FiiO E9 Review - Page 77

Unfortunately, there are still some in the forum who still look down on Chinese-based gear.  A shame really, there is some really nice gear coming out of there.  I seems Chinese manufacturers have to shed that old reputation just as Japanese manufacturers did in the 1970's and 80's.

Got my E9 a week ago.  It is a good looking amp for the money.  Overall, I like the amp when mated with Senn HD600 and AKG 701.  The bass seems fuller, as the matter of fact the whold spectrum sounds really good.  It made HD600 and K701 much more enjoyable.  I think that has to do with the adequate power to drive those headphones.  I tried with UE TF10, the E9 did NOT sound as good. the high and mid are not that enjoyable, I just don't like it.  I have been using Pico w/DAC for the longest time.  With the IEM UE TF10, the E9 is no where near Pico sound quality wise.  I guess, when I am at home I do enjoy E9 with the full size headphones, but not for IEM.

It is interesting because almost all electronics found in big box stores is made in China.  Heck, everything Apple makes is made in China.  It's just biased opinions that comes with the audiophile territory.  I personally like to support USA business (Woo and Schiit, for example) when I can, but I have no problem buying a product made in China if the quality and price is where I want it to be.
 

 

At the risk of going slightly OT, I think we can learn a lot from the auto industry. Cars are made all over the world, but we still associate their engineering with their country of origin, or at least I do.

 

- when the first Japanese cars came to Australia in big numbers back in the 60s, most car buyers didn't want to know about them. 'Made in Japan' was a byword for 'cheap and nasty'.

 

- by the 90s, Japanese brands were synonymous with excellent quality control and, in most cases, were superbly engineered. They spent money designing models for our rougher roads, and it paid off

 

- when the first Korean cars came to Oz in big numbers in the 90s, you would have been sheepish about admitting that you drove a (cough..) Hyundai. Their cars have improved drastically since then, and their sales figures reflect that they have found their market in a big way. True, they arent 'Porsche', but its no longer a Korean Yugo.

 

- as of Jan, 2012, most of the Chinese cars imported into Oz are, to be blunt, crap. Underpowered and lacking the engineering that decades of experience in our market has given their competition, only the fiscally challenged would consider buying one. Still, something tells me that the Koreans are looking over their shoulders in much the same way the Japanese were in the early noughties - as long as they reinvest the sheer volume of their sales into R&D, I doubt that brands like 'Chery' and 'Great Wall' will be the same company in 2020.

 

The cream will always rise to the top, and I see no reason why boutique audio wont see more 'Proudly Designed and Manufactured in China' lettering on the back of new kit.

Ive got a question, does the E7 improve the quality of the E9 significantly?

Yes.  You get better dynamics and range top to bottom, a deeper punchier bass, and a more open sound.  You do lose a little bit of mid-range body though.

the e7 does not improve the e9 it adds a DAC to the e9 which is a big improvement.  But I wouldn't even worry about the e7 since the e17 will be out in a couple of days and should be much better.

The e9 was my first amp and I did enjoy it.  I like it a lot better when I connected my music streamer 2+ to it.  Though when I got my second amp I never used the e9 again.  I'm now on my 6th amp and the only thing the e9 has done was in the mean time was to help my change the volume on my AE5 powered speakers.  I have some crazy high-end amps and DACs now.  Today I finally got around to listening to my e9 again and  I was amazed - it is actually a nice sounding amp.  I dont care what you say about the parts in it - it was a $99 amp after all.  It is a little bright for me (with my other equipment) and sounds slightly thinner and has a narrower sound stage than my other amps but I have an amp that cost $2500 and the difference isn't huge.  Noticeable yes but not huge and to be honest I would be very happy listening to my little e9.  I think the e7 holds it back but that's getting replaced in a day or 2 and I wish between the 2 of them that more input options were available (but that also get fixed with the e17).  But from someone with some nice SS, tube and hybrid amps - you should be happy with an e9.  Now if you don't like that staticy pot or the 3.5 input or whatever else then try something else but for the price and convinience there's no reason not to try it.  I do like the nfb-12 slightly better but the difference between ordering from someone in China and just clicking a button on Amazon about makes up for that.

Right, I had that poster's question backwards.

Thank you. I recently became interested in the E7+E9, but I was not aware of the E17. I guess if it serves as a better DAC, I would prefer it to the E7. My intention is to use these two products together (E7+E9; E17+E9) most of the time, since my K701s are not the most portable headphones. I would only use the E7/E17 individually very rarely I guess.

I bought the E7/E9 combo along with some very sweet Sennheiser HD-598 headphones and it is an audiofile's dream!  All of the reasons to like this combo discussed in the 77 pages of replies apply to this setup.  LOVE it.  In fact I bought 2 sets of the E7/E9.  One for the office and one for home :) 

 

I do have a question about the E17 recently mentioned.  What does it do that the E7 does not?  i.e. what will I gain if I buy this?

you can look at the e17 thread but it's the new and improved version and it's actually pretty slick.  The e7 is pretty low powered and has a basic 16/44 DAC (which is full CD resolution) but the e17 has much more power (still not a high-power amp which is what the e9 is for), adds optical and COAX in (which is awesome if you need it, doesn't matter if you don't) and can do full high-resolution files upto 24/192  (these are music files that you would have the specifically get- they are not something someone would randomly have without knowing). So you get a newer model with a much improved AMP and DAC and some added input types.  I think you  loose on battery capacity.

 

I think the first batch of e16's is going from manufacturer to distributors now but FIIO is shutting down for  Chinese New Year so there will probably be a delay until it hits places like Amazon.

However, will the improved possibility to handle high resolution files 24/192 affect the way it handles standard CD quality and lossless (FLAC) files? Does this DAC affect the E9 amp in the imaging.. as in, could it make it sound slightly warmer, since a solid state amp would do the exact opposite.

 

I mean, currently im facing a problem. I have a pair of AKG K242 (which sound quite warm compared to the K701)... and since recently, a pair of K701. Ive been listening to the 701s for a while, getting used to the somewhat bright sound (which i dont mind at all). They have around 60 hours. The thing is that I believe that a solid state amp would make them even more analytical. What do you think? I think the only thing which prevents the 701s from being absolutely awesome is the bright sound.
 

 

Just picked up an E9+E10 to pair with my Shure SRH940. Wow! Much much better than the UDAC2. Much warmer and much more neutral.

 

The E10 sounds very thin and light but with the E10+E9 combo the sound has more punch, depth and quality. Although I feel the E9 made the mids a bit recessed, as most people have said already.

 

Extremely satisfied with the build quality, price and sound quality of this. I was going to give up Fiio after purchasing the E5 long ago and finding little to no improvement to my sound, but I was glad I gave Fiio a try again!

 

Hopefully it will sound better through burn in, or is there burn in for amps?

 

Only gripe I have is at extremely low volume level on the E9 there is channel imbalance. Extremely low as in there are barely any noise coming out. I guess that's normal?

 

dL

Edited by dL. - 1/13/12 at 4:38pm

Yes, channel imbalance seems to be typical of volume pots like this, but fix themselves after a certain amount of volume. If it's at a certain level that you usually listen to, try using low gain, or the 3.5mm jack to raise the volume needed on the E9.