iFiZEN Air Blue - High Resolution Bluetooth Audio Streamer - Stream Hi-Res Audio from Spotify, Apple Music and More (RCA Output)

I have a hifi system I bought nearly 30 years ago. At the time I treated myself to the individual pieces as I could afford them and have swapped a couple of the units over time. For the last 20 years or so it has consisted of an amp, a cassette tape player, a 5 CD disc changer and some awesome speakers. But for at least the last 5 or 10 years, I really only listen to music on streaming services, in the car or though headphones/earbuds. I decided to look for a unit to add to my hifi that can stream music and play it through my amp and speakers.And this ifi unit does the job perfectly, and for a pretty reasonable price. Looking around, many of the items offered cost hundreds of pounds but at just £99, this seemed very affordable.The unit itself is pretty compact and looks sleek and attractive in the white finish with black panel. It isn’t the size of a standard hifi unit, so I don’t have to remove one of my existing units to fit it into the cabinet I have; it just sits on top of one of the other pieces. Okay, it doesn’t have the symmetry of being big and rectangular and black, like all the other units, but that doesn’t really bother me and I think it looks fine there.Set up was really quick, simple and straightforward. Take it out the box, plug the power cable into the unit, then into a mains adapter. The power cable ends in a USB plug so you’ll need to have a spare USB adapter plug to hand. It doesn’t come with its own RCA cables so you’ll have to have some of those spare too. But you just put the R and L cables into the sockets in the back of the unit and then connect to your amp.Bluetooth connection to your phone takes seconds; turn the unit on and off begins searching. Go to Bluetooth settings in your phone and tap the new device there called ‘ifi Hi-Res Audio’ and it instantly connects and you are good to go.The sound is clean and clear and just great!I’m really happy with this purchase. It does exactly what I want and brings my hifi up to date. Which is nice for me but I’m also considering my son. He’s at university now but in a few years, when first gets his own place, I’m thinking of passing on the hifi for him to use there - a sort of heirloom, I guess. But now it is something he’ll be able to use everyday, rather than a dinosaur that requires a room full of old CDs and tapes!

Modern tvs have terrible sound, they’re so thin. I didn’t want a sound bar as I have quite a nice hi fi and I was happy running a 3.5mm to RCA cable from my old tv. But my lovely new Samsung doesn’t have a 3.5mm output so I tried a headphone DAC I happened to have. It was ok, but playing music through Spotify on the tv was flat and lifeless. Enter the iFi Zen Air Blue. What a transformation. The unit feels like a quality item, its design is nice and it’s pretty compact. Setup took moments and I’m enjoying a much better sonic experience. Music through the tv is bold, lively and involving again. I’m really happy with this, the only thing I don’t like are the red and blue flashing lights when I power down the connected device, it’s like the LAPD have arrived.

Tried to run this through Alexa. Big mistake. The Ifi console only thereby shows a blue dot and not the Ifi symbol (it knew). The rendering of the Bluetooth transfer through a great amp and really great big vintage Bose speakers sounds reasonable via simple Bluetooth link (which this unit gives linking via a third party), but without depth, clarity and is actually jarring... This cannot be right , I thought..Disconnected Alexa and played Spotify directly through my phone and the console suddenly lit with a white dot and the blue Ifi air symbol and the same tracks sounded heaven sent.Audiophilia isnt my bent (it really isn't), but the difference is chalk and cheese.This piece of kit seems to work best played directly from phone Bluetooth (Spotify, Amazon Music whatever...Forget Alexa, play direct between your phone via Bluetooth.It's a seriously decent bit of kit for purifying sound between your phone and a decent hifi.It's great with music apps. It really is.

I bought the Zen Air as a Bluetooth receiver to bring Spotify into my existing HiFi system, Cyrus amp & Mission loudspeakers, and am delighted with the result. It's not CD quality for sure, but then CD is in some ways inferior to the best vinyl. It is however appreciably better than a minijack out of an ipad. The high end is very bright & open, mid range very detailed. The low end however is lacking. My guess is 3dB down. My amplifier has no tone controls to easily compensate, so I shall need to make a choice soon.Installation & setup are extremely easy, turn it on & connect. Power is from USB. No adapter is supplied but as most people have plenty spare I think this is a good thing, saves unnecessary production.This is almost a superb solution to listening to Spotify on HiFi.

I have a vintage NAD amplifier and needed to add a Bluetooth receiver so I could stream Spotify through my HiFi. This product allowed me to do that quickly, easily and with a quality of reproduction that exceeded my expectations by far. Possibly the best £99 I have ever spent.

It's expensive but I have a high end audio system and sounds perfect with it.

Brilliant piece of equipment couldn't be without mine .100,%recomended for music 🎵 lovers .

Very excited to receive this to replace my trusty TP-Link: nice box, absurdly short cable, no plug, fires up easily but then the fun starts.1-A very crackly sound that distorts, despite trying different wiring.2-Firmware update instructions are challenging and the link to YouTube fails to work.3-Contacted customer services explain carefully my problem and that I have an iPhone 12, they reply telling me to put their App on my Android phone and to get back to them, I gave up trying to register the email I used as it said it was already used (yep, by me).4-Notifications to my phone ping on the speakers, not on the TP-Link, their solution is to turn off notifications, really?Anyway, frustrated, disappointed it’s back to my marvellous fifteen pound TP-Link and off to drop off the instant Amazon return in the morning.