[gjc10212]

Lovely sounding portable amp, adds a nice touch of warmth to the mid on my 770's without troubling the already great bass.  My settings are D2 (vol.50) > E11 Eq0, gain L, under the batt. Low.  Plenty of grunt for my 80 ohm 770's.

 

[Soul Hoe]

Also received my E11 this morning courtesy of the good folk at PJBOX. I've not had the time to charge/test it yet, and so can't post any sonically-geared impressions for now - at the very moment I finished taking some pictures earlier today I was obliged to head out for lunch with my good family. Go figure! But here are some initial aesthetic/tactile impressions and an exhaustive unboxing gallery while I throw my unit on charge!

* This thing is TINY. Even the PACKAGE seemed small as it dropped through the letterbox, despite using plenty of extra size on air and bubble wrap:
 

 
* The product packaging itself. Came wrapped in a thin layer of plastic:
 

 
* Ooh, shiny:
 

 
* Product specs on the rear:
 

 
* User manual sits atop the E11:
 

 
* Nothing prepared me for how small this thing is. I knew it was going to be small... just not that small. From all the pictures I'd seen online I'd just developed this mental impression that it would be somewhat larger and chunkier. It is also very light - again, more so than I was expecting. Overall it feels a little dinkier and less punishable than I had imagined - more plasticky-feeling and less rugged aluminium. After removing the battery cover I'm not even sure that the front and back panels are made from aluminium, as was claimed. It certainly feels like plastic to me... perhaps it's the thinnest aluminium I've ever felt? Nonetheless, the unit overall feels fairly solid and of adequate build quality to me... just a little flimsier than my expectations.
 

 
* Again, for scale. And that's a 50 pence piece by the way, for non-UK denizens! But don't let my hands fool you; they're sort of abnormally large:
 

 
* The supplied USB charging cable and 3.5 mm interconnect seem of sound build quality. The connectors have a quality feel to them.
 

 
* The snazzy silicone band. As mentioned above, it'd be hard to argue with this statement:
 

 
* The E11 banded to my Cowon J3. EXACTLY!
 

 
* Oh, wait, there it is...
 

 
* And here it is again. The volume control, by the way, has a very decent feel to it. After hearing of the volume that can potentially be pumped out of this thing, I was worried about the prospect of accidentally turning the volume knob inside of my pants pocket and blowing my ear drums into next week. Thankfully, upon receiving the E11, I know that this is definitely not of concern. The knob requires a fair bit of force to be turned at all... not overly so, but just enough to put your mind at ease. The integrated on/off switch is also suitably 'clicky' - it'd be hard to turn on accidentally under any circumstances, I feel.
 

 
* The side buttons/sliders feel pretty neat, too. As neat as something that is made out of plastic can be, I'd say. They pop with a nice, little, audible 'click'. The in/out ports, on the other hand, felt a little disappointing to me. The jack more sort of 'slips' in/out with a small amount of resistance rather than 'clamping' in with a good, audible 'click'. Nevertheless, they'll do the job just fine.
 

 
* The last few images are of the E11 connected up to my Cowon J3 and Hippo VBs with the supplied silicone band and interconnect.
 

 

 

 
I remember reading a comment a little earlier in the thread from somebody who wanted to know more about the overall 'feel' of the unit and its build. I hope these impressions will prove useful to some people despite the complete lack of more sonically-geared information! I'll be sure to post something in that vein once I have it...

 

[kanuka]

fabulous pictures!

 

[JoetheArachnid]

Quote:

I remember reading a comment a little earlier in the thread from somebody who wanted to know more about the overall 'feel' of the unit and its build. I hope these impressions will prove useful to some people despite the complete lack of more sonically-geared information! I'll be sure to post something in that vein once I have it...

That would be me. And you needn't have worried - I've just opened mine! Charging at the moment, and the package arrived banded to the packet that had my 1550mAh BL-5B in it.
 
No listening impressions yet (I'll save those until my 'ooh new shiny' phase has worn off) but here are a couple of size comparison photos:
 

 
Next to a credit card. I realised when I looked at the original dimensions that they have an indentical footprint. Another thing that has this footprint is...
 

