A few fiio e9 questions

The Asgard is in a complete diferent level of the E9, as it also costs twice. If you can afford it, go for the Asgard, as it's a lot better amp than the E9... 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

Lol, coincidentally, some people I know who have tried both the Asgard and E9, have come away stating that the E9 does better with high impedance headphones over the Asgard which runs out of juice in comparison.
YMMV. I hate how people discredit the E9 immediately without any actual knowledge of it other than the cost.
I have personally compared the E9 with the Lyr and still preferred the E9 (with all but the HE-4). Take that as you will.

I own several pieces from Fiio ( E9/E7, E10, E6 and awaiting for the D3), I have never own the Asgard. I am curious when someone stating this one will blow the other one "out of the water". Can some one put all the spec and measurement of the Asgard and the much less expensive E9 on paper?

The E9 is measured extensively at the NwAvGuy site. There is limited information available regarding the Asgard, other than it having similar maximum output voltage to the E9, and quite possibly lower output impedance. The 0.1% harmonic distortion in the manufacturer specs is not very impressive, but since there are no detailed measurements of this device available, it cannot really be compared; the E9 measurements show harmonic and intermodulation distortion in the range of 0.005% to 0.05% depending on the output voltage, load, and frequency. The E9 does not have great SNR, but with high impedance/low sensitivity headphones, the noise is low enough not to be audible. There is no noise information about the Asgard. The E9 has some channel balance problems at low volume settings.

In general, the E9 has problems that affect mainly low impedance and/or sensitive headphones (high output impedance, high noise floor, channel imbalance at low volume, higher distortion with low impedance loads). For higher impedance, it looks good, especially for the price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by putente 

The Asgard is in a complete diferent level of the E9, as it also costs twice.

Price alone does not guarantee that it is really that much better, since it would not be surprising for a device that is made from widely used integrated circuits (OPA2134, TPA6120A2) in China to have a better price/performance ratio than the all-discrete Asgard.

Well, I think I explained my thought in a wrong way. What I wanted to say was that I beleive the Asgard is superior to the E9, BUT it costs twice (or more). I don't believe it's better just because it's more expensive!

I've been listening to my E9 for more than a year now, so I think I know what it is and what it's not! And there's nothing wrong with it, for what it costs...

Quote:

Originally Posted by stv014 

Price alone does not guarantee that it is really that much better, since it would not be surprising for a device that is made from widely used integrated circuits (OPA2134, TPA6120A2) in China to have a better price/performance ratio than the all-discrete Asgard.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by putente 

The Asgard is in a complete diferent level of the E9, as it also costs twice. If you can afford it, go for the Asgard, as it's a lot better amp than the E9... 

This is my point. Yes, I can afford it. I can afford much more expensive amp but please show me in term of actual measurement  and in a scientific way that the Asgard is in a different level in term of SQ beside the fact that the Asgard costs twice than the E9 and the Asgard is class A.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakebake 

so will it not sound that great with ad700's?

Well, I did not mean it is necessarily bad, it just does not perform as well (technically) as with a higher impedance load. But it will likely still sound good in practice, and with the bass light AD700, the slight increase in bass (due to the high output impedance of the E9) is perhaps even an advantage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakebake 

Alright received the e9. What should be better for these phones the 3.5 mm or 1/4 jack on the front? Also what gain setting on the back? Also does the USB need to be plugged in If not using an e7? I'm.using a different USB dac

IIRC the USB is just for passthrough to a docked E7.  Usually 3.5mm vs. 6.35mm doesn't really make any difference, but for the E9 they added an extra 32 ohms or so between the 3.5mm jack and the amp output, so they may actually sound different with different headphones.  Try both and see which you like better.  From a technical by-the-books perspective, the extra 32 ohms is undesirable so in general you want to use the 6.35mm jack.

Use low gain unless low gain is not loud enough, though that shouldn't be a huge difference.  On low gain you'll have a little less noise, for example.