Fiio E6 Headphone Amplifier

Emmett62

New Head-Fier
Pros: 2 eq modes and a 2v input, mini usb plug, clip on.
Cons: friction welded case, small battery.
works fairly well and is a pretty cheap entry into micro dacs. it does what it needs to right for what its worth. the friction welded case is horrible though as i have dropped my amp on the cement and it exploded into pieces. slight his if you try to use it while charging. 

TheGame21x

1000+ Head-Fier
Pros: Compact, Two bass boost settings, Decent audio quality
Cons: Build quality downgrade, Low power output, Bass boost a little overbearing



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The evolution of the E5 portable amplifier that served as my very first portable amplifier before I eventually returned it in favor of the CMoyBB (and because the volume rocker broke), the Fiio E6 is, in some ways, little more than a sidegrade or de-evolution from the E5 as a total product.



For instance, the E6 is now clad in shiny black plastic rather than the metal and plastic housing of the E5 and also lacks the sturdy metal clip of the E5, instead opting for a transparent plastic clip which, frankly, isn’t as good.



In terms of sound quality, it actually sounds rather good for an amplifier as inexpensive as it is. It has a warm, smooth sound that, while prone to smoothing over some micro detailing, sounds good nonetheless. Though the E6 is prone to mild hissing, you probably won’t notice it once the music gets going.






Two of the E6’s three EQ settings focus on boosting the low end, a feature present on just about every Fiio amplifier I’ve come across. The E6’s implementation isn’t as good as I’d like, however and ends up boosting more than just low end frequencies. EQ1 provides a massive bass boost that can end up muddying up the sound on all but the most bass-anemic of headphones/earphones. EQ2 provides a more sensible boost that doesn’t introduce anywhere near as much mud and is quite enjoyable. The third EQ option is made to accommodate line level inputs from powerful portable players.



The sound overall is warm and smooth and, with the added bass boost, one that will likely appeal to consumers looking for a bit more power than their smartphone or MP3 player alone can provide. With the bass boost off, the sound is mostly clean with a decent level of transparency but nothing to write home about, frankly.



The E6 provides what should be ample power for common loads but simply doesn’t have the output power or current for high impedance loads. In most cases, this isn’t going to be much of an issue since many consumer focused earphones and headphones on the market today don’t need much driving power but the E6 will likely clip before you reach listening levels on heavy loads.



All things considered, the E6 isn’t a bad amplifier, more a versatile but still merely adequate amplifier. But for about $30 or so, adequate more or less comes with the territory. It’s certainly one of the better amplifiers I’ve heard in its price range though, and the bass boost feature is likely to be quite favorable to casual listeners and bassheads who just can’t get enough.



Re-Posted from my site, Musical Musings
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Ninjacello

New Head-Fier
Pros: small
Cons: died in just a few months
3 of the 5 cables it shipped with failed within days. The distributor replaced with an L cable of surpassing quality, but soon after that the damn thing stopped working altogether. Shoddy workmanship all around. Highly disappointed.

egosumlux

100+ Head-Fier
Pros: Really light and efficient
Cons: Can clip the soudstage
I bought this little guy for I could not bear the V-MODA Crossfade LP Over-Ear Noise-Isolating Metal Headphone (Gunmetal Black) sound signature (everybody makes mistakes right?). While they are the most comfy headphones I got, the bass overshadowed every part of the mids. They also eat a lot of battery power for a 32 ohms headphone.

Luckily I could survive this purchasing mistake due to the help of the little FIIO E6 which I bought after some research for its EQ options and the possibility of using a FiiO L3 Line Out Dock (LOD) Cable For iPod and iPhone so no battery will be drained from the power hungry V-Modas. I found that the third setting, the blue colored led option boosted the mids so nicely that made a huge improvement in SQ.

Later on, about 6 months ahead the Crossfades got broken in the left side plastic piece that holds the headband so I got them replaced by the glorious V-MODA Crossfade M-80 On-Ear Noise-Isolating Metal Headphone - White Pearl that are one world appart. Clear balanced , efficient and portable too. I got a complete eargasm as a replacement set. The M80's are rated at 28.8 ohms which means a slight less battery drain but in the real world is a more efficient headphone. Before I plugged the M80's I used an Akg K518Lewht K 518 Le Limited Edition Headphones (White) with the Fiio in the flat EQ (no led) with 320K mp3's with very good results.

