[palmfish]

The E1 is the first headphone amp that I have ever kept for more than a couple of months. It's one of the few pieces of headphone gear I have purchased where I actually feel I got my money's worth. I have had mine for almost a year now and I think it is a great pairing with my HD 800's. It's a terrific DAC with multiple inputs and a powerful head amp all in one desktop sized package. I feel not urge to replace it anytime soon.

 

[Swolern]

Finally installed bit-perfect on Foobar with ASIO. Sounds amazing! Wow! What took me so long, lol. Compfy I have not had any pops yet and there is no delay when changing playlist positions.
 
Also checked for imbalanced channels with my low impedance Fostex TH-900 which are only 25ohm. Absolutely zero discernible difference even with the lowest amount of volume settings on the E1. 
 
Compfy have you contacted Asus about your issue?

 

[derbigpr]

Well I managed to get a deal on the E1 and get a 10 day test period....it will arrive in a about a week, then I'll see if it has any issues with channel balance and decide whether I'll keep it or not.

Btw, did anyone directly compare the headphone output on the E1 to some standalone headphone amps?

 

[Swolern]

The E1 is the first headphone amp that I have ever kept for more than a couple of months. It's one of the few pieces of headphone gear I have purchased where I actually feel I got my money's worth. I have had mine for almost a year now and I think it is a great pairing with my HD 800's. It's a terrific DAC with multiple inputs and a powerful head amp all in one desktop sized package. I feel not urge to replace it anytime soon.

Palmfish, what connector and cable are you using for the hd800 to E1?

 

[TJ Max]

Alright! I just got my Essence One, and I just completed all the driver and firmware updates. I have questions here Why is there a volume knob for the analog outputs? I knew it was there before but it just dawned on me, why? Isn't the volume in Windows, Foobar2000, and on my receiver enough?
 
PS. I may not be keeping my Essence One, even though I just got it! LOL It's not that I don't like it, but I have a Teac UD-501 coming too. So PM me if you're interested or wait until I post it in the For Sale Forum.

 

[palmfish]

Palmfish, what connector and cable are you using for the hd800 to E1?

 
I use the one it came with.

 

 

[palmfish]

 
Alright! I just got my Essence One, and I just completed all the driver and firmware updates. I have questions here Why is there a volume knob for the analog outputs? I knew it was there before but it just dawned on me, why? Isn't the volume in Windows, Foobar2000, and on my receiver enough?
 
PS. I may not be keeping my Essence One, even though I just got it! LOL It's not that I don't like it, but I have a Teac UD-501 coming too. So PM me if you're interested or wait until I post it in the For Sale Forum.

 
It's so you can use the E1 DAC as a preamp. I use that knob all the time with my BH Crack in order to keep the Crack's volume knob well away from the low volume channel imbalance it has.

 

[Swolern]

   
I use the one it came with.

 

Just wondering if you tried a balanced cable or 3-pin connectors with it. 

 

[derbigpr]

Alright! I just got my Essence One, and I just completed all the driver and firmware updates. I have questions here Why is there a volume knob for the analog outputs? I knew it was there before but it just dawned on me, why? Isn't the volume in Windows, Foobar2000, and on my receiver enough?

PS. I may not be keeping my Essence One, even though I just got it! LOL It's not that I don't like it, but I have a Teac UD-501 coming too. So PM me if you're interested or wait until I post it in the For Sale Forum.

Do a comparison between the UD-501 and E1... A lot of people would like to know how they compare directly, especially the headphone amp sections.

 

[TJ Max]

Do a comparison between the UD-501 and E1... A lot of people would like to know how they compare directly, especially the headphone amp sections.

Taken from Archimago's Blog
http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2013/05/initial-impressions-teac-ud-501-usb-dac.html

These TEAC UD-501 results suggest that nothing has been sacrificed in terms of performance in the PCM domain. Note that the ASUS Essence One is also based on the PCM1795 chip in dual-mono configuration but doesn't measure as well, highlighting the importance of the electronics around it like the analogue output stage, power supply and USB/coaxial/TosLink interface circuitry affecting the final output quality.

The headphone amp sounds good. It's not powerful - rated at 100mW into 32 ohms but it drives the HD800 loud enough including some relatively soft classical test tracks I had. The amp could easily drive these headphones to ear-splitting levels with the usual commercial rock/pop/jazz/country tracks. The AKG Q701's are a bit more difficult to drive so I would avoid using these with softer classical selections with the TEAC. It's quite clear that the ASUS Essence One has a significantly more power headphone section in comparison.

 

[palmfish]

  Just wondering if you tried a balanced cable or 3-pin connectors with it. 

 
No, I do not own a headphone amp with balanced connections. I use either the Essence One's built in headphone amp or my Bottlehead Crack (which is connected to my E1 via the RCA pre-outs).

 

[Compfy Listenin]

Sounds amazing with my T1s. Any yes there is more than enough power to drive the 600ohm HPs. Max I can tolerate with the T1 is around 70% volume, and that is a absolutely blaring. My comfortable listening volume is between 30-50% depending on the music.

I would have to disagree on that . Volume depends on the source. Yes it can drive 600 ohms easily and most modern music will be blaring at 80% (the fun kind of blaring, not the ear splitting "JesusChristIhavetoturnthisdownori'llgodeafholyheck" kind of blaring) but I have a few oldies with which I crank it up to 100% and still feel I could get a little more juice. I'm only 25, so I doubt it's hearing loss.

Oh, and by the way you should strive to keep all your software volume controllers maxed! Use the analog volume on the DAC as software volume messes with the bit depth (read a great article about that some time ago, can't seem to find it now).

 

[Swolern]

Wow that must have been some weak sources, i have never been able to tolerate 100% comfortably. 
 
Good tip on the analog volume on the DAC, didnt know that. Thanks.

 

[TJ Max]

I found that for Jazz and Classical with the Beyerdymanic T90, the volume knob was just right for me at roughly %25-%30. 
 
If anyone is look for one I curently have one for sale with Free shipping in the For Sale Forum.

 

[Sk1n5]

OK, I set the foobar buffer length to around 6000ms (anything higher and the spectrum visualization was reduced to 10fps) and messed around with ASIO control panel. There is a bit depth option there. It was set to 16bits. I set it to 24/32. The delay and crackle/pops when switching songs or changing time positions have been reduced but they are still present.


Also, my most recent go-to track for SQ testing (a 24/96 vinyl rip of Daft Punk - Contact, off Random Access Memories) was sounding like crap. Lo and behold after setting the bit depth to 24/32 on ASIO control panel it is back to sounding stellar. The drums on this track are seriously tasty and full.


My question is why is there even a bit-depth option in the ASIO control panel and why does it make such a huge difference in SQ? Are you telling me that even with bit-perfect enabled the bit depth is still up for debate? I imagine that downsampling (like it was doing) has a bigger negative impact than upsampling (and trust me, the difference was clear as day on that track) but jesus christ most of my music is 16 bits. If ASIO is set to 24/32 bit depth in the control panel this is bound to affect the music?


Luckily, I'm not that much of an audiophile as to be really bothered by this but holy hell you'd think that by 2014 listening to good sounding music through your PC wouldn't be this much of a hassle.

On the same screen where you changed bit depth from 16 to 24/32 try changing the latency. I used to have this issue. My sweet spot ended up being 20ms, YMMV.