iFi ZEN Air Blue - High Resolution Bluetooth Audio Streamer - Stream Hi-Res Audio from Spotify, Apple Music and More (RCA Output)

I have a hifi system I bought nearly 30 years ago. At the time I treated myself to the individual pieces as I could afford them and have swapped a couple of the units over time. For the last 20 years or so it has consisted of an amp, a cassette tape player, a 5 CD disc changer and some awesome speakers. But for at least the last 5 or 10 years, I really only listen to music on streaming services, in the car or though headphones/earbuds. I decided to look for a unit to add to my hifi that can stream music and play it through my amp and speakers.And this ifi unit does the job perfectly, and for a pretty reasonable price. Looking around, many of the items offered cost hundreds of pounds but at just £99, this seemed very affordable.The unit itself is pretty compact and looks sleek and attractive in the white finish with black panel. It isn’t the size of a standard hifi unit, so I don’t have to remove one of my existing units to fit it into the cabinet I have; it just sits on top of one of the other pieces. Okay, it doesn’t have the symmetry of being big and rectangular and black, like all the other units, but that doesn’t really bother me and I think it looks fine there.Set up was really quick, simple and straightforward. Take it out the box, plug the power cable into the unit, then into a mains adapter. The power cable ends in a USB plug so you’ll need to have a spare USB adapter plug to hand. It doesn’t come with its own RCA cables so you’ll have to have some of those spare too. But you just put the R and L cables into the sockets in the back of the unit and then connect to your amp.Bluetooth connection to your phone takes seconds; turn the unit on and off begins searching. Go to Bluetooth settings in your phone and tap the new device there called ‘ifi Hi-Res Audio’ and it instantly connects and you are good to go.The sound is clean and clear and just great!I’m really happy with this purchase. It does exactly what I want and brings my hifi up to date. Which is nice for me but I’m also considering my son. He’s at university now but in a few years, when first gets his own place, I’m thinking of passing on the hifi for him to use there - a sort of heirloom, I guess. But now it is something he’ll be able to use everyday, rather than a dinosaur that requires a room full of old CDs and tapes!

Tried to run this through Alexa. Big mistake. The Ifi console only thereby shows a blue dot and not the Ifi symbol (it knew). The rendering of the Bluetooth transfer through a great amp and really great big vintage Bose speakers sounds reasonable via simple Bluetooth link (which this unit gives linking via a third party), but without depth, clarity and is actually jarring... This cannot be right , I thought..Disconnected Alexa and played Spotify directly through my phone and the console suddenly lit with a white dot and the blue Ifi air symbol and the same tracks sounded heaven sent.Audiophilia isnt my bent (it really isn't), but the difference is chalk and cheese.This piece of kit seems to work best played directly from phone Bluetooth (Spotify, Amazon Music whatever...Forget Alexa, play direct between your phone via Bluetooth.It's a seriously decent bit of kit for purifying sound between your phone and a decent hifi.It's great with music apps. It really is.

easy to set up and the sound is exceptional for a Bluetooth streamer at this price point. Easy set up and strong, reliable connection. No issues.

Modern tvs have terrible sound, they’re so thin. I didn’t want a sound bar as I have quite a nice hi fi and I was happy running a 3.5mm to RCA cable from my old tv. But my lovely new Samsung doesn’t have a 3.5mm output so I tried a headphone DAC I happened to have. It was ok, but playing music through Spotify on the tv was flat and lifeless. Enter the iFi Zen Air Blue. What a transformation. The unit feels like a quality item, its design is nice and it’s pretty compact. Setup took moments and I’m enjoying a much better sonic experience. Music through the tv is bold, lively and involving again. I’m really happy with this, the only thing I don’t like are the red and blue flashing lights when I power down the connected device, it’s like the LAPD have arrived.

Exactly as described and great quality sound.

I have a vintage NAD amplifier and needed to add a Bluetooth receiver so I could stream Spotify through my HiFi. This product allowed me to do that quickly, easily and with a quality of reproduction that exceeded my expectations by far. Possibly the best £99 I have ever spent.

It's expensive but I have a high end audio system and sounds perfect with it.

Connected easy and sounds good, but Bluetooth is problematic. If controlling via phone it intercepts calls and plays them and any system sounds (alarms, notifications etc) really loud - first time this happened i nearly soiled my pants. No way to turn it off - confirmed by support, just have to turn off sounds and lower call ring volume, but I was quite happy with the settings the way they were. Returned, replaced with WiFi dac.

Realmente exelente, la configuración es muy rápida e intuitiva, calidad de sonido ,sin ruidos 100% hi fi

Meine Absicht war, meine alte Zweitanlage aufzurüsten. (Braun Atelier Receiver mit Ecouton Lautsprechern aus den späten 80ern)Der Raum hat keinen Anschluss an das Heimnetzwerk. Daher habe ich mir den ifi Zen Air DAC angeschafft, um die Musik von meinen Mobilgeräten, auf denen die Musik der Streaming-Dienste abgespeichert ist, via Bluetooth auf die Anlage zu übertragen.Das beigepackte Netzkabel ist allerdings extrem kurz und hat nur einen USB Anschluss.In meiner Kabelkiste habe ich zum Glück noch ein passendes 5V Netzteil mit einem ausreichend langen Kabel gefunden.Außerdem braucht man noch ein ordentliches Cinchkabel, welches ebenfalls nicht im Lieferumfang enthalten ist.Sobald alles angeschlossen ist, steht einer schnellen Kopplung zwischen DAC und Mobilgerät nichts mehr im Weg.Die Lautstärke am Receiver habe ich zunächst auf Minimum, die Lautstärke am Mobilteil auf Maximum gestellt und anschließend die Lautstärke am Receiver geregelt.Jetzt zum Wichtigsten:Bisher war ich immer skeptisch bezüglich Bluetooth im Hi-Fi Bereich.Diese Maßnahme kann ich jedoch als erfolgreich bezeichnen:Der Klang ist einwandfrei und überzeugend.Lediglich die Optik des Gerätes mit dem weißen Plastikgehäuse hat mich nicht überzeugt. Man kann das kleine Gerät bei Bedarf ja in einen weniger sichtbaren Bereich aufstellen.Der ifi Zen Air ist halt die abgespeckte Sparversion im Vergleich zum ifi Zen Blue. Technisch sind die beiden Varianten nahezu gleich. Der Zen Blue hat noch 2 Digitalausgänge (die ich nicht benötige), eine Stabantenne für größere Reichweiten und die oben erwähnten Cinchkabel und das Netzteil im Lieferumfang. Darüber hinaus hat der ifi Zen Blue das ansprechendere Alugehäuse in schwarz mit silberner Front.Der Preis liegt dann allerdings beim Doppelten.Ich bleibe bei der technisch überzeugenden Sparvariante.

Works perfect, good sound

Perfect

De la vieille école des "idiophiles" 😂 je me suis tout de même mis, comme tout le monde à utiliser le Web pour passer de la musique.... Pouvoir enfin cumuler la praticité des tablettes et autres smartphones avec le son d'une bonne chaîne hifi est une révélation ! Car au niveau son, rien à voir avec un simple branchement sur la chaîne (avec le son compressé des fichiers audio informatiques). Il y a un réel "+" dans cette petite interface, les circuits et puces spécifiques ne sont pas un gadget. Je conseille à 150 %.