[subseasniper]

Hi there,
 
I own a pair of Sennheiser HD595's and am planning on an amp to improve the sound from both my macbook pro and my ipod classic.
 
Now, couple of questions here.
 
1) Would a Fiio E7 make a big sound difference with the macbook and is the E7 mac compatible?
 
2) If I pair the E7 with an L3 would this improve the sound in my Sennys from the ipod?
 
3) Also, is there anyway to bypass the iPods internal DAC and have the sound route through the E7's DAC? Would an L11 allow this function.
 
4) If I can bypass the iPod DAC and instead utilise the E7's DAC would the sound be much improved?
 
The reason I am looking to invest is that I find the sound of the 595's a little weak and feel they need beefing up.
 
 
Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[bixby]

1. The Dac and amp in the e7 are passable and will have some effect vs your hp out on the macbook.  Should be better but not that great.
2.  Slightly
3.Not with the E7
4.You cannot
 
For a little less than the e7 you can get an amp with much better sound like the JDS Labs cmoy or better yet the JDS Labs C421.  As for an all in one dac amp for the  macbook, try a HRT Headstreamer if you can swing it.  Review on my blog if interested.

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

Hi there,
 
I own a pair of Sennheiser HD595's and am planning on an amp to improve the sound from both my macbook pro and my ipod classic.
 
Now, couple of questions here.
 
1) Would a Fiio E7 make a big sound difference with the macbook and is the E7 mac compatible?
 
2) If I pair the E7 with an L3 would this improve the sound in my Sennys from the ipod?
 
3) Also, is there anyway to bypass the iPods internal DAC and have the sound route through the E7's DAC? Would an L11 allow this function.
 
4) If I can bypass the iPod DAC and instead utilise the E7's DAC would the sound be much improved?
 
The reason I am looking to invest is that I find the sound of the 595's a little weak and feel they need beefing up.
 
 
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Simmilar to Bixbt
 
1: Not really, the Macbook already uses a good Cirrus Logic DAC, Yes it is compatible
2) A bit
3) Not at this time, but with other devices ...yes(desktop ones that can do this are as low as $100, portable ones are in the $500 range)
4)You can't do it with the E7

 

[subseasniper]

Guys,
 
thanks for the prompt and insightful replies.
 
So, moving on from the above questions, will using the E7 give my 595's a bit of bite, they seem to need something to improve the soundstage.
 
Any recommendations for some reasonably priced solutions would be ideal.
 
Thanks,
 

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

Guys,
 
thanks for the prompt and insightful replies.
 
So, moving on from the above questions, will using the E7 give my 595's a bit of bite, they seem to need something to improve the soundstage.
 
Any recommendations for some reasonably priced solutions would be ideal.
 
Thanks,
 

Maybe an amp?
 
Go look at a few reviews for the 595's and see if they improve with amping, if they do, then an amp would be fine

 

[subseasniper]

Checking that right now, thought I would jump the gun and see if any experts know of a good 595 / amp pairing.
 

 

[Amputate]

Srry for hi-jacking your thread here but didn't want to flood the forum by making essentially the same thread.
 
 
So it seems you can't use the E7 DAC on an iPod but what about the E17 Alpen?
 
And also I don't really understand why you can't use the DAC of the E7 with an iPod to begin with... =/
If you get one of those dock to USB cables, and mod it to be a Dock to mini-usb that fits in the E7... why would that not work?? 

 

[bixby]

Quote:

Srry for hi-jacking your thread here but didn't want to flood the forum by making essentially the same thread.
 
 
So it seems you can't use the E7 DAC on an iPod but what about the E17 Alpen?
 
And also I don't really understand why you can't use the DAC of the E7 with an iPod to begin with... =/
If you get one of those dock to USB cables, and mod it to be a Dock to mini-usb that fits in the E7... why would that not work?? 

E7 and E17 have dacs and amps.  Neither will work as a dac with the ipod.  They can be used as amps and connect via hp out on the ipod or lod on the ipod to the line in on the Fiios.
 
No you cannot mod one of those usb dock cables to make it give you digital out form the ipod.  Several companies have managed to devise a connection to get digital out from ipods, but their solutions are much more costly.  Three that I know of are ALO, Wadia, and Fostex.
 
BTW the dac in the ipod is pretty good so I would not look there for major changes in SQ, rather spend $400 or more on a great iem and amp.

 

[subseasniper]

Guys, i now have an E7 with L3 dockout and i am really happy. The 595s sound waaaaaay better when amped. I dug out a seriously old ipod classic, swapped out the battery and filed it with WAV files. I also installed rockbox on my ipod to gain more control ofthe sound output. As i type i am listening to War of the Worlds (which I know intimately) and am hearing sounds I didnt know were there. A real watershed moment. Although I am not using the E7s DAC function i have still improved the sound massively. One happy camper over here.

 

[bowei006]

Great that you are liking it. Diy projects are always fun. Almost always that is.