germanium
Headphoneus Supremus
Hi there everyone.
I have been sent a sample of Creative Labs Sound blaster E3 DAC/headphone amp for review direct from Creative Labs. I'm currently doing lots of listening to it & comparing it to my Sweet modified Sound Blaster ZXR sound card as well as on board sound from my Asus Z97K motherboard computer I built. I will also be comparing it with my Galaxy S5 as well as my girlfriends lap top computer sound card. Unfortunately I don't have any similar (USB DAC amp's) type devices to compare this with.
A little bit about myself. I have never been able to afford super high end sound equipment but have always wanted to achieve that type of sound or even better with the kind of money I earn. I noticed the diminishing returns cost wise & all the hype for features some of which really don't really do much of anything to improve sound in a lot of cases that you get with really high end high cost systems. There were many years that audio companies went after specifications regardless of how they really affected the sound & some sounded quite dreadful as a result. Then there was and still are the fads which lead you & your wallet down the rabbit hole with no real return & yes, I followed some of them down that rabbit hole & I count them as a definite learning experiment+. Anyway it is tough to be in this hobby when the best money you have ever earned is 35,000 dollars a year which is why I started modifying my sound equipment to get the best sound for the money while staying within what I could afford. My opinions on many thing differ quite widely from many here on headfi due to all the experiments I have done in the process of trying to find the sound I was looking for. My experiments have started to pay off not in money terms but in headfi community where other people have tried my ideas & found that they really do work toward getting better sound.
Note this is not their top of the line USB/DAC headphone amp setup. That is the E5 which has a Cirrus Logic DAC chip specified at 120db signal to noise. This DAC is specified at 112db signal to noise & is made by Texas Instruments which makes the famous Burr Brown line of DAC's. One thing I like about Burr Brown DAC's is that they don't use switched capacitor DAC's. They use advanced segment DAC's which seems to offer better detail & smoothness than the switched capacitor DAC's I have heard in the past regardless of specifications so I was actually very pleased to see this kind of DAC inside the less expensive model of DAC/headphone amp setup. It definitely has that Burr Brown type sound that is also present on the ZXR internal soundcard of my computer. In all my experiments to get better sound the Burr Brown's have always yielded the best results for me. Yes I have modified sound cards & CD players with switched capacitor DAC's in the past but never did I get the results I really wanted like I did with the Burr Brown DAC's.
I did a little research on the parts used in the E3 & found some interesting properties with their choice of chips which just happens to go along with my thinking as far as what I like to see in an amplifier such as being capable of full direct coupling & this despite working from a single power supply rail. This is true of both the DAC & the headphone amplifier. Both create their own negative supply rails through a charge pump.
The link for the DAC is http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5122.pdf
And the link for the headphone amp is http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX97220A-MAX97220E.pdf
This unit also uses the Microchip PIC32MX series USB interface that supports OTG cables from portable devices that support that feature. It also supports USB 1.1 & 2.0 in asynchronous mode. The link for that is http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/PIC32MX_Datasheet_v2_61143B.pdf.
I couldn't get the OTG cable that came with the unit to work properly with my Galaxy S5. It produced sound that was clean but only allowed very low volume. The unit did work well with my own OTG cable though with the Galaxy S5.
Update If I reverse the supplied OTG cable & attach it to the E3 & the red USB cable to the Galaxy S5 instead of attaching the supplied OTG cable to the Galaxy S5 the volume is capable of full output which is interesting.
I have no picture of the inside of the unit as I don't want to break it to get inside. I don't see any screws in order to do so however I can provide pictures of the packaging & contents. Maybe my contact at Creative labs can send some pictures of the inside unless the pictures would reveal trade secrets
Initial impressions are that it is very very good sounding giving my modified ZXR card a run for it's money trading blows depending on what trait you are listening for.