It turns out that the little FIIO actually flattens the M80 soundstage and make it sound a little artificial and dull. So for a better set of headphones this little guy can do more harm than good although it can work very well with some sets that lack bass or have a noticeable bump in the lower mids that makes the sound veiled or muddy. For the Crossfade LP it is a miracle. For the M80 it is not a compliment neither a necessity.

rrwatch
rrwatch
I dont use the E6 for any HP's I can drive easily with my Ipod, why bother ? But it works well for most of the 50 to 60 ohm sets I have pretty well. I love it paired with my Jaycars and AT-M50's
egosumlux
egosumlux
Sure I still use it with my Samson Rh600 and even the PK1 can be paired with this tinny little monster with decents results

saxophone

100+ Head-Fier
Pros: Small, Portable, Easy to Use, Strong Battery Life
Cons: Only 3 presets
It's an entry level amp, so I wasn't expecting too much. I must say it does add a bit to what I was hearing and does change the way I hear many albums. I love the thing, but I feel like I will upgrade in the near future.
nirvana das
nirvana das
in an accident i have lost my 85% hearing hearing in my one ear...and other ear normal..
i am a gamer n play counter strike 1.6...
at full window sound i can listen very thin sound from my damaged ear..
i need a very very loud amplification for my 85% hearing loss..so i can enjoy my gaming..
can this amp. can so loudness...?
saxophone
saxophone
I must say, I was not expecting this many comments on this. The amp can definitely produce volume. That is for sure. It's good for what it is, but I have had the E17 for a while now, and while they are on entirely different stages, I must say I am happy with my investment.
Bytor123
Bytor123
I use this with a Shuffle out on my bike, with IEM's, and it adds a lot to them. Well worth the money

Rush1184

New Head-Fier
Pros: Good Sound, Nice Size, Best Bang for Buck
Love it.  Perfect size.  Attached it with velcro to the back of my Sansa Clip Zip, and can almost forget it is there. I reccomend it to anyone needing a small amp or who are just getting into headphone amps to start with.
Marleybob217
Marleybob217
I was wondering whether the E6 actually improves the sound quality of the clip zip, and not just makes it louder?
I own the clip zip, but I kinda miss the impact and clarity of my Rocoo P player, and desktop amp.
Thanks :)
smartwild
smartwild
also have sansa zip and want a chep amp for zip and home , it is good? thx!

SanjiWatsuki

500+ Head-Fier
Pros: Decent audio performance, great form factor
Cons: Annoying high pitch whine while charging sometimes, didn't feel too durable and mine broke.
The Fiio E6, in all honesty, fulfilled basically my portable amp needs. It has more voltage output than my portable media players. It fit very nicely in my pocket. From a portable usability standpoint, it was great.
 
My main issues were from attempting to use it as a temporary desktop amp. One thing is that, although it can charge and play at the same time, it was obviously not designed to do so. There would be common high pitched whines in the music when it did this. Furthermore, the battery charges at seemingly random points when it is left plugged in and would wear out the battery over time. Although it was usable as a stopgap desktop amp, it was very poor at doing that job.
 
My other issue is that it was not durable. I'm pretty careful with my audio equipment and my E6 was mostly used in a desktop environment because I wanted a cheap stopgap. At some point in time, the switch to turn it on and toggle the equalizer broke -- it wouldn't toggle anymore, even though it still moved. My E6 was stuck in the off position. I could have opened it up and attempted to fix it, but it didn't really seem worth my time.
 
When my E6 worked, it was good on the go. Just don't expect it to be a good choice in a desktop situation or to have great build quality.
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Ptruslow

Head-Fier
Pros: powerful enough for most headphones, clear enough for casual listeners
Cons: creates some static but should be noticable on sensitive IEM's, case could be better
Sound
the sound quality was without fault that i could find. to my ear it improved the soundstage by a bit, improved the clarity by a bit and improved the power by alot. in conjunction with the L9 and an ipod nano 6g i absolutely love how it sounds. i am a basshead so naturally i searched for a way to upload a custom eq to my ipod so don't really use the amp eq but my favorite eq on the amp would be the blue as it adds bass without distorting it. the red eq i found to be muddy and i did not like it very much at all. that said if you use it with an ipod i think that the eq isn't worth much noting. it is however great for bassheads because the increased power is just what my ears had been wanting to feel, in addition to hearing!
 
