FiiO E17 "ALPEN" - First Impression + Final Thought - Page 323

Originally Posted by bowei006 

"Welcome to Head-Fi! Sorry about your wallet"

 

Great to hear that the E17 works with the Jelly Bean running HTC OneX. Are you using Cyanogen? Or does it work natively out?

 

Lucky that you can use the DAC of the E17 with you.

Originally Posted by mikescchen 

I'm using Revolution HD 10.0, but this package uses the same kernel with stock ROM...

So stock JB ROM should do it too.

 

I'm using UE TF10 with it, the sound become so much warmer that I'm not used to lol

Originally Posted by bowei006 

On the TF10's, for me, a +2 to the maybe sometimes +4dB treble is what I would want. That's about it. Otherwise I would just create a custom EQ for it on my computer and then move it onto a custom EQ app like the "Denon Audio" (It's a music player with awesome EQ for iOS 5+) instead of relying on the E17's more general but not as exact EQ

Originally Posted by bowei006 

A few users have used the E17 (as a DAC) with the LittleDot,but they are no longer here. 

 

 

You have to buy a few things first..not expensive so don't worry.

 

First you need a FiiO L7

 

 

And then you plug it in like so. The L7 works with the E7 and E17.

 

You plug the L7 into your dock port of the E17 and then you also need a 3.5mm plug like in the picuture. You need a male plug to plug into the L7 and the other end of that wire will need to be whatever the input you want to use is. If your quad amp accepts and you want to use 3.5mm..then do the same. If it accepts RCA then then a male 3.5mm to male RCA plug cable

 

Now after this is done play some music and go to the E17, are you able to control the volume(and actually hear it get louder or quieter) or use the EQ option of the E17? If so then you need to set the LO switch to the right position. When this happens your E17 is essentially in variable out meaning your pre amp in the E17 is still engaged, some still like to use EQ of E17 or change volume or have or use the pre amp of a DAC or amp combo as it's just what they want but for you, it seems you want fixed line out which means the e17 will be in use just as a DAC. Well like I said above, find the LO bypass switch on the side of your E17...see it? There will be an up or down position. However way you are looking at it. Flip it to the opposite side. It will then be in fixed line out(unless you mistaked the side it was suppose to switch to, try it a few times if not, as the switch isn't perfectly up or down and may confuse you as it's kinda in the middle for some people) This section of the instructions are for only if you are able to control the EQ and volume.

 

 

I say L7 because in all honesty and cases you would want to bypass the E17's own op amps(there's two) and use just the Little Dot as an amp without excessive coloration from the DAC itself.

 

 

 

YES  to the second part, in your case, there is two options, fixed line out which I prefer means you can't use any volume or EQ controls on the E17, however with variable out, the pre amp is still engaged allowing you volume and EQ controls! :)

 

Yep, for such a desktop setup I would prefer a standalone DAC with the standalone amp but as you said, if you already have it. Why not.

 

The L7 is about $10 and ships on Amazon, buy from Micca or another FiiO authorized dealer.

 

Conclusion:

1. You need the L7 for best performance.
2. Yes, you can still use the EQ and Volume controls with your Little dot and L7 if you set the LO bypass switch to the said location above
3. You can also choose not to use the EQ and volume controls and set it to fixed line out which I prefer meaning none of the E17's op amps are in the signal path.
4. You need another cable to connect from the L7's female 3.5mm output to whatever input the Little Dot uses

 

And in case you dont know:

 

The USB that you see in the picture IS FOR CHARGIN or USB data purposes only. Ok what happens is that when you plug the dock into the E17 or E7...the USB in gets blocked.....that means you can't charge the device and USB input wouldn't be allowed.....as the port is blocked so FiiO added one to the dock to allow you to charge the device or use it as input. With the E17, you can still set input to optical!!!! :) USB is the main input most people use so blocking it with a DAC out dock.....would be quite disasterous to the device and especially the E7. And you can't charge it if that happens, so comes the USB in on the L7.  It is easy to get confused! Don't worry.

 

And I just told you..the FiiO L7 or the E9 or E09K (which are desktop amps that you don't need) are the only devices that you can use to send a fixed line out signal(JUST USE THE DAC) but you don't need the amps so you can only use the L7 like I said..Just switch it to OPT in for input.

Originally Posted by anirudhBandi 

Hi, this is my first post on head-fi. Just got this and totally love it. Had a akg k701 unamped for a longtime and now finally got to amp em and the bass boost +12 db gain makes these cold headphones a jack of all. The amp & equalizer is prolly overkill for my jvc xxplosives which already have plenty of bass but are benefitting from the dac which i found better than my onboad pc soundcard.

