FiiO E11 amp high and low gain

Hey guys,

I'm new to this forum, but I've been a lurker for ages. lol. Just recently got the Fiio E11 amp and it's great. It really helps to bring out the potential in my headphones. I do have a quick question though.

Was wondering whether the High/Low Gain settings have an actual effect on the quality of the sound. Or does it just change the amount of volume? Because if setting it to "high" gain only increases the volume, then I can just keep it to "Low" and just crank up the volume more.

And when is a good time to use the High Gain setting vs the Low one? What's a good cut-off point for the Impedence, sensitivity of the headphones before I should start using High Gain to get greater returns in sound quality (if any). 

I currently use a Sansa Fuze+ player and I listen to only Flac files. My headphones are the following:

Sennheiser HD558
Sennheiser HD25-1 II Adidas
Audio Technica ATH-M50
Shure 750DJ
Allen & Heath Xone XD-53
Kicker HP541 DJ
Klipsch Image S4

I also noticed on some specs that they rate the HD558's max power handling at only 40mW. Does that mean using the E11 amp with it might damage the headphone/drivers? Seems rather odd if it did since. The Kicker headphones I have also have a pretty low max power rating too.

Any suggestions on which Gain level to use for each headphones and whether switching it to high gain actually does improve the sound quality or just increases the volume would be great.

Thx everyone!

Hey guys,

A rep from Fiio emailed me back some answers to my questions above. Just wanted to post some of their replies incase this might help anybody who was wondering the same thing. I put quotations around their answers:

increases the volume, then I can just keep it to "Low" and just crank up the volume more.

"Re: there are not different between high/low gain in SQ." 

And when is a good time to use the High Gain setting vs the Low one? What's a good cut-off point for the Impedence, sensitivity of the headphones before I should start using High Gain to get greater returns in sound quality (if any). 

"Re: you need to try, if you set the volume at 1-3, you should set the gain to high, so you can listening music and set the volume at 3-6, it is the best position of the volume knobs. but if you are using 6 -8 now, you need to use low gain." 

I also noticed on some specs that they rate the HD558's max power handling at only 40mW. Does that mean using the E11 amp with it might damage the headphone/drivers? Seems rather odd if it did since. The Kicker headphones I have also have a pretty low max power rating too.

"Re: don't worry about it, just take care the sound level from the headphone, if the sound is not so loud, it will not hurt your headphone/drivers. note that the real output is quite small because the music siganl is varies."

Any suggestions on which Gain level to use for each headphones and whether switching it to high gain actually does improve the sound quality or just increases the volume would be great.

"Re: if you are listening music at 3-7 at the volume, the gain switcher is in the best position."

Hi Wind,

You're using a dedicated lineout for the DAP i'm guessing? Do you need to adjust any volume on your DAP? My sansa fuze + doesn't have a lineout so I'm unfortunately only using the headphone out. I set my DAP to around 75% volume and my E11's volume knob to about 3 or 3.5 when listening and I use the HD558. 

I think most DAP's are more than adequate to power the HD558/598's cause they're only about 50 ohms, which is quite easy to drive so volume shouldn't be an issue. However, the sound overall is a bit fuller when amping with the E11. This is especially noticable with the bass. It sounds fuller and richer. So overall I personally feel there's still a slight improvement in sound regardless of the volume level. I'm not sure about the 598's. But the 558's are a bit lighter in bass compared to my other phones. So the extra fullness in sound in the low end by amping is a great match for me.