nothingman
Senior Member
now we need the brand new V3 measurements
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Oh wow. Interesting choices here. Independent impedance and loading is great, but as an AT MM user, the 47k ohm and 110pf of the Zen is where I want it anyway. For MC users being able to fix the somewhat odd default loading values would be nice.
Spec sheet is showing the older Zen (hereby named v2 I guess?) to be better across the board, no? I know to take these numbers with a grain of salt, and they don’t tell the whole story, but it’s interesting from a comparison perspective.

ZEN Phono 3
The ZEN Phono 3 redefines what your turntable can do. Its intelligent subsonic filter corrects warped LPs, while an ultra-quiet noise floor and adaptable loading options unlock a new level of clarity from your cartridge.


ZEN Phono 3
The ZEN Phono 3 redefines what your turntable can do. Its intelligent subsonic filter corrects warped LPs, while an ultra-quiet noise floor and adaptable loading options unlock a new level of clarity from your cartridge.

Zen v2
MM SNR — 94dB(A)
MM Distortion — -110dB
Zen v3
MM SNR — 91dB(A)
MM Distortion — -91dB
(Edit! — those two distortion spec are given at different distortion levels. The v2 at .0003 and the v3 at .0027 – I didn’t catch that when I equated them).
Max output voltages are basically the same, with slightest advantage to Zen v2. Same -151dBV noise spec marketing in both.
Really just seems like they’re making it more flexible for MC users and calling it a day.
I will give them credit — they’ve stopped calling their subsonic filter Artificial Intelligence! We’ve all been educated by the designer @Thorsten Loesch in this thread about how he created an AI circuit to automatically detect optimal gain and loading for a given cartridge, but then iFi killed that part of the design and used the AI moniker for the innovative subsonic filter which doesn’t have a speck of AI to it. That always drove me crazy, knowing iFi had just gone and made up something obviously inaccurate for the sake of marketing. Thor’s backstory on this really illuminates what might be happening across companies and their products without us ever knowing.
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