At the moment I own both the FiiO E12A and Cayin C5 portable amps, and can give you a big comparison.
In late February, I bought an E12A at a local Hi-Fi shop after comparing it with the C5 while using my V-Moda M-100 headphones. One of the biggest reasons I chose the former was because the bass boost sounded so much better, and didn't color the upper midbass and lower midrange as much as the bass boost on the C5.
But since I had yet to discover Rockbox firmware, I never ran enough bass to my headphones to even come close to maxing out either amp. I also couldn't set any custom EQ presets to eliminate excess sound at certain frequencies.
So at that time, the E12A was the better amp for me.
But in late March, I Rockboxed my iPod Classic and created 193 of my own custom EQ presets on it -- many with huge bass increments. Within a week I started noticing the E12A's max power for my M-100s (400mW @ 32 ohms) sometimes wasn't enough, as I'd occasionally run into amp clipping on some songs if I pushed a ton of bass.
So I went back to the local Hi-Fi shop to do some A-Bee-ing with the C5 amp and my E12A while trying different songs and different EQ presets.
One song I compared was Lionel Richie's 1985 tune "Dancing on the Ceiling." First I used the custom EQ preset "0 Flat 5 Bass," which boosts the 32 Hz and 64 Hz bands by 15 dB each (with an EQ precut of 15 dB), and combined it with the bass boost on the E12A, which adds an extra 6 dB of sub-bass on top of that.
This is my ideal setting for this song, which makes it pound hard while sounding great. But if I crank it up quite a bit, it starts clipping the E12A. The same also happens without using the bass boost switch, and while using the EQ preset "0 Flat 7 Bass," which boosts 32 Hz and 64 Hz by 21 dB each. But this way, I also notice the upper midbass and lower midrange seems a bit lacking without the slight boost from the E12A's bass switch.
Next comes the C5 amp. Same song, same two EQ presets. The C5's bass boost switch (which adds 5.5 dB of sub-bass, while boosting the upper midbass/lower midrange somewhat more than the switch on the E12A) made it sound good, but not ideal. And with the switch off, the sound quality of this song was roughly the same as on the E12A with its bass switch turned off.
But the considerable difference was in the power output.
On this song and others while turning up the volume, the C5 seemed capable of playing the bass about 50 percent louder before amp clipping began. If you do the math, 50% louder = 1.5 times louder, and 1.5 squared = 2.25 times the power. 10 log 2.25 = 3.5 dB of gain.
Now, in the specifications, Cayin claims that the C5 amp has "800mW + 800mW" (or 1600mW) of power at 32 ohms, but after doing my own comparison with the E12A, I think this spec is false. My guess is that 450mW + 450 mW (or 900mW total) at 32 ohms is probably closer to the actual output of the C5.
So either Cayin is overrating the power spec on the C5, or FiiO is underrating the power on the E12A, or both. But I think it's much more of the former than the latter.
Continuing on, I noticed another difference between the amps: because the bass boost switch on the E12A doesn't add too much upper midbass and lower midrange, it won't mask the super-deep sub-bass. It also has a very good infrasonic extension on the low end that really rumbles through. The C5 bass boost also enables super-deep sub-bass and infrasound as well, but because it colors the upper midbass / lower midrange too much, this tends to "mask" the low end and makes it sound less deep. This extra midbass coloration even makes the highs sound less crisp.
With the bass boosts switched off, I sometimes would run out of "bass increments" in my Rockboxed EQ presets -- especially when using the "Optimized" and "Optimized Lite" categories, so they couldn't play as deep on those songs. And with the bass boosts turned on, the E12A sounded deeper because it didn't have the "masking" problem.
In my opinion, the bass boost switch on the E12A is excellent. The very slight boost it gives to the upper midbass and lower midrange adds almost the right amount of richness and soundstage to the music. And on songs with too much sound in this range, the "Optimized" and "Optimized Lite" categories in my EQ presets can conveniently be used to fix this problem.
In contrast, the C5's bass boost switch colors the upper midbass / lower midrange too much, which works against "enriching" the sound. And if I simply turn off that switch, this frequency range often sounds lacking, as does the E12A with its bass switch turned off.
But luckily, I figured out an "EQ fix" for the C5 bass boost, and have made it sound better than the E12A!
