[earfonia]

I'm interested in. How does this unit sound to you guys??
Does it sound as good as AK240??
I can't find a good review on its sound quality.

How does it sound compared to DX100??

 
Comparing with AK240?  Come on, I bought this E5 for only US$ 155 

I'm not against AK240, but I had a bit of time with it, and was not impressed with it. Not only me, 2 friends of mine, we listened to AK240 for a while, and we were not impressed. Maybe due to the music, or IEM pairing or other thing... will give it a try again when I have the chance.
 
I have DX90, and E5 sounds a bit more powerful than DX90, and has a more lively dynamic. While DX90 sounds more refined.
 
Look at SB E5 as a useful audio toolbox, that sounds good. I really like it a lot when driving my IEMs, but not so for high impedance headphones. Bass is on the strong side, mids is full bodied, and it has pretty good spacious imaging. E5 sounds smooth when driving IEMs, but not so smooth driving high impedance headphones on high gain. So I will stick using it with low gain for IEM and easy to drive headphones. Honestly, I like it 

 

 

[earfonia]

Sorry clicked wrong button... double posts.

 

[kawaivpc1]

Where did you buy it for 150 bucks?? They sell it for 199....

 

[earfonia]

Where did you buy it for 150 bucks?? They sell it for 199....

Email promotion, i registered to be notified when the unit available. Kind of early birds special price. Now cannot get at that price anymore. But i still consider it excellent value at current selling price.

 

[unknownsolo]

I am not sure what background hiss you guys are talking about? I tried this thing connected to my PC via USB AND Bluetooth and tried it with both Sennheiser ie800 and Shure SE846 with no music playing at all. Both IEMs had no hiss whether the volume is all the way down or cranked all the way up. Unless my ears has gone bad for listening and gaming with these IEMs on high volume lol. I don't find myself saying "Ha?" "What?" at all though lol
 
 

 
On another note, I love this little amp. I honestly thought I am going to buy it, be disappointed with it, and return it. But this little guy is definitely staying

 

 

[earfonia]

  I am not sure what background hiss you guys are talking about? I tried this thing connected to my PC via USB AND Bluetooth and tried it with both Sennheiser ie800 and Shure SE846 with no music playing at all. Both IEMs had no hiss whether the volume is all the way down or cranked all the way up. Unless my ears has gone bad for listening and gaming with these IEMs on high volume lol. I don't find myself saying "Ha?" "What?" at all though lol
 
 

 
On another note, I love this little amp. I honestly thought I am going to buy it, be disappointed with it, and return it. But this little guy is definitely staying

 

 
Wear your IEM, stop the music, and then try to unplug, then plug in the earphone jack to the headphone output. Do you hear any different?
The hiss noise is nothing to worry about. It is very mild, or probably my ears are just too sensitive. I mentioned it because some people are sensitive to background noise. To me, I doesn't bother me, but it's there, I can hear it.

 

[Juan13]

Can you use the E5 as an amp for ipod, sansa, etc Or it has to be connected to a computer or phone to properly work?
Or put it another way can you use it connecting from a 3'5 jack out of your DAP?

 

[ClieOS]

  Can you use the E5 as an amp for ipod, sansa, etc Or it has to be connected to a computer or phone to properly work?
Or put it another way can you use it connecting from a 3'5 jack out of your DAP?

Yes. It works as pure amp as well..

 

[TJ Max]

Can you use the E5 as an amp for ipod, sansa, etc Or it has to be connected to a computer or phone to properly work?
Or put it another way can you use it connecting from a 3'5 jack out of your DAP?

You can use it as a DAC for a computer, iPod touch 5,iPhone 5&6, and Android phone 4.0+. however installing a special services in order for the DAC to function correctly from the app stores.

You can also use it as a straight AMP through the analog 3.5 mm input .

 

[TripBitShooter]

I definitely wouldn't recommend using it purely as an amp straight from a headphone out, as this is double amping.

 

[earfonia]

 
Yes. It works as pure amp as well..

 
Really? Will the Line In bypass the ADC?
I think the line input always goes to ADC, converting analog to digital, and then streams the digital signal to the DSP, and then to DAC to convert it back to analog. I don't see the way to set E5 line input to bypass it's DSP and ADC.
E5 doesn't have analog volume pot, only digital volume, so the signal must be converted to digital first to make use of the volume pot. Also when using the analog line input, we can always turn on the SBX and we can hear that the DSP processes the audio signal. So I don't see we can use E5 as pure analog amp.
 
Yes, we can plug in any analog signal to the line input, and we will hear it amplified on the headphone output like using a normal headphone amp, but the analog signal is not directly amplified by the headphone amplifier, but already converted to digital first before amplification. Not direct amplification like analog headphone amp.

 

[Angry]

Hi guys, just for those who is using iPhone 4/4S running iOS7, the E5 works as well via the 30 pin usb cable.
 

 

[moophus]

hmm, if there isn't a way to bypass the ADC and the DAC and just use the unit as an AMP that would be minus a point in my books.
More importantly, the fact that the volume is not analog would be a deal-breaker for me! That would mean that lowering the volume means reducing the dynamic range.
Can someone confirm this?
Suddenly it's looking less promising to me.

 

[earfonia]

  hmm, if there isn't a way to bypass the ADC and the DAC and just use the unit as an AMP that would be minus a point in my books.
More importantly, the fact that the volume is not analog would be a deal-breaker for me! That would mean that lowering the volume means reducing the dynamic range.
Can someone confirm this?
Suddenly it's looking less promising to me.

 
SB E5 is more of an audio 'Swiss Army Knife'. Small portable unit to do many audio tasks. For the features E5 has, it is make sense to do all in digital domain.
What I'm curious to know is, whether the DSP is processing the audio in 24 or 32 bits. @LucasCL, could you please confirm about it?
 
Lowering volume in digital volume reducing the resolution. But we shouldn't be worry about it, if the digital volume is using 32 bit.
From my experience, digital volume is fine. I have Mytek 192-DSD that has both digital and analog volume, often the digital volume sounds cleaner. My Yulong DA8 is using digital volume, and is currently my best sounding DAC+Amp. In fact many analog volume pot showing deterioration after sometime. Volume imbalance, and those scratchy noises. Don't worry too much about digital volume, these days digital volume control is quite advance and sounds good, and last longer.
 
Anyway, I'm quite impressed with the sound quality of E5, it sounds very good with my DUNU DN-1000 and DN-2000.

 

[moophus]

Yes, true.
I found a helpful article:
http://www.esstech.com/PDF/digital-vs-analog-volume-control.pdf
 
so  the question is, what bitrate does the DSP operate in?