[REVIEW] FiiO E7 USB DAC Headphone Amp  

The E7 is FiiO's latest addition to their line of portable amps. The E7 also serves as a DAC, not to mention that it is the first amp ever to have a dual color OLED screen.

Build
The E7 is quite the solid amp, and the casing is sturdy and metallic. It's case actually feels hard and uncrushable. The volume controls are firmly installed and not much of a wobble exists.

Design
It was a little thicker than I expected it to be, though its light weight makes up for that. The source line in and USB input are on the bottom, headphone outs (x2) are on the top. The OLED screen is decent and glossy looking. The E7's GUI is good enough to serve it's amplifier purposes -- with keylocking, sleep timer, and other settings.

Sound Quality
The gear I used consisted mainly of my Sony Walkman DAP, the E7, and Sennheiser HD 580 300 ohm headphones. The HD 580s after being amped immediately had more "presence" to it. The bass became more controlled and tighter. Soundstage seemed to have widened. A special note I have to say about the E7s is that they do not hiss. My Sony's produce hiss between songs, but the E7 neutralizes them. E7 is generally on the analytical side; without its bass boost*, the sound is natural and flat with emphasis on the highs. I preferred the bass boost on though. Additional listening shows that they are colorful and smooth-sounding.
w/Bass Boost
The bass boost feature worked better than I expected and by far outperforms the flabby "clear bass" on my Walkman. There are three levels of bass, and none of them bloats the bass much, if at all. I tended to use the E7 with bass boost on all of the time, thus giving the E7 its areas of strength: the lows and the lower mids. The highs were less pronounced when bass boost is on, though it did not affect the overall sound quality much.
One thing I have to mention is that I had to push the volume on the E7 to its max at 60 for the HD 580s, and even then I sometimes felt that the HD 580s needed a little more. Still, the HD 580s had much more presence than when it was unamped, impressive for 300 ohm headphones. The E7 does well with instrumental music and sparkly pop music.

Sony MDR EX082 IEMs do not need amping, but the E7 made the Sony's sound fuller also -- the SQ of the Sony's were much more enjoyable. It's lows and lower mids likely rivaled or surpassed that of the Shure SCL4s from what I can remember.

DAC
E7's DAC functions supersedes its amp functions. The DAC sound to a degree resembled the sound of my full size stereo speakers. The bass boost became more unnecessary.

Conclusion
If you are looking for an amp/DAC combo, the E7 could be right for you. If you like an analytical sound and emphasis on the lower spectrum, E7 is the one. Finally, the E7 is well suited for IEMs and you can't go wrong with them for the price.

You don't have to take it seriously, because obviously I have no means of proving any of it to you, nor would I want to. However, though, I would like to say that the review was a product of much time and effort on my part, whether you believe it or not, written as candidly as possible. That's all I have to say.

hehe, go right ahead. Feel free not to take it seriously. No one's stopping ya.

Cynics will be cynics. I'm not going to spend time arguing with you as it is pointless to try to convince an obstinate. Rather, I'm just going stick around and watch you dedicate even more time, like you have done above, to my thread. Keep up the good work!