Build/Design
i think that although it seems to have a good build quality that there are a few design things that could be improved. to start i wish it had a casing similar to that of the e5 but with the sound of the e6, in a nutshell put the guts of the e6 in the body of an e5 and clean up the side buttons a bit and you're good to go. one thing i do like, however is that this thing is weightless! the casing is clean but i dislike the chrome paint on the corner. if you want it to look like metal, make out of metal, that is all. 
 
Value/reccomendability (I think i invented a word there)​
i believe that this is a great value, it increases the power of headphones and the clarity by what i hear as a decent amount. as for the reccomendability i have already reccomended it to one person, who has bought it and i will be showing it to a freind who recently bought beats pro. to clarify, he did not pay full price for them, he paid $150 for them used from a freind, which even i see as worth the money, although i do not agree with the media attention these overpriced headphones recieve.

Makiah S

Sponsor: EarMen | HeadAmp
Member of the Trade: Bricasti Design
Formerly known as Mshenay
Pros: Small, Smooth Natrual Clean EQ, cheap, Great Bass Boost
Cons: Hisses with Low Volume input, only great bass boost
A great buy, very affordable and the bass boost is noticeable but doesn't muddy the sound at all. Has "High Gain" Eq Mode, which is great for those High Contrast songs you forgot to delete off your Source. Looks nice and is very portable.

srivas95

New Head-Fier
Pros: Sound Quality, EQ options
Cons: Build quality, EQ1 Unusable
I got the Fiio e6 as a replacement for my previous Digizoid zo. Boy, was i blown away. The fiio, for a 30$ amp, does things which I have not seen in even some 300$ amplifiers.
 
The Build quality in the e6 is below average. The volume rocker is really creaky and the bass boost button is really easy to press. The all plastic construction makes it really light(16g) butsacrifices on the build of the amp. Its also a fingerprint magnet.
 
The circuitary inside the e6 is top notch. The inside compensates for the outside.(Pardon the pun :wink: ) There are three modes on the fiio. EQ1,EQ2, and EQ3. The first eq Increases the bass by about 8.5db. The second EQ, which i found to be better, increases the bass by around 4.5db. Im not sure what the third EQ does. When i put it on the third eq, I found it just reduces the volume a bit. Fiio does say this is for high power jacks, and whenni comnected my galaxy tab 10.1, it did just reduce the volume. I preferred the bass boost in the e5. The amplification is by around 25-30% of the original volume. The overall quality of the music did not increase much, but ill have to try with the L9 cable as well. The hissing noise that was present on the e5 has been done away with in the e6. Cell phone signals dont interfere with it as well.
 
Conclusion:
The Fiio e6 is an amazing product for its price point. The eq modes alone will justify the 30$. If the circuitary had been put into an Aluminium body and had been made in germany, they could have charged around 200$ and gotten away with it. If you had a 100$, i would say go for the e7, but this product is amazing for the 30$ you pay for it.
 
 
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rheast
rheast
i would go for e10 or maybe ibasso D-zero for 100$ lol

goldfingerfif

New Head-Fier
Pros: Portable, works, and is actually usable
Cons: Feels cheap, EQ1 is unusable
I used this with my Beyerdynamic 860 and Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10.  It works and does a great job for most music giving it a more full range of sound.  I have tried it in my PC headphone out and mainly with my T989 Samsung Galaxy S2 as well as on an iPhone.  Depending on the quality and type of music you will want to use EQ2, EQ3 or no EQ.  EQ1 is a joke but the others have given much to the range of sound any device puts out not to mention it makes it significantly louder.  For $25 I cannot complain, doesn't do as well as when I listen through my AVR525 but it is portable, cheap, and rechargeable.  