So in early April, I finally bought the C5. I calibrated and implemented this "EQ fix" in a matter of a few hours, and the C5 now has better sound quality than the E12A ever did! Here's what this magic adjustment looks like:
125 Hz: -1.5 dB
250 Hz: -1.5 dB
500 Hz: -0.3 dB
With this adjustment for the C5, this frequency range is perfectly matched with the rest of the music, and doesn't mask the highs and lows. The music now plays just as deep (if not deeper), the highs sound very-slightly brighter and crisper, and the music has a more "solid" sound to it now, compared to the E12A.
And the extra 3.5 dB of power gain comes in handy very often. With the E12A, I'd often bump up against the max power of the amp and get clipping distortion while wanting to listen to that song a little louder. But this practically never happens with the C5: if I'm maxing it out, then it's really hurting my ears. I'd never listen to it at that level, and am just curious sometimes to see how loud it can get for one or two seconds.
Humorously, with this extra power, there's something else the C5 can do, which the E12A can't: exposing the Sennheiser HD 650 headphones as a flimsy paper tiger that goes, "Snap, crackle, pop," like Rice Krispies -- and without the slightest bit of amp clipping!
At the Hi-Fi shop, I sampled the HD 650s they had on display. I set my Rockbox EQ preset to "0 Flat 3 Bass," which boosts 32 Hz and 64 Hz by 9 dB each, coupled with the bass boost switch on the E12A or C5, which boosts the sub-bass by an additional 6 dB or so on top of that. I then tried cranking up the Japanese pop song "Alright" by Kana Nishino.
These HD 650 "bad boys" were a whopping 300 ohms (as opposed to the mere 32 ohms of my M-100 headphones) and had a 5 dB lower sensitivity in addition to that, so surely the HD 650s could handle some power, right?
With the E12A, they had no problem with the thumping beat, even though it couldn't play very loud nor hit very hard. If I turned up the volume enough, I started getting amp clipping.
But while cranking up this song with the C5 running these HD 650 headphones, something entirely different happened. Not only was I able to play it significantly louder, but the headphone drivers started bottoming out with the beat! Snap, crackle, pop,...and no amp clipping! Hahahahahahahaha
(Don't worry; I quickly turned down the volume within one second after hearing that sound, so it wouldn't damage the drivers. And by contrast, I've never been able to make my M-100s bottom out with the beat -- not even with the C5 maxed out, and in spite of the M-100s being driven with 15 times the equivalent power than the HD 650s: 5 times the amp power from the lower impedance, multiplied by 3 times the power from the higher sensitivity.)
Anyway (moving on), let's compare the noise floor of the E12A and the C5. This is important, because I always prefer to set the gain on the amp at max and control the volume from the iPod, so it's easier to use. With the E12A gain at max and the music player turned off, I can't notice hardly any noise or hiss sound, but I can hear a little bit of hiss noise on the C5. So at first glance, it seems like I'd get less overall noise with the E12A.
Well, not exactly.
At medium and high music volumes, the C5 actually has less overall noise than on the E12A, because with the C5's extra power and volume output, I don't need to turn up the volume on my Rockboxed iPod as much. Therefore, the resulting less noise coming from the iPod more than offsets the extra noise floor on the C5.
And while listening at low volumes, I can just flip the gain switch on the C5 to "low" to eliminate the extra noise floor on it, so that isn't a problem, either.
The E12A does have two distinct advantages over the C5, though: the rigid aluminum casing, and the extra battery life.
But thus far, the battery life on the C5 seems to be similar to my iPod Classic. (I recently had the iPod battery replaced and the circuit boards thoroughly cleaned, and it runs like a champ. I've had it for more than 6 1/2 years.) Since I always charge my iPod and amp at the same time with separate charger plugs, this really isn't a problem. (I use a 2-ampere (2A) USB charger plug for the amplifier.) Compared to the E12A, the C5 takes about twice as long to charge because the C5 battery gets used up faster, but this is no big deal.
Now it certainly would be nice if the C5 casing were made of rigid metal like the E12A, but...oh well.
In conclusion, my recommendations for choosing between the FiiO E12A and the Cayin C5 amps are as follows:
If your music player doesn't have a customizable 10-band equalizer and/or can't be Rockboxed, then you definitely should pick the E12A. Its bass boost switch will sound great and work well for you.
On the other hand, if your music player can be Rockboxed or already is, and/or it has its own customizable 10-band EQ, then you certainly should choose the C5. You can use the "EQ adjustment" listed above to make the bass boost switch sound good. And if you have Rockbox, you can download and use my 2 sets of 193 EQ presets to really make your day!
Also, if your headphones are more than 150 ohms, you should pick the C5. The E12A can't play them very loud.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my little comparison between these two awesome portable amps. Happy amping!
