example, highly sensitive headphones need lower gain.
Play around with the settings. Trust your ears.
The ZEN Air CAN has two different headphone sockets – 6.3mm single-ended and 4.4mm S-Balanced.
There are basically two types of headphone – single-ended and balanced. In a nutshell, single-ended is the most common but the balanced option is often considered the better as it offers more power and control of the headphones.
At iFi, they know that not everyone has balanced headphones, so they created S-Balanced technology. This gives you all the benefits of a balanced connection – lower noise, less crosstalk – but without the need for balanced headphones.
The ZEN Air CAN boasts a couple of sonic tweaks, unique to iFi.
XBass is analogue bass boost. In other words, it extends the bass response to suit different headphones.
XSpace is an analogue headphone spatialiser. This opens up your music to give you the spaciousness of a live-concert atmosphere.
What's in the box?
- ZEN Air CAN
- USB-A power cable
Technical information
- Power supply requirement: DC 5V/2.5A (centre +ve)
- Max Output: >6.7V/75 mW(@ 600Ω) >6.5V/660 mW(@ 64Ω) >6.2V/1200 mW(@ 32Ω)
- THD & N: 0.005% (@ 100 mW/1.27V 16Ω)
- SNR: >114dBA (@ 6.7V)
- Max. Input:
RCA: 3.8V RMS
3.5mm: 1.92V RMS - Gain: 0dB, 9dB, 18dB
- Frequency Response: 10Hz -100kHz (-3dB)
- Power Consumption: No Signal: ~5W / Max Signal: ~13W
- Dimensions: 158 x 117 x 35 mm
- Net weight: 352 g
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