FiiO " Flagship " portable amp Mont Blanc/E12 discussing thread, the pre order unit arrives. - Page 62

Quote:

Originally Posted by dante2505 

E11's frequency responce is 10hz-100Khz.

I didn't know E11 was designed for batmans

dante2505, read this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range

Quote:

Originally Posted by dante2505 

I agree with you and that article.
hearing 100Khz from humans ears in unreal.
But more important is low frequency, bassier sounds. HD 598 has excellent sound from low to high frequencies.
I'm new in Audiphole World, so I don't know exactly importance of each parameter of AMPs.
Now I can summarize your comments and say:
E12's Frequency Response 20hz-20Khz is quite enough even if I use this AMP with Sennheiser HD 598 with Freq resp of 12hz-38.5Khz.
Am I right?

I have a feeling the E12 will sound fantastic.  I have also read a few reviews headed in that direction.  They seem like an excellent value.  The only advantages I see to the E11 over the E12 are compact size and bigger bass boost at half the price.

This question might sound strange to non-bassheads:  Since the E12 has a modest bass boost, has anyone tried double-amping E12 with ZO2.3?  I tried this with the E11 through the LOD and overall SQ seems to be maintained with the option of off-the-charts bass.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oregonian 

I want to hear from someone who has an E-11 and can compare the E-12 to it objectively....................

 

And specifically how the E-11 bass boost compares.

 

Please resist the urge to LICIBI.  (love it cause I bought it).

 

:-)

I don't have an actual E11 here, so take this with a grain of salt, but E12 is the better overall amp from what I can remember of E11.

For one, E11 has a plastic body. It's light and small, but it's also not very solid. I dented mine pretty easily by just leaving it in my jeans pocket.

For another, E11 seems to have this inherent bass-boost that's always on, and flipping the bass boost switch just makes it louder. In a nutshell, it does give more vibrations, but mostly just that. There was no control, tightness, definition, texture, or body to bass. It was just pure vibration. At louder volumes, E11 can clip and cause the bass boost to turn into static, or "white noise" if you prefer that term.

In comparison, E12 is a lot more refined throughout the whole spectrum: it's well-connected and smooth from top to bottom; bass is very textured, well-defined, and high-resolution; midrange is full, warm, and rich without any hint of sibilance; treble is suave, and airy; soundstage is deep, layered, and just about wide enough.

I'm not a basshead (not anymore, at least). Just someone who really loves good sound, and to my ears, E12 makes better sound than E11.

But again, take that with a grain of salt. I don't have an actual E11 here to A/B, and my memory may not be the most reliable.

E11 always sounded a bit heavy to me as well though that's generally better than bright. Can't imagine what;s better for the price. Only the edge of the e11 is plastic. Top and bottom are aluminium.

Sounds like the E12 is something I'd like.

The spec is unimportant. Your digital files have nothing over 20Khz and it wouldn't matter if they did.

Here's another review. http://www.headfonia.com/fiios-power-pack-the-fiio-e12-mont-blanc/

I would have liked to review the E12 with my custom unit as template. But it hasn't arrived yet.

E12 review will be out soon. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by dante2505 

I have Sennheiser HD 598 and its frequency range 12hz - 38.5Khz
I need only AMP, because I have Sound Blaster Audigy in my PC and it is let's say enough for listen with my Senn through PC.
But also I have iphone, actually I'm meloman and sound quality is the scope in listening. In addition, I want portable use of my Headphone, relax on sofa and listen and so on .

So actually I think my choise should be between FiiO E11 and E12.
E11's frequency responce is 10hz-100Khz.
E12's frequency responce seems to be 20hz-20Khz when my HD 598 has 12hz - 38.5Khz.

So will not I hear as little details as I do right now through my Sound Blaster Audigy 24 Bit / 96 Khz (PC)?
I don't want to reduce opportunities of My HD 598 at all.
Or, maybe the frequency range is not a statical thing and its ranges may change depending on something?
I can't believe that E12 will have worse frequency response than E11.
Or, maybe ranges of frequency response are not as important parameters as, for example, the model of AMP chip?
I wanted to wait to E12 release and buy it, but after i saw its Frequency response, I'm a bit dissapointed.
Can you give me recommendations? Thanks in advance

I bet you can't even hear beyond 15KHz, so don't worry about that, I haven't heard neither of those amps but I pretty sure that the E12 sounds the best.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dante2505 

So actually I think my choise should be between FiiO E11 and E12.
E11's frequency responce is 10hz-100Khz.
E12's frequency responce seems to be 20hz-20Khz when my HD 598 has 12hz - 38.5Khz.

 

I would use caution concluding the frequency range spec is irrelevant.

Saying so states, for example, that Sennheiser engineers don't know what they're talking

about in their specs.

Though it's not yet clear to myself either what are the practical impacts/benefits

of a wider frequency response, and may be even not directly related to musical content per se,

nonetheless I will refrain to say it's none. 

Maybe you should keep that (your original researched data) in consideration.

what seems to be the best dac to pare this with for around $100?

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnityIsPower 


Have u read this?

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I haven't, but I did now, and there were a lot of data there that I wasn't aware of. Tx for the tip.

If we take the article as correct, then we should imply that all companies that sell

consumer dac/amps, amps, headphones, saying they are 24 bit or compliant or

show a frequency range above 20kHz are doing this for pure marketing reasons?

That is a bold statement, I believe.

Some years ago, there was a hype about PMPO, maybe you remember that.

Sony stereo systems came with a tag stating that they give a PMPO number for

the sake of comparison for the consumer, but they warn that this measure

has no technical significance, only RMS has. PMPO was just a number. I wonder if world class 

manufacturers, such as Sennheiser, Denon, Grado, wouldn't warn the consumer

for similar reasons?

One thing I was thinking these days, about consumer 24bit amps or dac/amps and so,

is this: if you supply 1Vp for your headphone with 16bit resolution, that would give

a 31uV quantization step, which is a very demanding circuit design already. 

Now, if your system is running with 24bit quantization, that would be an 119nV quantization step,

supposing a linear curve. And that is a spaceship-grade noise level/quantization noise/quantization error,

even with dithering considered, which raises up some serious doubt about consumer products with these specs, indeed.

In conclusion, I am eager to listen from manufacturing people what they know,

it's a bit of a gray area for me yet.

Tx.