First photo of E17 - Page 6

Quote:

Originally Posted by dleblanc343 

I wonder if I should wait for this to pair with my e9 to have for my mother's place for my he-500's and ms2i's; while the higher end amp and dac would remain at my dad's.

 

Faeio, do you think e9/e17 would be a good match with the he-500's by hifiman??

don't the HE series headphones need some serious power to drive them at low ohm's?

Yes, that's why I ask, they are very power hungry that's for sure. From what I've read though the e9 should be able to power them..
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteCrow 

don't the HE series headphones need some serious power to drive them at low ohm's?

 

can anyone tell me the wattage i can get into a 300 ohm headphone with this?

Hi guys

Please excuse me if this is a lo-tech enquiry, but I'm having trouble understanding one aspect of the E7 - E17 option.

I use my E7/E9 combo when I'm traveling, and lovely it is too. Going into DT770s at 250ohm, so no drive issues, but if I can make it sound *even better*... :-)

Thing is, my mobile music is mostly 256k or 320k mp3s, and a smaller array of lossless albums. Even the lossless ones were recorded from CD at 44.1, so how will the 192 stage of the E17 make any difference? Surely it can't make it sound any better than it originally did? What am I misunderstanding here? And if it did make a difference, would I need to be playing it back from particular sources to reap the benefit?

Quote:

Originally Posted by elektrikgypsy 

Hi guys

 

Please excuse me if this is a lo-tech enquiry, but I'm having trouble understanding one aspect of the E7 - E17 option.

 

I use my E7/E9 combo when I'm traveling, and lovely it is too. Going into DT770s at 250ohm, so no drive issues, but if I can make it sound *even better*... :-)

 

Thing is, my mobile music is mostly 256k or 320k mp3s, and a smaller array of lossless albums. Even the lossless ones were recorded from CD at 44.1, so how will the 192 stage of the E17 make any difference? Surely it can't make it sound any better than it originally did? What am I misunderstanding here? And if it did make a difference, would I need to be playing it back from particular sources to reap the benefit?

The E17 is cable of playing back music files up to 24bit 192khz.  It won't(a far as I know) upsample music files from their native sampling rate.  Meaning a 16bit 44.1khz will still be played at this rate on the E17.  The improvement in sound quality will come from the more powerful and robust amp in the E17 and improved usb receiver function among other things.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digital-Pride 

 

The E17 is cable of playing back music files up to 24bit 192khz.  It won't(a far as I know) upsample music files from their native sampling rate.  Meaning a 16bit 44.1khz will still be played at this rate on the E17.  The improvement in sound quality will come from the more powerful and robust amp in the E17 and improved usb receiver function among other things.
 

 

I'm sure if anything ever "upsampled" at least in the audio world, it would be worth millions. You can't add information to what you don't have (at least not yet that is) :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by ak47-whaaa 

I'm sure if anything ever "upsampled" at least in the audio world, it would be worth millions. You can't add information to what you don't have (at least not yet that is) :P

Actually, you can.

First there is "oversampling", almost every modern DAC does this, if you listen to a NOS (non-oversampling) DAC, you will hear a clear difference, some think it's more analog or vintage sounding, I thought it was errr, not very good.

Second there is "upsampling", modern DAC's will either play the signal in native or upsample, ideally they can do both, with a switch, control panel or the software driver.

For example the Fostex HP-A3 will upsample all content into 24/96 I think, or on the Musiland Monitor 03 you select your desired sampling rate in driver control panel.

Basically it's taking a curve and making it smoother, like in photoshop, it's also adding a massive amount of silence in the upper frequencies, which helps the DAC decode or something like that, the differences are very faint, but it's a still a very desirable feature imho.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiteki 

Actually, you can.

 

First there is "oversampling", almost every modern DAC does this, if you listen to a NOS (non-oversampling) DAC, you will hear a clear difference, some think it's more analog or vintage sounding, I thought it was errr, not very good.

 

Second there is "upsampling", modern DAC's will either play the signal in native or upsample, ideally they can do both, with a switch, control panel or the software driver.

 

For example the Fostex HP-A3 will upsample all content into 24/96 I think, or on the Musiland Monitor 03 you select your desired sampling rate in driver control panel.

 

Basically it's taking a curve and making it smoother, like in photoshop, it's also adding a massive amount of silence in the upper frequencies, which helps the DAC decode or something like that, the differences are very faint, but it's a still a very desirable feature imho.

 

 

crap, I misread the original quote and mixed up bit rate with sample rate. Woops XD

Lol yeah I see, you can't 'upbitrate'.

I bet there's .FLAC albums all over the internet that were upconverted from MP3 96 KBPS

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiteki 

Lol yeah I see, you can't 'upbitrate'.

 

I bet there's .FLAC albums all over the internet that were upconverted from MP3 96 KBPS

 

 

Making an MP3 into a FLAC doesn't do anything to the bitrate, right? So, the quality level is determined by the bitrate it was originally recorded at....it only gets worse if it's converted to lesser bitrates regardless if it's a FLAC or MP3. Up-converting to a higher bitrate from a lower bitrate is lame since it does not improve the SQ. It can never be better than the original recordings bitrate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by burtomr 

Making an MP3 into a FLAC doesn't do anything to the bitrate, right? So, the quality level is determined by the bitrate it was originally recorded at....it only gets worse if it's converted to lesser bitrates regardless if it's a FLAC or MP3. Up-converting to a higher bitrate from a lower bitrate is lame since it does not improve the SQ. It can never be better than the original recordings bitrate.

 

Nope it does bloat the file size but does absolutely nothing to the sound. If you have crap to begin with, you will have crap coming out, there is nothing you can do about that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ak47-whaaa 

Nope it does bloat the file size but does absolutely nothing to the sound. If you have crap to begin with, you will have crap coming out, there is nothing you can do about that.

What he said ^....that's what I meant too: increasing the bitrate of an existing recording does nothing except increase its file size. It won't make it sound any better.

Mike of Headfonia has some early listening impressions of the E17 here.