[tubal]

How is the quality on Fiio these days?
 
I bought an e7 a month or so ago, and had to send it back because one side of it just quit working after a couple of days.  While trouble shooting, I tested just the line-in, and i couldn't get any sound unless I pushed the jack in with some force.  So there was two separate issues on my one unit.
 
Plus some other reviews on amazon showed that they had to send theirs back too.  With this e17 being broken on arrival, i'm just getting a little leary.
 
I was going to get another e7, now thinking about waiting for an e17, but a little worried.  I really liked the e7 when it worked, but I don't want to have to get 4 copies before I find one that will keep working.
 

 

[ClieOS]

Regarding FiiO's QC issue, I have explained it on another thread.

Quote:

To FiiO's defense, it is not about quality control, but the scale of operation.
 
A typical portable amp maker in the forum, say RSA, Headamp and even iBasso, etc. probably make less than hundred per week (and likely per month). A typical amp maker sells around thousand of amps the whole year. For what I know (as told by their authorized dealer), some of them sell only a few hundred a year. Only the most popular of portable amp maker sell over thousand unit. Because they sell so little in number, they can have the time to take care of every thing. Guess how many amps FiiO typically makes a month? Answer: Over 5K easily, and over 15K in a busy month. Even with just 1% of failure rate passes over QC in the slowest month, there are still around 50 bad amps in the market - and that is half the production number of many other small headphone amp maker out there.
 
Now if you think about it - if FiiO received 50 complaint in Head-fi per months, everyone will think FiiO has bad QC. Yet if another amp maker who makes only 100 amp per month get only one complaint, everyone think he has really good build quality. The fact is, they are both in the same 1% failure rate. Even with the best of QC, you will still see a lot more defected FiiO than any other amp maker simply because they are the largest portable amp maker in the world right now, and probably produce more headphone amp than all the other headphone amps maker combined.

It will be silly for FiiO to send defected unit to reviewer as it will only come back and bite them. But crap does happen and some time it is out of their control. They already tested the unit to full function before sending it to me but somehow something must have happened during the shipping that caused the AUX-in to malfunction. I have had almost every amp / DAC FiiO made so far and this is the first unit that has the problem. I am not worrying at this point, especially since FiiO is still very much committed to take care of its user when any problem arises.

 

[N0sferatu]

I'd like to know how much power can this amp/dac drive?  Is it capable of pushing something like the HD600 easily or is it going to be one of those you crank to full blast and barely get any volume out of it?

 

[ClieOS]

 
Quote:

I'd like to know how much power can this amp/dac drive?  Is it capable of pushing something like the HD600 easily or is it going to be one of those you crank to full blast and barely get any volume out of it?

It should have more than enough volume for HD600 (E17 has a 12dB gain in AUX-in and 6dB gain for USB-in). Whether it will drive it well is beyond me. I don't have any hard to drive full size.

 

[AxelCloris]

Thanks for the first impressions ClieOS! This hasn't helped the wait any though

 

[kingpage]

Quote:

I'd like to know how much power can this amp/dac drive?  Is it capable of pushing something like the HD600 easily or is it going to be one of those you crank to full blast and barely get any volume out of it?

Educated guess - yes. E10 could drive HD600 to about 111dBSPL peak.

 

[kazxenon]

Looks really good, how is the amp section of the E17 compared to the iBasso T5?

 

[EddieE]

Quote:

Eh? No dual headphone-out like previous version, the E7?
Seriously, FiiO... My GF will be really mad if we can't share music anymore

Because she's worth it...

 
 

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

Looks really good, how is the amp section of the E17 compared to the iBasso T5?

From memory, I will say T5 sounds better than E17, but not night and day difference. I'll post a real comparison once I have the E17 replacement (which should be here by early next week).

 

[jono454]

Hmm would it be a better option to combine the e17 as a DAC along with my e9 OR get the [size=x-small]Audinst HUD-mx1 as a Dac with my e9. I would be using this setup for my AKG K702, SR60 and pro550.[/size]

 

[kazxenon]

Quote:

From memory, I will say T5 sounds better than E17, but not night and day difference. I'll post a real comparison once I have the E17 replacement (which should be here by early next week).

Thanks! Thinking of getting E17 as a amp + DAC combo to replace the T5 which I may be passing over to someone else 

 

 

[emsijs]

It does look really awesome, but the it's the buttons I'm worried. They don't look very easy to manipulate with big fingers.

 

[Coop]

Quote:

you might be seeing the $250 to $300 as having a lot of competition. but let me remind you that you can't compare this $250-$300 setup to a desktop only setup of the same price. bc in that desktop setup. can you grab a crucial part of that setup, the DAC and 215mW @ 32 Ohms amp off of it. Use it with your pod, and then when you are console gaming, plut it in to get great sound. and also portably use it at a friends house? 

Not to mention that many people already have an E9...
 

 

[Mdclol]

Doesn't look like it has 2 headphone out ports my girlfriend will miss the second one. As will I. 

 

[*podman*]

Hi ClieOS, great review so far!  Do you have any initial comparisons against the D-Zero, or would you rather wait until your replacement unit arrives?
 
I don't have any particular need for the screen, optical or co-ax inputs in the E17- I just want something small and portable to carry around with my MacBook & IEM's as I'm spending a lot of time away from home at the moment.  I don't really see myself as needing the aux-in and battery at the moment either, so I was initially looking at the E10, however I'd like something more portable, and I think the battery might be useful in the future.
 
I tend to keep my stuff for a long time without upgrading (I'm on here and browsing because my 4-year old IEM's are failing and I'm looking for alternatives and customs!), so build quality and longevity is also of concern.
 
I'm in the UK, where the FiiO prices tend to be slightly more favorable than iBasso, so I don't expect there'll be such a massive price difference between the two, however I would like to order quite soon- current availability of the D-zero does make it more tempting!
 
Cheers!