Fiio portable headphones amps

[naughty]

anyone used these - take 2 can get the E5 for R300 and the E7 for R1400 - the E7 is a USB Dac/amp also portable with around 80 hours life between recharges while the E5 lasts around 20 hours between recharges

the actual DAC design components between the two have similar values but apparently the E7 uses higher quality parts - so at R300 im willing to give it a bash to see if these things are worth it but at R1400 im not convinced yet that i wont be able to find better in and around that price for a portable unit

or does anyone think that they are just basically garbage and i should save the cash rather toward a "real" headphones amp

[BigWoodenSpoon]

or does anyone think that they are just basically garbage and i should save the cash rather toward a "real" headphones amp

depending on your need for portability, I would look at the Forum DIY HP amp currently in developement

[dotVIBE]

I have a E5, it's not bad if you want a little more volume on headphones, and very portable so easy to keep in your pocket or clip to your belt. hardly a proper amplifier though.

[naughty]

I have a E5, it's not bad if you want a little more volume on headphones, and very portable so easy to keep in your pocket or clip to your belt. hardly a proper amplifier though.

guys thanks for the replies and advice - its much appreciated

well considering that its only R300 i think im going to get an E5 so that i can get a bit more volume out of my cellphone for portable music through the headphones - the thing is the cellphone doesnt give a lot of volume level and my headphones have a lowish sensitivity and also a highish impedance so i think this will gain(pun intended) those a bit of benefit for while on the move

i will obviously still look at getting a proper headphones amp for home usage - so i dont want to spend too much on the portable jobbie so i think that the E5 will do instead of the E7

[GradoMan]

I've got the FiiO E7.

You really can't compare the E5 to E7, but for your purpose I think the E5 would do you just fine.  

[koogs]

guys thanks for the replies and advice - its much appreciated

well considering that its only R300 i think im going to get an E5 so that i can get a bit more volume out of my cellphone for portable music through the headphones - the thing is the cellphone doesnt give a lot of volume level and my headphones have a lowish sensitivity and also a highish impedance so i think this will gain(pun intended) those a bit of benefit for while on the move

i will obviously still look at getting a proper headphones amp for home usage - so i dont want to spend too much on the portable jobbie so i think that the E5 will do instead of the E7

naughty, I have the E5 as well that I use with my HD202s and iPod. I can let you try it out if you want. Also its much cheaper from DealExtreme

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.18350

and free shipping.

[naughty]

okay - i have Koogs E5 with me at the moment and it works as advertised - i listened to my headphones on my HT amp and the headphones definitely sound very acceptable to me even though it isnt pure hi-fidelity - but on my cellphone being used as an mp3 player the cellphone has very  limited volume levels even though the sound is pretty decentish

adding the Fiio E5 in the loop pretty much gets the volume levels up and that on its own improves the sound no end - it sounds louder and more powerful and even though it doesnt do a whole lot for the soundstage it does make an improvement in that regard ie on certain tracks i hear the soundstage expanding a bit and instruments seem airier and larger but as usual for me with headphones im not the greatest fan but adding the portable amp makes the sound acceptable mainly because with headphones im not as fussy as others may be

the unit is way smaller than what i was expecting - its actually tiny and i was very surprised - also im busy charging it till the battery is full - this may make a bit of difference as well cos the battery was completely discharged within 15 minutes after i picked it up from koogs

in terms of the functionality of the unit it just has a volume level control and a bass boost - using the bass boost actually added a bit of warmth to the sound at lower volume levels and it tended to sound a bit better than the headphones out on the HT receiver headphones socket - switching the bass boost off it sounds almost identical to the HT receiver with my headphones with the HT receiver getting signal from my computer playing mp3's from itunes - i then transferred the same mp3 to my cellphone and played it back with the E5 connected and as ive said it sounds pretty close to identical so for the prices from dealextreme im pretty happy to order the E5 and just use that till i decide what headphones amp im really after

so since i dont really have a high end set of headphones and since mine are of the closed back variety more geared toward studio work and portable usage than being an audiophile set ie i have the sennheisser HD380 pro's - why i say that its geared toward portable is that it comes with a nifty carry case which makes it easy to carry about whenever you are travelling - and i can actually just slip in the E5 into that carry case with all of its associated accessories pretty easily - so for laptop and cellphone/ipod usage this is definitely a win/win situation

some pics of the E5 - notice how small it is compared to my cellphone



pictured with the headphones



the carry case of the headphones





the headphones itself - as ive said not really an audiophile unit but as im not really the greatest fan of headphones - this is as good as im gonna go with headphones - maybe i might invest in a good headphones amplifier later but its not really needed so for now im diverting my cash to other avenues

[Viagara]

The Senn 380's are nothing to sneeze at I have heard a set before and felt that they were pretty good.

[BigWoodenSpoon]

The Senn 380's are nothing to sneeze at I have heard a set before and felt that they were pretty good.

Indeed

[kamikazi]

I also have a Fiio E5, but mostly use it at work as a volume control when listening music through my PC. Don't know if you guys have tried out the "secret" middle setting on the E5, but that opens up the midrange quite nicely and even adds a bit of sound stage. I mostly use that setting for listening through my headphones.

Personally I've found that the Fiio complements IEMs (in ears) more than they do with headphones as headphones have better spatial and sound stage capabilities than most IEMs. They boost the volume that you would normally get out of music phones quite nicely. One of my colleagues has a set of Superfi Pro 3's and he swears by the E5!