Product Description
Give your wired devices the ability to receive streaming music while preserving maximum quality with the ZEN Air Blue Bluetooth Audio Receiver from iFi audio. Essentially, the ZEN Air Blue is a DAC, receiving your digital Bluetooth stream from a smartphone or tablet, converting and improving the signal, and outputting the resulting analog signal. The signal is output via a stereo RCA connection to a component, such as an amplifier or active speaker. The ZEN Air Blue supports a wide range of Bluetooth codecs and uses a variety of separate elements, rather than an integrated system-on-a-chip, to optimize your audio's quality.
Bluetooth 5.1 Support
A wide variety of standard to hi-res codecs are supported for incoming Bluetooth signals, such as SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX LL, aptX Adaptive, LDAC, and LHDC.
Separate Internal Elements
The ZEN Air Blue uses a selection of independent elements to convert and clean up Bluetooth signals, such as a Qualcomm chip, SABRE discrete DAC, and more.
- ESS SABRE HyperStream DAC: A Qualcomm chip routes raw digital Bluetooth audio to the discrete ESS SABRE HyperStream DAC, where jitter is eliminated as it's converted to an analog signal by a GMT femto-precise clock system, discrete oscillator, and 112 dB dynamic range. The integrated Time Domain Jitter Eliminator within the DAC helps to deliver exceedingly low distortion together with a high dynamic range.
- Texas Instruments Low-Noise ICs: These ICs offer great unity-gain bandwidth, very low noise and distortion, and high output drive capability. They also produce common-mode and power supply rejection ratios of over 100 dB, with wide maximum-output-swing bandwidths and high slew rates.
- TDK C0G (Class 1 Ceramic) Capacitors: These capacitors offer high stability and low losses for resonant circuit applications. They work to get closer to a pure, frequency-constant capacitance by reducing capacitor-induced distortion to low levels.
Key Features
- Receives Digital Audio via Bluetooth 5.1
- Outputs Analog Audio via Stereo RCA
- ESS SABRE HyperStream DAC
- Separate Elements for Optimal Quality
- Supports AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC & More
Technical Specifications
- Power Supply Requirement: 5 VDC, 0.5 A (Center Positive)
- Chipset: Qualcomm QCC 5100 Series
- Input: Bluetooth 5.0 with SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX LL, LDAC, and LHDC/HWA Codec
- Output: 1 x Stereo RCA
- Frequency Response:
- 20 Hz to 20 kHz +0/-0.5 dB (44.1 kHz)
- 1 Hz to 44 kHz +0/-3.0 dB (≥88.2 kHz)
- Output Voltage: @ 0 dBFS: 2.05 V (±0.05 V)
- Dynamic Range: 109 dB (A)
- Signal to Noise Ratio: 109 dB (A) @ 0 dBFS
- THD + N: <0.0015% 10k Load @ 0 dBFS
- Output Impedance: <50 Ohms
- Power Consumption: <2.5 W