Feedback is welcome, of course.
In late February, I bought an E12A at a local Hi-Fi shop after comparing it with the C5 while using my V-Moda M-100 headphones. One of the biggest reasons I chose the former was because the bass boost sounded so much better, and didn't color the upper midbass and lower midrange as much as the bass boost on the C5.
But since I had yet to discover Rockbox firmware, I never ran enough bass to my headphones to even come close to maxing out either amp. I also couldn't set any custom EQ presets to eliminate excess sound at certain frequencies.
So at that time, the E12A was the better amp for me.
But in late March, I Rockboxed my iPod Classic and created 193 of my own custom EQ presets on it -- many with huge bass increments. Within a week I started noticing the E12A's max power for my M-100s (400mW @ 32 ohms) sometimes wasn't enough, as I'd occasionally run into amp clipping on some songs if I pushed a ton of bass.
So I went back to the local Hi-Fi shop to do some A-Bee-ing with the C5 amp and my E12A while trying different songs and different EQ presets.
One song I compared was Lionel Richie's 1985 tune "Dancing on the Ceiling." First I used the custom EQ preset "0 Flat 5 Bass," which boosts the 32 Hz and 64 Hz bands by 15 dB each (with an EQ precut of 15 dB), and combined it with the bass boost on the E12A, which adds an extra 6 dB of sub-bass on top of that.
This is my ideal setting for this song, which makes it pound hard while sounding great. But if I crank it up quite a bit, it starts clipping the E12A. The same also happens without using the bass boost switch, and while using the EQ preset "0 Flat 7 Bass," which boosts 32 Hz and 64 Hz by 21 dB each. But this way, I also notice the upper midbass and lower midrange seems a bit lacking without the slight boost from the E12A's bass switch.
Next comes the C5 amp. Same song, same two EQ presets. The C5's bass boost switch (which adds 5.5 dB of sub-bass, while boosting the upper midbass/lower midrange somewhat more than the switch on the E12A) made it sound good, but not ideal. And with the switch off, the sound quality of this song was roughly the same as on the E12A with its bass switch turned off.
But the considerable difference was in the power output.
On this song and others while turning up the volume, the C5 seemed capable of playing the bass about 50 percent louder before amp clipping began. If you do the math, 50% louder = 1.5 times louder, and 1.5 squared = 2.25 times the power. 10 log 2.25 = 3.5 dB of gain.
Now, in the specifications, Cayin claims that the C5 amp has "800mW + 800mW" (or 1600mW) of power at 32 ohms, but after doing my own comparison with the E12A, I think this spec is false. My guess is that 450mW + 450 mW (or 900mW total) at 32 ohms is probably closer to the actual output of the C5.
So either Cayin is overrating the power spec on the C5, or FiiO is underrating the power on the E12A, or both. But I think it's much more of the former than the latter.
Continuing on, I noticed another difference between the amps: because the bass boost switch on the E12A doesn't add too much upper midbass and lower midrange, it won't mask the super-deep sub-bass. It also has a very good infrasonic extension on the low end that really rumbles through. The C5 bass boost also enables super-deep sub-bass and infrasound as well, but because it colors the upper midbass / lower midrange too much, this tends to "mask" the low end and makes it sound less deep. This extra midbass coloration even makes the highs sound less crisp.
With the bass boosts switched off, I sometimes would run out of "bass increments" in my Rockboxed EQ presets -- especially when using the "Optimized" and "Optimized Lite" categories, so they couldn't play as deep on those songs. And with the bass boosts turned on, the E12A sounded deeper because it didn't have the "masking" problem.
In my opinion, the bass boost switch on the E12A is excellent. The very slight boost it gives to the upper midbass and lower midrange adds almost the right amount of richness and soundstage to the music. And on songs with too much sound in this range, the "Optimized" and "Optimized Lite" categories in my EQ presets can conveniently be used to fix this problem.
In contrast, the C5's bass boost switch colors the upper midbass / lower midrange too much, which works against "enriching" the sound. And if I simply turn off that switch, this frequency range often sounds lacking, as does the E12A with its bass switch turned off.
But luckily, I figured out an "EQ fix" for the C5 bass boost, and have made it sound better than the E12A!
So in early April, I finally bought the C5. I calibrated and implemented this "EQ fix" in a matter of a few hours, and the C5 now has better sound quality than the E12A ever did! Here's what this magic adjustment looks like:
125 Hz: -1.5 dB
250 Hz: -1.5 dB
500 Hz: -0.3 dB
With this adjustment for the C5, this frequency range is perfectly matched with the rest of the music, and doesn't mask the highs and lows. The music now plays just as deep (if not deeper), the highs sound very-slightly brighter and crisper, and the music has a more "solid" sound to it now, compared to the E12A.