For example the E3's high frequencies are somewhat more pronounced but the modified ZXR is definitely sweeter sounding & equally if not more detailed. Midrange such as voices are again sweeter on the ZXR. Bass seems ever so slightly tighter though still robust in nature than the ZXR through it's headphone amp. Both the ZXR & the E3 are equally robust in their bass frequencies. Overall I have to give the win to the modified ZXR however my girlfriend actually likes the E3 better. She likes the more forward sounding high frequencies. The forward sound in the high frequencies of the E3 produces more sibilance than the ZXR but not obnoxiously so.
Compared to the onboard sound of my Z97K Asus mother board this is definitely a god send. There is absolutely no comparison. The bass of the on board soundcard was totally lacking & the overall sound was dry & lifeless on the motherboard sound option of the Z97K. The E3 DAC/headphone amp wins in a very very big way.
Oops tried the other front panel connection & that vastly improved the sound of the on board sound, Still not as good but at least not so embarrassingly bad either. The confusion comes from fact that second output can be switched between headphone output or line-in or microphone. This headphone amp output though is definitely compromised compared to the one that only allows headphone hookup. Sound now has more bass now but a somewhat boomy type bass. Bass on the E3 through USB connection though equally pronounced is more detailed, vocals sound more open & airy instead of somewhat dry compared to the Z97K mother board sound. Again sibilance does somewhat rear it's head with the USB connected E3.
The sound appears almost identical to my Galaxy S5 but with way more volume capability. The Galaxy S5 actually sounds great on it's own but some times needs some help with volume as with most android devices they have limited output volume such that if you have an album that is recorded softly you may not be able to achieve the correct volume needed to enjoy music with out this sweet little amp. Like the ZXR the sound is a little sweeter on the GS5 than on the USB connected E3. The analog input from the GS5 to the E3 retains all the sweetness of the GS5 which is a very good thing. It tells me the headphone amp itself is very faithful to it's input. Sound from the Bluetooth connected GS5 to the E3 is the same as with the USB connection which is quite good.
The Bluetooth option for connection is a very nifty option & will work with most Android & Apple devices with any operating system in the last 3 years for either platform so even if you can not use the OTG cable you are not at all lost without the use of your E3 with these devices. NFC pairing works flawlessly as well.
I will be adding more to this review as I go as I haven't had much time with it yet.
I have been sent a sample of Creative Labs Sound blaster E3 DAC/headphone amp for review direct from Creative Labs. I'm currently doing lots of listening to it & comparing it to my Sweet modified Sound Blaster ZXR sound card as well as on board sound from my Asus Z97K motherboard computer I built. I will also be comparing it with my Galaxy S5 as well as my girlfriends lap top computer sound card. Unfortunately I don't have any similar (USB DAC amp's) type devices to compare this with.
A little bit about myself. I have never been able to afford super high end sound equipment but have always wanted to achieve that type of sound or even better with the kind of money I earn. I noticed the diminishing returns cost wise & all the hype for features some of which really don't really do much of anything to improve sound in a lot of cases that you get with really high end high cost systems. There were many years that audio companies went after specifications regardless of how they really affected the sound & some sounded quite dreadful as a result. Then there was and still are the fads which lead you & your wallet down the rabbit hole with no real return & yes, I followed some of them down that rabbit hole & I count them as a definite learning experiment+. Anyway it is tough to be in this hobby when the best money you have ever earned is 35,000 dollars a year which is why I started modifying my sound equipment to get the best sound for the money while staying within what I could afford. My opinions on many thing differ quite widely from many here on headfi due to all the experiments I have done in the process of trying to find the sound I was looking for. My experiments have started to pay off not in money terms but in headfi community where other people have tried my ideas & found that they really do work toward getting better sound.
Note this is not their top of the line USB/DAC headphone amp setup. That is the E5 which has a Cirrus Logic DAC chip specified at 120db signal to noise. This DAC is specified at 112db signal to noise & is made by Texas Instruments which makes the famous Burr Brown line of DAC's. One thing I like about Burr Brown DAC's is that they don't use switched capacitor DAC's. They use advanced segment DAC's which seems to offer better detail & smoothness than the switched capacitor DAC's I have heard in the past regardless of specifications so I was actually very pleased to see this kind of DAC inside the less expensive model of DAC/headphone amp setup. It definitely has that Burr Brown type sound that is also present on the ZXR internal soundcard of my computer. In all my experiments to get better sound the Burr Brown's have always yielded the best results for me. Yes I have modified sound cards & CD players with switched capacitor DAC's in the past but never did I get the results I really wanted like I did with the Burr Brown DAC's.
