e7 + e9 - dont understand why you would need both?

Don't be confused.

The e7 is a portable  DAC and Amp. It has a built in battery. it can be used stationary of course as well.

However as you can imagine a portable solution might lack some real oomph so the e9 comes in to rectify that. It's a proper desktop Amp. The smart thing is that when you plug in the e7 into the e9 the e9 uses the e7s DAC as well. So it's really a nice solution to have both. The e9 can permanently be connected to your desktop pc and when you are on the go you just pick up the e7 from it's "cradle" the e9. The e9 Amp is also of higher quality than the e7 so you combine the best of both, the nice DAC of the e7 and the superior e9 when stationary.

Hope that helps,

If you are using just the E9 on your computer and you happen to have a crap audio card or absent one, you are going to simply amplify crappy audio quality to your headphones.  If you add one of the nicer cheaper USB dacs like the E7 or the E10 and run that dac through a pure amplifier, then you will be in business and have very nice sound quality.  Dacs bypass the internal audio components which are just awful most of the time, they provide a more pure sound quality that is noticeably more clear.  

Computer > Good music software like Foobar > E7/E10 Dac > E9 > Headphones sounds much much nicer than without the Dac.  The upside to the E7 is that it is 75% dac and 25% amplifier, so it can double as a nice amp for easily driven portables and iems, where as the E10 cannot.  Be aware Fiios new model upgrade, the E17 will be coming out soon and will replace the E7.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alanrichie 

10/10 thanks

 

If your never gunna go portable is it worth getting both?

This depends entirely on the headphones you're using. Most don't need anywhere near as much power as the E9 offers, and some will be objectively worse with it because the E9 has a high output impedance. You might be better off with the E10 alone, which is like the E7 but not portable, cheaper, and more powerful.