Fiio E6 and iPhone 5

It's unlikely to make much of an audible difference. The Shures are efficient enough, and the iPhone's 5 output impedance is only 3.3Ω. My iPod Classic has an output impedance of 5.5Ω and with my Shure SE425 IEMs, I get a high frequency spike of just 1.5 dB.

The LOD cable/adapter is for a connection to an Apple 30 pin LOD port, I believe the iPhone 5 comes with the newer 8-pin lighting port.

But you can still connect the iPhone's headphone output to the line-in on the E6.

First off, the SE 215 has a low impedence and high sensitivity, which makes them very easy to drive. Your iPhone 5 should be able to easily power them through the headphone lineout. :)

That means using a portable amp should provide no discernible sound difference and if you don't buy a good enough amp, could actually deteriorate the sound because of amps that aren't perfectly neutral. REMEMBER, the more you add to the analog signal, the less "true" it will be.

Also, your headphone lineout already has a small current in it to amp the signal to your headphones, so if you amp from the lineout you will be double amping which is kinda pointless except for increasing volume. Hence why you'd use an LOD (line out dock) to provide an unamped analog audio signal out of the bottom of your iPhone. 

BUT the iPhone 5 uses lightning which is a digital out. Which means you'll need the lightning to 30 pin converter which will act as a DAC (digital to analog converter) to which you can then connect an LOD. 

Note that you have no control on how good apple chooses to make the quality of the DAC in the lightning to 30 pin converter and this will again add another component to your "line" which may deteriorate the quality of music. 

You should always remember that your setup only sounds as good as your worst component. Hence if you have mp3 player and a really good sounding, easy to drive pair of earphones, then you may already be set.

Hope this helps and happy listening! :D

 

Edited by scolaiw - 2/3/13 at 7:21am