Does your IFi Zen Steam have Low Gain?


Any IFI Zen Stream owners notice a very low gain on this streamer? Mine has approximately 30db+ lower gain than other input devices. Not sure if mine has an issue or this is its normal performance. I tried reaching out to iFi on line support and their response was “thank you for notifying us we will pass it on to our development team for future enhancement consideration”.

128x128tksteingraber

@tksteingraber 

After getting the factory reset to work and fix your original issue have you tried doing a complete reset of the entire chain to see if Roon will see the Zen Stream.  Shut everything down all the way to the router and then bring everything back up one at a time starting with the router and this includes the control point. I'm pretty sure it's something as simple as Roon losing sight of the Zen during the factory reset process and now needs to start over to find it.  Not all that unusual in a digital chain when you "change" a component which doing a factory reset qualifies as. There are are "power users" on the Zen Stream thread at Head-Fi using Roon that may be able to help you too.  

Well I opened a ticket with iFi and they continue to demonstrate they have no tech support. They only reply with a referral to their set up instructions which are no help.  I have opened 2 separate tickets since i purchased the stream and this is their pat response to tickets.

”Thank you for reaching out to us about the ZEN Stream. We appreciate your feedback and will pass it along to our development team for consideration in a future software/firmware update. While we cannot provide an estimated time of arrival for such an update at this time, please know that we take customer suggestions seriously and will do our best to incorporate them in future updates. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

They should just admit it and say “Sorry we are unable to help in any way”

@jackd Thanks for your input.  Yes I did complete a full reset each time.  I somehow was able to reinstall, for a third time, the most current software and my Zen is again seen by roon and I am able to stream.  Back to my DAC and volume having to be reset each time either one is turned off.  Full circle! The reason I turn them off is that I don’t use this system every day, my DAC uses tubes and my LPS powers my Stream and 2 optical FMC’s and gets warm. Just gonna live with it as is.

@tksteingraber 

If you haven't yet reach out on the two Zen Stream threads on Head-Fi.  In addition to the power users there using Roon an iFi employee participates there. Maybe someone there can help you.  I have no knowledge of Roon and never heard of anyone with the volume control issue. 

Thanks but I am done with it all  and will set the volume and Dac during each use.  Not worth the time and frustration for the end benefit.