For a little over two months now I've had the Fiio E10K and was actually liking the sound a lot. Definitely better than my default on-board crap. Plus, DAC and headphone amp for 70 bucks? What a steal!
 
Unfortunately, it has become more and more evident that it outputs the right channel at a slightly lower volume than the other one. Even more unfortunately, it doesn't scale with master volume, so I constantly have to adjust the balance and it's just getting annoying. The two months are over, so I have no way to return it.
 
So I want to sell it on eBay or something and get a new one. Here's a list of things to note:

 

1. My current headphones are the Philips Fidelio X2 (I really dig V-shaped sound signatures).
2. Looking to spend no more than ~100€.
3. Preferred to be a combined DAC + Headphone amp like the Fiio E10K. I'm using this thing exclusively at my computer and just don't see the need to get a separate DAC and amp stack. Desk space would also get severely limited by that.
4. MUST have line out, or at the very least two outputs. I swap between headphones and speakers a lot.

 
An interesting product I've found so far is the Schiit Fulla 2. How well does that compare to the Fiio E10K? Other recommendations are obviously appreciated as well!

FiiO Q1 is cheaper then the Schiit Fulla 2

Fulla 2. Unless you absolutely can't spend up to $99.

I owned an e10k, nothing special other than it was mildly better than my soundcard and cost as little as a decent bottle of whiskey.

mysticstryk said:

Fulla 2. Unless you absolutely can't spend up to $99.

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I definitely can. Just wanna know, how do the E10K and Fulla 2 compare?

selbi said:

I definitely can. Just wanna know, how do the E10K and Fulla 2 compare?

Click to expand...

 
The Schiit Fulla 2 is several years newer design then the FiiO E10K.

selbi said:

  For a little over two months now I've had the Fiio E10K and was actually liking the sound a lot. Definitely better than my default on-board crap. Plus, DAC and headphone amp for 70 bucks? What a steal!
 
Unfortunately, it has become more and more evident that it outputs the right channel at a slightly lower volume than the other one. Even more unfortunately, it doesn't scale with master volume, so I constantly have to adjust the balance and it's just getting annoying. The two months are over, so I have no way to return it.
 
So I want to sell it on eBay or something and get a new one. Here's a list of things to note:
 
 

1. My current headphones are the Philips Fidelio X2 (I really dig V-shaped sound signatures).
2. Looking to spend no more than ~100€.
3. Preferred to be a combined DAC + Headphone amp like the Fiio E10K. I'm using this thing exclusively at my computer and just don't see the need to get a separate DAC and amp stack. Desk space would also get severely limited by that.
4. MUST have line out, or at the very least two outputs. I swap between headphones and speakers a lot.

 
An interesting product I've found so far is the Schiit Fulla 2. How well does that compare to the Fiio E10K? Other recommendations are obviously appreciated as well!

Click to expand...

Does it output unbalanced level despite the potentiometer position? Or the problem happens at low potentiometer level?
First thing you can try is (fast) moving the pot back and forth with the FiiO turned off for 2 minutes or so...
Sometimes the pot is just dirty causing inbalance and it cleans up with the fast moving trick.

me x3 said:

 
Does it output unbalanced level despite the potentiometer position? Or the problem happens at low potentiometer level?
First thing you can try is (fast) moving the pot back and forth with the FiiO turned off for 2 minutes or so...
Sometimes the pot is just dirty causing inbalance and it cleans up with the fast moving trick.

Click to expand...

It does seem so. I've just done your little trick with quickly rotating the wheel for a few minutes and didn't feel any difference at all. Furthermore, I've tried various different adjustments for the volume wheel. Strangely, when it's set close to 0 I can faintly hear something but only on the right channel, the one that feels quieter as a whole. Weird...

selbi said:

  It does seem so. I've just done your little trick with quickly rotating the wheel for a few minutes and didn't feel any difference at all. Furthermore, I've tried various different adjustments for the volume wheel. Strangely, when it's set close to 0 I can faintly hear something but only on the right channel, the one that feels quieter as a whole. Weird...

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It's quite normal for potentiometers to have some imbalance when close to 0, same normally happens with Magnis and other amplifiers as well.
Inbalance when louder (say 4-5) is not normal. It's indeed quite rare among E10K. Are you sure it's not the headphone?
I've seen many headphones with less than idea driver matching, but very, very little E10Ks with channel imbalance.

me x3 said:

 
It's quite normal for potentiometers to have some imbalance when close to 0, same normally happens with Magnis and other amplifiers as well.
Inbalance when louder (say 4-5) is not normal. It's indeed quite rare among E10K. Are you sure it's not the headphone?
I've seen many headphones with less than idea driver matching, but very, very little E10Ks with channel imbalance.

