Streaming Unleashed

Beneath its classy exterior, the ZEN Stream from iFi, is a technological streamer-de-force. It has one purpose – to send music simply from the Internet to your DAC with no loss of quality. Just add your smart device as a remote and away you go. Optimised open-source architecture works with multiple dedicated platforms, completely and perfectly future-proofed as it is constantly updated.

ZEN Stream is a true ground-up design by iFi, the hardware and software implementation is quite exceptional: Two SuperSpeed USB3.0 ports with Active Noise Cancellation II, S/PDIF out with the iPurifier built-in and iFi software developed with Volumio open-source as the starting point, then coded and optimised by them to achieve the purest streaming software bar none.

The ZEN Stream has one of the most fully-optimised software platforms in the world. From the device’s drivers, to the kernel (the heart of the operating system), to the shell (which interfaces with the kernel), to the applications and the user interface - everything is fully optimised for seamless operation and excellent sonic performance. An ingenious part of the ZEN Stream’s design is the ability to select between ‘Exclusive’ modes – individual settings dedicated to specific modes of operation to deliver the purest possible performance. All other programs are shut down – to minimise ‘software jitter’ , an often overlooked aspect that negatively impacts the quality of computer audio playback.

Technical Details