You may even notice more detail in pieces played through the Ztella, and be moved by its rapid and definite footwork, meaning you end up using it as your main DAC for your computer as well as your smartphone. We have tested lots of its USB stick-like equivalents, and while they are different prospects in many ways, the good news for Zorloo is that the sound is broadly comparable.Ĭlass-leading DACs that currently retail around the price of the Zorloo Ztella, such as the Cyrus soundKey or Audioquest DragonFly Red, will give a more fluid sense of dynamics, with more accented playing of small-scale shifts, and perhaps also offer more body, but they by no means leave this talented DAC for dust. Of course, this being the first DAC of its type we’ve reviewed, there is no real frame of reference, apart from maybe those ones bundled in with smartphones. It does quiet and sombre reflection without sounding like it wants to go faster, but the Zorloo certainly feels most at home with upbeat tracks. It appears to use the space in each mix to take great swings at each note as they’re hammered. There is still plenty of bass weight anchoring the sound, and a solid, friendly midrange despite all the sonic cleaning, but this isn’t a DAC that dials back on those high frequencies if they’re there.Ĭleanliness is one of the Ztella’s most abundant virtues, but it’s immediately noticeable how confident and playful it sounds. It’s not that Zorloo has got the balance wrong, just that you need to pair the Ztella with something neutral sounding or mellow. The Ztella is a wonderfully clean-sounding DAC for the money, but it will emphasise any brightness or top-heavy presentation in your headphones, which can be quite wearing during lengthy listening sessions. You should also take care with headphone pairing. A USB Type-A adapter is included for use with older hardware, and a version with a lightning adapter is also available for those using an iPhone. ![]() If you want to pause the music and make a call, Zorloo has made sure your in-line controls and mic are still active when plugged into the DAC.Īs for the other end of the Ztella, the standard connection is USB Type-C, which covers most modern smartphone, tablet and laptop manufacturers. The Ztella also incorporates a headphone amp that analyses whatever you plug into it and optimises its output to match – it can deliver more than twice the power of a standard smartphone. That’s more faff than something labelled plug-and-play should ideally involve, but it still performs somewhere near its best without the additional legwork. The workaround is downloading the USB Audio Player Pro app, which allows the Ztella to properly recognise and render an MQA signal at its finest. It's worth pointing out that this issue isn't exclusive to MQA - it is the same scenario when looking to maximise performance of any and all hi-res audio formats played via the Android operating system. Whereas the iPhone has a bit-perfect USB output, which allows the MQA Core signal to be passed correctly and recognised by the Ztella, an Android device’s USB output is limited by the capabilities of the Android system and so the signal is not bit-perfect. ![]() ![]() Inputs USB Type-C, 3.5mm audio, USB 2.0, USBĪudio formats PCM (up to 384kHz), DSD (up to 5.6MHz), MQA
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