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It's set to 6-7 on low gain.

selbi said:

  It's set to 6-7 on low gain.

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Should work fine.
More often than not the problem is the headphone, if you can check with different headphones that would be very useful.
If the imbalance persist, you can try contacting FiiO support, maybe they can help you support@fiio.net

Holy damn, do I feel like a moron now. After literal hours of testing on two different computers with two cables on my Fiio and on-board, I can finally say that all of you were right.

My Fiio is fine, the imbalance problem originates from my X2 after all. After a lot of browsing these forums I could also find out that I'm by far not alone with that dilemma.

So, uh, thanks for all the recommendations and help for a new DAC, but looks like I will much rather get a replacement X2 before touching anything else.

Meeeehhh...

selbi said:

Holy damn, do I feel like a moron now. After literal hours of testing on two different computers with two cables on my Fiio and on-board, I can finally say that all of you were right.

My Fiio is fine, the imbalance problem originates from my X2 after all. After a lot of browsing these forums I could also find out that I'm by far not alone with that dilemma.

So, uh, thanks for all the recommendations and help for a new DAC, but looks like I will much rather get a replacement X2 before touching anything else.

Meeeehhh...

Click to expand...

Glad to hear your E10K is working fine!
It's a very solid piece of kit in my experience.
 
I've read about various problems with the X2, hope you can get a properly matched headphone soon.
Driver matching is a well known factor when it comes to headphones, I've seem 1500usd headphones with bad matching... You get the idea.

me x3 said:

  I've read about various problems with the X2, hope you can get a properly matched headphone soon.
Driver matching is a well known factor when it comes to headphones, I've seem 1500usd headphones with bad matching... You get the idea.

Click to expand...

And I thought driver matching issues stop at anything with a three-digit value. Goes to show that basic problems don't cease to be just because you throw more money at them.
 
I just hope I get a good X2 replacement. Even with its super slightly mismatched drivers it's a damn amazing piece of headgear and I wouldn't know what else to pick. However, I've definitely learned my lesson in buying used headphones on eBay instead of Amazon, because the latter at least has a good return policy even on used products.

Sorry for the bump, but I have news on the whole ordeal.
 
As I originally stated, I thought my Fiio E10K was having a balance issue. Eventually, after many suggestions, I went ahead and checked if it's my Philips Fidelio X2 headphones instead that have the balance issue. And it turns out that it indeed was the problem. I then researched the whole mess a little and found out that X2's tend to have a lot of QC issues in general. Okay, I thought, this must be the sole cause.
 
I learned the hard way that X2's suffer from QC issues because I actually replaced them twice:
 

 
 
First one had an imbalance to the left channel, as said before. However, second one also had an imbalance, but this time it was to the right channel. Third one finally gave the impression that it was working fine. I sent the other two back and thought I was happy.
 
But a few days later I've started to notice that there still is an imbalance there, to the left again. It's not nearly as bad as it was with the other two or I would've noticed it immediately, but I was about to get a freaking aneurysm from this nightmare. I did not want to believe that I actually had three pairs of X2's that all had channel imbalance. I would buy a lottery ticket if that was actually the case.
 
So I went back to my equalizer and software-adjusted the louder channel to be about 2dB quieter and it was tolerable, but still not perfect. Like the imbalance is different with different frequencies. But I just had to deal with it.
 
 
Enter: Schiit Fulla 2 (it's twice as heavy and three times as large)
 

 
I originally bought this thing because I needed a portable DAC/amp that has pre-outs and line-in. Maybe a little nicer sound, but that's already the end of my expectations. What I definitely didn't expect and caught be completely off-guard was the fact that my X2's are perfectly balanced now. I double, triple, quadruple checked that my EQ with the manual balancing wasn't still enabled.

 
Nope, it wasn't. Played a mono track with sibilant highs and boomy bass, and no matter how much I turned my headphones around, the sound was in the dead middle off my brain.
 
And then I've brought out my E10K again, just to make sure I am not going insane. And guess what, without even spending more than ten seconds the imbalance was immediately back, and pretty much right there in my face.
 
 
So, in conclusion:
 
I was right all along. My Fiio E10K is indeed suffering from an output imbalance. But you guys were also correct in that my X2's had an imbalance. I just had never assumed that both things could actually suffer from the same problem.
 
In any case, I'm happy that finally everything's working fine without the need to EQ anything. Fortune wasn't with me.

So, how the schiit compare to fiio in terms of sound quality ?
 
As I am in somewhat same posture. Trying to upgrade from fiio, but was thinking to get the aune x1s but now.... duno anymore.
 
Was the upgrade worth ?