I did a little research on the parts used in the E3 & found some interesting properties with their choice of chips which just happens to go along with my thinking as far as what I like to see in an amplifier such as being capable of full direct coupling & this despite working from a single power supply rail. This is true of both the DAC & the headphone amplifier. Both create their own negative supply rails through a charge pump.
The link for the DAC is http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5122.pdf
And the link for the headphone amp is http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX97220A-MAX97220E.pdf
This unit also uses the Microchip PIC32MX series USB interface that supports OTG cables from portable devices that support that feature. It also supports USB 1.1 & 2.0 in asynchronous mode. The link for that is http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/PIC32MX_Datasheet_v2_61143B.pdf.
I couldn't get the OTG cable that came with the unit to work properly with my Galaxy S5. It produced sound that was clean but only allowed very low volume. The unit did work well with my own OTG cable though with the Galaxy S5.
Update If I reverse the supplied OTG cable & attach it to the E3 & the red USB cable to the Galaxy S5 instead of attaching the supplied OTG cable to the Galaxy S5 the volume is capable of full output which is interesting.
I have no picture of the inside of the unit as I don't want to break it to get inside. I don't see any screws in order to do so however I can provide pictures of the packaging & contents. Maybe my contact at Creative labs can send some pictures of the inside unless the pictures would reveal trade secrets
Initial impressions are that it is very very good sounding giving my modified ZXR card a run for it's money trading blows depending on what trait you are listening for.
For example the E3's high frequencies are somewhat more pronounced but the modified ZXR is definitely sweeter sounding & equally if not more detailed. Midrange such as voices are again sweeter on the ZXR. Bass seems ever so slightly tighter though still robust in nature than the ZXR through it's headphone amp. Both the ZXR & the E3 are equally robust in their bass frequencies. Overall I have to give the win to the modified ZXR however my girlfriend actually likes the E3 better. She likes the more forward sounding high frequencies. The forward sound in the high frequencies of the E3 produces more sibilance than the ZXR but not obnoxiously so.
Compared to the onboard sound of my Z97K Asus mother board this is definitely a god send. There is absolutely no comparison. The bass of the on board soundcard was totally lacking & the overall sound was dry & lifeless on the motherboard sound option of the Z97K. The E3 DAC/headphone amp wins in a very very big way.
Oops tried the other front panel connection & that vastly improved the sound of the on board sound, Still not as good but at least not so embarrassingly bad either. The confusion comes from fact that second output can be switched between headphone output or line-in or microphone. This headphone amp output though is definitely compromised compared to the one that only allows headphone hookup. Sound now has more bass now but a somewhat boomy type bass. Bass on the E3 through USB connection though equally pronounced is more detailed, vocals sound more open & airy instead of somewhat dry compared to the Z97K mother board sound. Again sibilance does somewhat rear it's head with the USB connected E3.
The sound appears almost identical to my Galaxy S5 but with way more volume capability. The Galaxy S5 actually sounds great on it's own but some times needs some help with volume as with most android devices they have limited output volume such that if you have an album that is recorded softly you may not be able to achieve the correct volume needed to enjoy music with out this sweet little amp. Like the ZXR the sound is a little sweeter on the GS5 than on the USB connected E3. The analog input from the GS5 to the E3 retains all the sweetness of the GS5 which is a very good thing. It tells me the headphone amp itself is very faithful to it's input. Sound from the Bluetooth connected GS5 to the E3 is the same as with the USB connection which is quite good.
The Bluetooth option for connection is a very nifty option & will work with most Android & Apple devices with any operating system in the last 3 years for either platform so even if you can not use the OTG cable you are not at all lost without the use of your E3 with these devices. NFC pairing works flawlessly as well.
I will be adding more to this review as I go as I haven't had much time with it yet.
