Power-wise you can drive almost every headphone with the ZEN CAN as I shared the figures on the first page already. Because you can add the character of your headphones on top of that flat and neutral signature. Overall the ZEN CAN presents a detail-oriented and flat sound and this is the good thing about it for me. The timbre with the ZEN CAN is a bit cold but other than that it’s mostly on point, especially with instruments. The HD800S creates a reasonably wide sound stage with the ZEN CAN for instance. If you’re asking how is it for the price, I would say it’s very good for both width and depth. This of course would change with the headphones you pair it up with. The overall sound-stage is fairly good but it’s a bit boxy with a studio type of approach. You need to go way up the stairs and pay much more for that. It’s not possible to find that kind of performance with this amplifier though. I would’ve liked a more organic and life-like approach in the treble, yet it’s a bit sterile in that regard. There’s nothing added or nothing taken away, it gives what your headphone gives you without coloration or alteration. Treble is not very special or extraordinary, but it’s very well under control and articulated. Yet, you won’t get that warmth and mid-range body just from the amp alone. However, you can change that and create a nice setup with a warm sounding and mid-forward headphone like the Thieaudio Phantom. This is not a tube amp of course, but the presentation here is a bit sharp and colorless. Overall I couldn’t find a weakness here except that certain amount of warmth that some of us seek. Particularly the stereo imaging is awesome. Although it is a neutral kind of sound, you still feel the emotion and the energy in mids, thanks to the amplifier’s noise-free background. With the HD800S, you get excellent mid-range performance from the ZEN CAN. The sound here is very engaging, lively, and organic.
The mids are lively and breathy with good definition, clarity, and transparency. I usually don’t prefer any effects so I left it closed. However, when you do that, the bass becomes loose a bit, and you give away that great control and tightness. This adds a bit more warmth and quantity to both sub-bass and mid-bass regions. The ZEN CAN does not give a huge bass but if you need some more juice, you can open the xBass feature. There’s no distortion, no excessive boom or anything in that nature. I think it presents a wonderful and truthful bass response, especially for its price. The texture is missing in some parts but it wouldn’t be fair to judge the ZEN CAN just for this alone. The PraT is really nice and the bass has good kick without sounding boomy so I can smoothly say that you would have a very tight bass out of this one with your headphones. It overall doesn’t have the best texture, but it has a good resolution and impact. Bassīass is not big, but it’s easily trackable and very much under control. So we have a very versatile and all-around budget amplifier here. It also has a great amount of power for almost every headphone out there. iFi usually nails these two areas in every product I’ve tried or tested from them. The sound has a linear response in general and the impressive parts here are the resolution and transparency. The amp overall sounds very clean and crisp with good bass quality. These impressions are from the 4.4mm BAL output directly. To me, it has a very neutral and linear response, good bass quality, and good transparency in mids & treble.
Sound-wise, the ZEN CAN reflects iFi Audio’s house sound unsurprisingly, with a very clean presentation, a nice background, good resolution, and clarity.
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