Good Headphone Amp For iPod Touch and Sennheiser HD558 Headphones

Quote:

Originally Posted by kage 

I have the iPod Touch and the Sennheiser HD558 headphones. Most of the time I use my headphones with my Pioneer VSX-1120 receiver when I play games, listen to music, or watch movies, the results from the headphones are good. Whenever I use my headphones with my iPod Touch, I do not like the results. I've been researching headphone amps for under $100 and the top two that I came up with are the FiiO E6 and E11. I'm not sure which one to get, so please recommend me a headphone amp.

E11 definatley. The E6 is a amp for beginning newbies who can't afford anything better. E11 for sure. especially with an 500series sennheiser. Do you need a DAC? the e17 is coming out at $150 and is a great value. as you would expect from fiio. 

But otherwise if you don't need it since you already have that pioneer hooked up to your computer. The E11 is the best bet. BE SURE TO also get an LOD with it. Fiio makes them and they are the most bought ones. Get the L3 or L9 (nothing else) they use the HPC22W wire. the L9 is recommended as it makes the space a lot less and it doesn't stick out. what this LOD does is that it takes information directly from the DAC of your ipod and bypasses the intenra circuitry,amp, and heapdhone jack which is known to cause soem....of that bad stuff you are hearing..ok it doesn't cause some of it. IT IS the reason why it sounds like this. 

So:

E11 -$65

L9 -$13

:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by kage 

I just ordered the Fiio E11 and Fiio L9.

hope you find it appealing :)

To my limited knowledge about Ipod , I do believe that the old generation of Ipod and Ipod classic had an internal  Wolfson chip however Apple has switched to Cyrus chip on the current models.  You can contact Apple to confirm which is which.

I maybe wrong but the E 11 is only an amplifier so it won't improve the SQ of your Ipod.  I have the Toshiba Thrive and the Ipad 2 and I am searching for the answer " to DAC or not to DAC" externally.

The Cirrus dac on the iPod/iPhone G4 is actually pretty decent (I have both).  And OP - I agree - unless your cans really need amping, you won't notice a great deal of difference.  I rarely use my E11 any more - virtually never with my IEMs, occasionally with my MS1is - but then mainly for the bass boost.  I do use it from time to time with my HD600s if I want to use it portably (away from my desktop) - but even then, my preference would be for the PortaTube

Just enjoy what you have - straight from the H/P out, and worry about an amp if/when you own headphones that actually need it.

I hope the return went ok for you.

If you have a touch 4G the equalizer app, sonicmaxpro app, flacplayer app are quite good, I usually use the flacplayer now myself.

I also sold my E11 and L9 LOD-I believe it became especially popular due the lack of anything else new being released at the time, and also being relatively inexpensive meant head-fiers could indulge their need to spent without spending too much :).

I still use my ibasso T3 on occasion, but mainly my Royal CMoy amp  (it uses a AD8397 the AD8397 and has

twin tle2426 rail splitters) with basic Qable LOD.