Although am finding the soundstage is more in-your-facish now. I guess the pairing is not exactly a match made in heaven, ill probably end up getting the matrix m-stage or shiit-smthing in future. Please advice me on which of the dedicated amps be a good match for the dac in fiio e17 to amp my akg k701.
Also just upgraded my s3 to jellybean, cant wait to test the usb audio wid e17, fingers crossed!

Originally Posted by Chris J 


Hey, welcome to Head Fi!
Much as I like the E17 and Q701 together, the M Stage has a greater sense of space to it. More open sounding, more effortless. Very worthwhile, IMHO.
Of course, you can still use the E17 as a DAC!

Originally Posted by bowei006 

"Welcome to Headfi, sorry about your wallet"
I use Fiio's bass boost to reduce the bass on my MHiCs. I have a software bassed eq on my pc for my Q701s through foobar. Ill check later if the eq system is a bit comparable.

Originally Posted by jasonb 

Hey guys, I had been having an issue when using the E17 as a DAC where the audio would stutter on occasion. Just for the record, I never once thought that it was an E17 issue. It would always happen when multi-tasking, like listening to music and web browsing at the same time. It was definitely an issue of either high CPU usage or high memory usage. My laptop is a couple year old basic lowish end HP G60. It's a dual core 2.20GHZ Pentium, Windows 7 64-bit, with 3GB of ram, so nothing fancy, but not terribly low end or old either. I think it was around $400 when i got it a couple years ago.

 

Anyway, what I tried tonight was removing every single piece of software or bloatware that was on here that I never use, and then of course a reboot when I was done. I removed stuff like Office 2007, HP support assistant, expired Norton anti-virus, and crap like that. Stuff that may be running that never actually gets used. I also chose a Windows 7 theme that has no animations or anything fancy going on, I tried the theme before by itself and still had hiccups, but I figured this on top of removing stuff should help even more. It's only been a couple of hours since, but so far not a single hiccup or stutter. Before this, I would get a quick hiccup every time I would refresh a webpage or switch between iTunes and Chrome. CPU usage seems lower overall, and there is definitely less memory being used. Before it would sit around 60-75%, now it's been just under 50% ever since the reboot. I hope it's not to soon to think this problem is solved, but so far it seems like it has been resolved. 

Originally Posted by bowei006 

That is some good problem solving :) I wish everyone would try stuff like that. The majority of E17 issues are fixed with problem solving. But of course asking doesn't hurt either which is why I'm here.

My .......... ummm...hmm how should I say it.... secondary computer for testing uses those specs.... but I have never tried to use it for audio.

Originally Posted by jasonb 

Are you saying these specs suck for audio? Is it really that bad of a PC?

Originally Posted by bowei006 

Audio? Not really. I have been known by other head-fi'ers to call that test PC another name. Not very appatizing if you know what I mean.

 

Bad? Not really but for my purposes just not what I am looking for. That last part was so that if anyone of my compadres saw the message, they wouldn't call me out on it.

 

So basically I was just covering my tail. But yes, I do have a similar spec'd computer in the house.

Originally Posted by jasonb 

Hey guys, I had been having an issue when using the E17 as a DAC where the audio would stutter on occasion. Just for the record, I never once thought that it was an E17 issue. It would always happen when multi-tasking, like listening to music and web browsing at the same time. It was definitely an issue of either high CPU usage or high memory usage. My laptop is a couple year old basic lowish end HP G60. It's a dual core 2.20GHZ Pentium, Windows 7 64-bit, with 3GB of ram, so nothing fancy, but not terribly low end or old either. I think it was around $400 when i got it a couple years ago.

 

Anyway, what I tried tonight was removing every single piece of software or bloatware that was on here that I never use, and then of course a reboot when I was done. I removed stuff like Office 2007, HP support assistant, expired Norton anti-virus, and crap like that. Stuff that may be running that never actually gets used. I also chose a Windows 7 theme that has no animations or anything fancy going on, I tried the theme before by itself and still had hiccups, but I figured this on top of removing stuff should help even more. It's only been a couple of hours since, but so far not a single hiccup or stutter. Before this, I would get a quick hiccup every time I would refresh a webpage or switch between iTunes and Chrome. CPU usage seems lower overall, and there is definitely less memory being used. Before it would sit around 60-75%, now it's been just under 50% ever since the reboot. I hope it's not to soon to think this problem is solved, but so far it seems like it has been resolved.