The IEMĀ“s cable ends in a 2.5 BAL and I am using the 2.5 to 4.4 adapter that came with the IEM.
And yes at first that was my suspicion as well but all the connectors were sitting flush to one another.
And no, I sadly do not have another way of testing a balanced connection, since these are my only balanced components.
But thanks for the quick reply
did you change the gain settings? for IEMās you usually want it on the lowest.
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Hi, I have a balanced amp with xlr in can I use ifi zen dac v2 4.4mm with 4.4mm to two xlr adapter to feed my amp.
you definitely can use an interconnect cable to switched the from the 4.4mm pentacon to XLR. take a look at Hart Cables. they make custom cables and the owner / operator @brux is a member on here and if you mention youāre on HFG, you can get a 10% discount. 
did you try setting pc audio to 90%? whats the sensitivity rating of those iem? really sensitive iemās will hear the noise floor on the amp in this amp/dac. its not really geared for sensitive iem.
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we need a pinned announcement page or something for stuff like this
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Update
and Indeed it was. The adapterās metal housing shorted the 4th pin from the 2.5mm (L-) to ground on the 4.4 pentaconn.
Luckily itās fixable by unscrewing the housing of the adapter and putting an insulator in between the parts so they donāt touch.
So luckily my ifi zen dac v2 is completely fine.
But itās rather strange, that in manufacturing the problem in with the adapter was apparently overlooked?
Anyway, thanks to all that tried to help me!
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glad to hear you figured it out!
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Glad that it was a simple fixā¦now, enjoy the music. 
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Part of me really want to try this one out. Mostly because i like the design, and i would love less clutter on my desk (currently running a schiit modi3 and a schiit magni3, and have to split the modi3 output with a Y cable so i can get signal to both my speaker amp and the magni3).
Not sure it its really worth the money as long as i have the schiit stack, but i still has this urge to try it outā¦ guess it will have less power on the amp side but hopefully it would be able to drive my 58x jubilee and hifiman he4xx properly. Regarding the DAC i think the Zen would be better, but probably not enough to justify the cost. Also, i should probably try to get hold of balanced cables for my headsets, to get more power out of the Zen if i buy it, and those are not cheap eitherā¦
Will probably sit on the fence a while and hope the urge to buy withdraws 
Only reason for you to get one should be that sweet sweet bass boost switch 
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Iām running the Zen stack and I have the 58X and Ananda as my primary headphones. Power wise be it SE or balanced, I would say you are more than covered, really. Also, especially with the 58X, the Xbass function adds just enough bass to make them fun to listen to. Yeah balanced cables can cost quite a bit if you go custom, check out AliExpress, you might find some options that are easier on the wallet there. I got my balanced cable for the 58X there for less than USD30 I think.
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X2ā¦ 
Totally with you on that!
Ha! We do like our bass.
I checked and did not see an answer, but what is the difference between the two firmware variations on this DAC? I know one is for the IFI GTO filter and one is for MQA. I know the MQA stuff is garbage, but what about the GTO filter?
I have yet to use either GTO filter option yetā¦but they are supposed to affect the sound profile of the amp. itās kinda like swapping tubes or opamps.
We generally have .2 and .3 firmware available for all devices. Different firmware bring different sound profiles!
Also, I would not treat 5.2 as an āMQA filterā. MQA is turned off unless you are using MQA, and it not affect the sound otherwise.
Iām a bit late on this one but the GTO filters changed the sound on my V1 DAC section too. I had them plugged to (crappy) active speakers and it was quite the change. On the V2 itās firmare 7.something C, same thing as the 5. something C on the V1.
This is also what I came here to askā¦ how do you guys usually run the Zen? Iām guessing Zeos uses the stock firmware as I never heard him mention anything about this?