Cam3ron

Member of the Trade
Pros: Portable, Detailed sound, can drive speakers!
Cons: Plastic, EQ1 is horrible.
Kind of an interesting story. I was stuck with a bootstrap configuration in order to record a quick jam session and after we finished we wanted to hear it back. However, all I had was a pair of headphones and this amp and the mac's speakers are just horrid. Luckily we got some older computer speakers from my friends office, although it was missing the power supply. Amazingly, after plugging them into this amplifier, I could get it loud enough so we could hear. Anyways, It's a neat little amp and comes close to out perform my modded RCA amplifier. It's saved me more often in situations were more volume or clarity is needed, and is well worth the $20. However, it can't drive 250Ohm 770 Pros very loud and it feels a little cheap, also EQ1 is, like many other reviewers have stated, horrid.

cleg

Headphoneus Supremus
Pros: good sound, small size, long battery life, nice design, good EQ
Cons: maybe it would be better in metal
Nice successor of famous Fiio E5. Totally redesigned. Now it's all plastic, but weight reduced about 2 times. And it doesn't looking like iPod Shuffle now. 
Also now it have more flexible EQ, able not only boost bass, but do more work.
 
Combinig with steal-like price and nice overall design - it still have outstanding sound, as E5 does.
So it's really worth buying option.
 
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moppel84
moppel84
Interesting Amp.
But personally I really did not like the E5 because it produces a LOT of background static that grows a lot louder when upping the volume. This problem seems to be typical because many reviewers write about it.
I really hope they fixed this by using different hardware, then it might be a great little amp
cleg
cleg
I've listened E6 with lots of headphones (Superlux 668B, Mee A151, Mee CC51, Woodes Vintage) on highest volume (risking my ears ), but I didn't find any noticable noise or static.

firev1

500+ Head-Fier
Pros: Great value for money
Cons: Lacks a lot of detail found in higher end amps(E11). EQ1 muddies sound.
Like ^ I bought the E6 amp on a whim to try out, it kinda came in a bundle with the Feels Pro 900 and Hippo Boom from Jaben. To tell the truth, the bundled in-ears did not synergise with the amp at all, details were lacking and the sound was pretty muddy to me even when i set it flat. It does better with headphones of course and is able to make my m50's sound better. It made the soundstage more natural and wider than that of my Iphone(duh anythings better than that :3).
 
However it is not as detailed as the E11 which I bought before the E6. Also, while the EQ2 options and EQ3 are pretty nice EQ functions of the amp, EQ1 itself was down right terrible, it was muddy and any vocals where pretty much drowned out unlike the E11's bass EQ. It could be my bias since I do not have drum instrumentals and rock, EQ1 could have probably done better. 
 
Overall I think the E6 is a good little portable amp, great little design, average amping with some detail loss. Good to use with the more affordable side of headphones where they tend to be more bass overkill. Probably would have thought better of it if I ever used the E7 or E5 amps. 
 
Just to let peeps know
EQ1 bass boost
EQ2 +db(forgot how much)
EQ3 -3db
Manyak
Manyak
Yeah EQ1 is horrible, I should have mentioned that in my review too.

But EQ2 is actually a bass boost as well, just not as extreme as EQ1.
nirvana das
nirvana das
in an accident i have lost my 85% hearing hearing in my one ear...and other ear normal..
i am a gamer n play counter strike 1.6...
at full window sound i can listen very thin sound from my damaged ear..
i need a very very loud amplification for my 85% hearing loss..so i can enjoy my gaming..
can this amp. can so loudness...?
TjPhysicist
TjPhysicist
@Niravana das : i dont know...sure its loud, but its not "o dear god my ears are gonna blow up" loud....

Manyak

100+ Head-Fier
Pros: Best value for the money I've ever seen in audio
Cons: Doesn't make me coffee
Well I bought the E6 on a whim and it just arrived today. I'm impressed. It's definitely better than the E7 with an iPhone LOD and Triple Fi's. The soundstage feels a lot more natural - it's definitely easier to picture the instrument placement in your head while also feeling a little more spacious. The bass is a lot more tight and defined (I use EQ2 to counteract the Triple Fi's drop in bass, and Level 2 on the E7). The E6 also wins in the treble department, where it's clearer and more detailed. I really can't find a single downside to it vs the E7, except for maybe that it loses a bit of warmth (if that's your thing) and that it doesn't have a DAC.

It's really an amazing value for $20, you can't go wrong with it. It won't replace an RSA Protector or Pico Slim or anything like that if you're serious about your portable rig, but if you're just looking for a quick upgrade for your gym music or something it's great.
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