Does your IFi Zen Steam have Low Gain?

@jackd thanks for the interesting input.  When I turn my Stream off it reverts back to the output  volume setting of “none” which lowers the fixed volume by about 50%.  It also reverts the output device to spdif which I don’t use, I use USB with my Dac.  So each time I use the stream I have to go in and change those two settings to my Dac and the volume to hardware so I can set volume to 100.  I do save each one after setting them. The only other volume control is my Integrated Amp. I use a sonic transporter as my roon core network player.

@tksteingraber 

Try going to this thread on Head Fi and following the factory re-set procedure and see if that clears your unusual problem off.  Also not sure why you turn the Zen Stream off everytime you stop playing it. 

@jackd  Ok well I did a reset to factory settings (actually multiple times) and it now saves the DAC setting and the volume setting but it will not show up in roon as an output device no matter what is done.  It’s a nice paperweight now about to become a hockey puck.  This streamer is so glitchy, not intuitive with horrible instructions.  It does sound good when you can get it set up.  My Bricasti M5 set up on my main system is the complete opposite. Time to go back to my Macbook Pro and start shopping for another streamer.

@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.