And the extra 3.5 dB of power gain comes in handy very often. With the E12A, I'd often bump up against the max power of the amp and get clipping distortion while wanting to listen to that song a little louder. But this practically never happens with the C5: if I'm maxing it out, then it's really hurting my ears. I'd never listen to it at that level, and am just curious sometimes to see how loud it can get for one or two seconds.
Humorously, with this extra power, there's something else the C5 can do, which the E12A can't: exposing the Sennheiser HD 650 headphones as a flimsy paper tiger that goes, "Snap, crackle, pop," like Rice Krispies -- and without the slightest bit of amp clipping!
At the Hi-Fi shop, I sampled the HD 650s they had on display. I set my Rockbox EQ preset to "0 Flat 3 Bass," which boosts 32 Hz and 64 Hz by 9 dB each, coupled with the bass boost switch on the E12A or C5, which boosts the sub-bass by an additional 6 dB or so on top of that. I then tried cranking up the Japanese pop song "Alright" by Kana Nishino.
These HD 650 "bad boys" were a whopping 300 ohms (as opposed to the mere 32 ohms of my M-100 headphones) and had a 5 dB lower sensitivity in addition to that, so surely the HD 650s could handle some power, right?
With the E12A, they had no problem with the thumping beat, even though it couldn't play very loud nor hit very hard. If I turned up the volume enough, I started getting amp clipping.
But while cranking up this song with the C5 running these HD 650 headphones, something entirely different happened. Not only was I able to play it significantly louder, but the headphone drivers started bottoming out with the beat! Snap, crackle, pop,...and no amp clipping! Hahahahahahahaha
(Don't worry; I quickly turned down the volume within one second after hearing that sound, so it wouldn't damage the drivers. And by contrast, I've never been able to make my M-100s bottom out with the beat -- not even with the C5 maxed out, and in spite of the M-100s being driven with 15 times the equivalent power than the HD 650s: 5 times the amp power from the lower impedance, multiplied by 3 times the power from the higher sensitivity.)
Anyway (moving on), let's compare the noise floor of the E12A and the C5. This is important, because I always prefer to set the gain on the amp at max and control the volume from the iPod, so it's easier to use. With the E12A gain at max and the music player turned off, I can't notice hardly any noise or hiss sound, but I can hear a little bit of hiss noise on the C5. So at first glance, it seems like I'd get less overall noise with the E12A.
Well, not exactly.
At medium and high music volumes, the C5 actually has less overall noise than on the E12A, because with the C5's extra power and volume output, I don't need to turn up the volume on my Rockboxed iPod as much. Therefore, the resulting less noise coming from the iPod more than offsets the extra noise floor on the C5.
And while listening at low volumes, I can just flip the gain switch on the C5 to "low" to eliminate the extra noise floor on it, so that isn't a problem, either.
The E12A does have two distinct advantages over the C5, though: the rigid aluminum casing, and the extra battery life.
But thus far, the battery life on the C5 seems to be similar to my iPod Classic. (I recently had the iPod battery replaced and the circuit boards thoroughly cleaned, and it runs like a champ. I've had it for more than 6 1/2 years.) Since I always charge my iPod and amp at the same time with separate charger plugs, this really isn't a problem. (I use a 2-ampere (2A) USB charger plug for the amplifier.) Compared to the E12A, the C5 takes about twice as long to charge because the C5 battery gets used up faster, but this is no big deal.
Now it certainly would be nice if the C5 casing were made of rigid metal like the E12A, but...oh well.
In conclusion, my recommendations for choosing between the FiiO E12A and the Cayin C5 amps are as follows:
If your music player doesn't have a customizable 10-band equalizer and/or can't be Rockboxed, then you definitely should pick the E12A. Its bass boost switch will sound great and work well for you.
On the other hand, if your music player can be Rockboxed or already is, and/or it has its own customizable 10-band EQ, then you certainly should choose the C5. You can use the "EQ adjustment" listed above to make the bass boost switch sound good. And if you have Rockbox, you can download and use my 2 sets of 193 EQ presets to really make your day!
Also, if your headphones are more than 150 ohms, you should pick the C5. The E12A can't play them very loud.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my little comparison between these two awesome portable amps. Happy amping!
Feedback is welcome, of course.