 
...the ubiquitous Hammond 1455C80 instrument case. This is the enclosure used by the Mini³, γ1, Just Audio uHA-120, et al. As you can see, the E11 has the same base footprint but is only just over half the thickness. (note that this is my γ1 enclosure but does not yet contain a γ1 because of exams and lack of money)

 

[Magedark]

That is much smaller than I thought it would be.
And Joe, I thought the Hammond was translucent for a second there.

 

[swbf2cheater]

mine should be here tomorrow and i just received a few new earbud demo units to review...im so excited T_T

 

[JoetheArachnid]

Quote:

That is much smaller than I thought it would be.
And Joe, I thought the Hammond was translucent for a second there.

The panels are acrylic, hence the reflection. I accquired them from a man in Singapore.
 
And yeah, even knowing that it was the same size as a credit card I was still shocked by its size.

 

[gazeds]

Very impressed with the sound quality, this thing could blow your ear drum,s out. The only quible is a slight hiss on high gain at the start of track,s but not noticable once the track start,s. Listenning on low power with high gain and eq off

 

[gavinfabl]

Been listening a lot more now with the E11. The grunt of this amp is superb. So much power. Like others I was so surprised at its small size. I was expecting bigger. And it is as light as a feather. Now that's a good thing as carrying in my pocket wont weigh me down.

I have tried it with the Fiio L9 lod to my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 with 320 bit rate mp3 recording. I have used my Fischer Audio FA-003 and REOs. I am comparing the E11 to my E5, and E9/E7 combo. The E9/e7 combo connected via USB does wonders for my FA-003 but lacks depth with the REOs. The E11 with the bass boost converts my REOs into a mean bad ass headphone. Adds the sub depth bass beautifully. A great combo with E11.

I prefer the transparency sound of the E9 with the FA-003. But even though the E11 is slightly darker/warmer in sound, with bass boost set at 1 the FA-003 do sound satisfyingly lovely.

I have tried rock, classical, jazz, blues, female vocal, pop and Cuban. All are handled really well. The amount of detail and soundstage is very impressive too. Listening to Melody Gardot live and it feels like I am in the audience.

Overall I am blown away by this little amp. I love the size and light weight. Yet it pumps out volume and depth.

Can someone help me. What does high or low gain actually do and what is the pro or cons.

 

[JoetheArachnid]

Gain is pretty much how much the sound gets. You should technically pick your gain to give you the most control over the volume knob - so low gain for high sensitivity, high gain for low sensitivity. On some amps the sound may be better on a higher gain setting, though I personally haven't found much difference other than loudness between the two in my very short listening time. There's also the matter of hiss; high gain might give more hiss on sensitive IEMs than low gain. Considering that the RE0 are 64ohm and not all that sensitive, this shouldn't be an issue.

 

[mangan]

 What does high or low power settings actually do? 

 

[RadChild]

I know this might have been asked before, but I want to know the following - is there a need for this type of amp if I'm using low impedance headphones with the Sansa Clip+? I don't really need any more volume gain, but if it's going to improve SQ, I'll consider the E11.

 

[Shaverz]

How is the bass on this amp?

 

[psgarcha92]

@ClieOS and everybody else with the E11+RE0 combo, is the bass as detailed as it can be when using the E11, or does the bass boost does something bad to RE0's bass quality? Also how does this amp compare to the Headstage Arrow 12HE?

 

[psgarcha92]

@RadChild,
its Low Impedance, not independance.
Also, basically i'd say an amp like E11 helps the most when we want to bypass the internal amplifier of the DAP we are using (not possible with the clip+). With my Fuze (same hardware and SQ as the Clip), amping the Headphone Out (only option available with the clip+) was not as awesome as using the amp bypassing the internal amp, but thats all subjective. IMO, amplifying Headphone out is not that worth it. Also, search the forums a little bit, read alot, learn, and start a new thread.

@Fiio,
when is India getting its bunch of E11s? Talking about lynx. We are excited here FiiO, give us some kickass E11s.
Couldn't edit last post coz am using my cell.