FiiO E17 "ALPEN" - First Impression + Final Thought - Page 266

Check "Audio Midi Setup" to see if the master volume is down. This may be similar but hold the "option" key and click on the volume control in the upper right hand(default) corner. The "advanced" or extended options should drop down. Hit Sound Preferences. See if anything is being limited there as well or raise it.

So you are going:

Macbook Pro-->E17(with USB input)-->HEadphones 

right? Your wording was a bit weird.

Are there any other programs that may affect this?

Try this with an iPod or another source, be it through AUX in or anything and see if it gets loud enough. Try with a different comptuer and iPod, USB in and AUX in, getting your PMP and doing aux in(with the pmp on max) should work just fine to test this out.

Most have said the E11 is fine and has enough power for this(250ohm beyers) but how "loud" something gets really depends on the user.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, sorry that is exactly how I'm linking them up via DAC.. I've tried with an iPad and AUX on the Fiio (Which is pretty damn quiet, even maxed out at everything, but adequate) I've also just tried using the 3.5mm cable provided and running it that way to the Macbook. Little bit louder, but not by much.

Currently no programs affecting the sound, I've tried a few different FLAC players. Vox, VLC, and I'm using Enqeue at the moment.

It's definitely got me baffled though! I'm thinking something is up, cos there's no way it should have to be on max settings. Also, the fact that it's peaking has me worried a bit. I shouldn't have to turn it up to the point where it is even close to peaking. Even the E11 that I previously had with Ultrasone Pro 900's didn't distort once.

Confused, to say the least!

I updated my post:

Are you listening to oldies or classical? With Foobar and even iTunes, you should be able to do "sound check" as iTunes calls it or Foobar's own extension to "raise" the volume of the songs. I would sometimes max to 60 on my Q701's when I play classical and classic rock songs.

I think that this is what you are doing maybe. With the oldies songs, it is quite a predicament as it takes more power to amplify the song to the volumes that one desires. There are programs and or extensions to help rectify this though.

The E17 has that cliccking and distortion problem when you start maxing out stuff, it happens sometimes and goes away. 

Definitely not listening to oldies or classical haha, I've pretty much exclusively been listening to Radiohead, Mount Kimbie, Bonobo, Groove Armada, with some John Mayer thrown in.

Here's a screenshot of what my Audio-Midi page looks like:

Can you try it with iTunes or a music player that you haven't used before? As in put a song into iTunes (an MP3, if all yours are FLAC)

But it could just be that your perception of loudness differs from the others that owned teh Beyer and said it was loud enough.

Yes, I think you may be right. I've literally just returned my Ultrasone Pro 900's, had about a week with them, and they were so easy to drive. Never really turned it up to max with the previous amp I had, which was an E11. Maybe I just have to get used to the way the Beyers are driven.

Played a few albums in iTunes and there's one album that is 320k, that is a LOT louder than quite a few of my FLAC albums. Maybe I've just acquired some less than perfect FLAC rips. 

Yes, I think you may be right. I've literally just returned my Ultrasone Pro 900's, had about a week with them, and they were so easy to drive. Never really turned it up to max with the previous amp I had, which was an E11. Maybe I just have to get used to the way the Beyers are driven.

Played a few albums in iTunes and there's one album that is 320k, that is a LOT louder than quite a few of my FLAC albums. Maybe I've just acquired some less than perfect FLAC rips. 

Less than perfect flac rips are not uncommon. I've had trouble before with flac just not sounding right. I re-ripped the cd after configuring my settings and all was right again.

Don't have ReplayGain enabled, but the volume boost sounds like a good feature. Will have to download it. (Or the Apple equivalent)

Sorry, what do you mean by RG tags? Would that diminish the quality?

I thought my 701's weren't loud enough either....until I took an hour and realized.. I shouldn't be listening at those volumes either. It only ever became a problem of maxing out 60 on 12dB gain with Classical and classic rock songs too.

I have a few 320MP3's that are louder than my lossless copies as well, doesn't mean it's better. Just mean somebody raised the noise floor I guess. Artificially made it louder, no problem with that as long as it's not already clipping or making it louder will clip it. You can always "artificially" use a program to raise a song's "volume" that is....as long as the program won't start clipping the frequency.

AHH! It's Rikkun! Hide! They say... that it(Rikkun) eats....panda's!! ๏_๏ ಥ_ಥ