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Enhanced, Upgraded, Balanced MM/MC Phono Preamp with Intelligent Rumble Filter
In a world where modern technology moves like lightning and is constantly evolving, simplicity and connections are what we crave most.
There's comfort and excitement in the familiar act of selecting your favorite LP and sharing a story or two with friends as you listen together. It's a seemingly timeless experience that has just gotten better.
The iFi ZEN Phono 3 phono preamp allows you to slip seamlessly back into the blissful world of vinyl that you cherish. With its enhanced features and intelligent warp filter, you can break out your best-loved LPs and hear them 'new' all over again.
Extremely Quiet Noise Floor
First and foremost, the noise floor is whisper quiet. With an EIN (Equivalent Input Noise) of -151dBV, this phono stage surpasses some Class A+ models by 20dBV, ensuring a super-silent noise floor that lets you hear the music in the grooves, minimizing forms of background noise that plague lesser designs.
Works with Any Cartridge
ZEN Phono 3 can handle MM moving magnet and MC moving coil cartridges with output voltages ranging <0.25mV to >2mV, bringing true high-end performance and flexibility to the entry level sector. It boasts four MC/MM gain selections from 36dB to 72dB and four input impedance settings, ensuring a huge range of compatibility. So, as your vinyl playback system changes over time, including your phono cartridge of choice, the ZEN Phono will keep easily keep up.
The all-new front button allows easy adjusting input capacitance and load impedance settings, independently of gain settings.
Regenerated Power Supply
Top-of-the-line audiophile phono amplifiers create their own power supplies off the mains, like a mains regenerator. This is the starting point for any good phono stage, because without this it will struggle to amplify the signal and not add noise.
The super quiet ZEN Phono 3 creates a 1.2MHz power supply (20,000x mains frequency of 60Hz). Here, a 10uF filtering capacitor equals 200,000uF at lower frequency. The result? Very large filtering, as per classic LC filtering in tube amplifiers and located on its own 'island' without surrounding noise pollution. It outputs a super clean +/- 12V DC.
Intelligent Subsonic Filter
The ZEN Phono 3 features an intelligent subsonic filter to effectively remove only the ultra-low frequencies caused by warps. But it doesn't touch the low frequency parts of your music.
A subsonic filter removes extreme low frequencies resulting from warped records (records that are not perfectly flat). Such signals can cause the so-called "woofer pumping" effect, resulting in excessive distortion and possible damage to your speakers if the volume is set too high.
This is no ordinary subsonic filter in the ZEN Phono 3. Normal subsonic filters don't just remove the ultra-low frequencies caused by warps., they also remove bass and create phase issues. The ZEN Phono 3's Intelligent Subsonic Filter removes rumble only and has only a positive impact on sound. There is no other phono stage in the Phono 3's price range that has this valuable feature.
As there is only minimal vertical modulation remaining at very low frequencies with an a LP that is playable, "vertical modulation" at low frequencies must be due to warp. By understanding fully how LPs are cut and played, iFi knows how to filter record warp strongly without at the same time attenuating low bass or adding group delay.
Balanced Circuit Design
Balanced circuits are just not seen at this price point. It is a superior method to the traditional single-ended circuit approach. Balanced circuits reduce noise and crosstalk, and less interference equals clearer sound.
Using its 4.4mm balanced output, connect ZEN Phono 3 to active speakers, amplifiers, or receivers with balanced inputs, and experience an elevated listening experience.
RIAA EQ at Military Specification Level
The ZEN Phono 3 uses iFi's famous two-stage circuitry with the latest op-amps. Equalization uses multiple parallel TDK C0G capacitors for the best stability and least distortion possible, even when compared to polystyrene capacitors. They are nearly as good as Teflon. Despite already using the lowest tolerance capacitors and multiples in parallel, tolerance is exponentially improved by the square root of the number of capacitors. The ZEN Phono achieves RIAA EQ tolerance level (+/- 0.15dB) which is equal to hand-selected capacitors!
Top-Notch Internal Components
For top-notch performance, the ZEN Phono 3 relies on top-notch internal components rather than cheap parts that may not sound as good and can be less reliable.
As with many other iFi audio products, ZEN Phono 3 incorporates a custom OV Series operational-amplifier. This premium component contributes to the extremely low noise, low distortion, (0.0001%) and wide bandwidth.
TDK C0G (Class 1 ceramic) capacitors offer high stability and low losses for resonant circuit applications. Getting ever closer to the theoretical ideal of pure, frequency-constant capacitance, these capacitors reduce capacitor-induced distortion to vanishingly low levels. They are pricey but are a perfect addition to iFi products.
In critical locations, you will also find muRata control-type, low-ESR high-Q multi-layer capacitors. The 'ESR control' aspect of the Murata is something special. Their noise suppression abilities are impressive.
