[Roller]

Recommending or mentioning unreleased gear sounds silly to me, when the purpose of the thread is to get hardware, which means it has to be available. Anyway, I couldn't care less about surround, which is something that wasn't even brought up here
 
If you don't have any need for additional I/O, but also want to do music/games/movies and are budget constricted, have you thought about getting something smaller, like a X-Fi Go! (non-Pro model) or a Xonar U3, along with a Fiio E11 (portable headphone amplifier)? That way you would get a more modular setup that you can customize more easily and less expensively.

 

[keanex]

I understand that the E10 isn't released yet, but it's a safe bet with their past quality and the use of the same DAC of the E7. It should sound good!

 

[Roller]

Quote:

I understand that the E10 isn't released yet, but it's a safe bet with their past quality and the use of the same DAC of the E7. It should sound good!

If they make it with a signature similar to E11, they might be on to something. Do you know of estimated prices?
 
Anyway, if gaming is a consideration (gaming doesn't mean surround, BTW), E7 is out of place.

 

[keanex]

FiiO stated they planned to make it cheaper than the E7, I believe around $80.

 

[th3hate]

Quote:

Recommending or mentioning unreleased gear sounds silly to me, when the purpose of the thread is to get hardware, which means it has to be available. Anyway, I couldn't care less about surround, which is something that wasn't even brought up here
 
If you don't have any need for additional I/O, but also want to do music/games/movies and are budget constricted, have you thought about getting something smaller, like a X-Fi Go! (non-Pro model) or a Xonar U3, along with a Fiio E11 (portable headphone amplifier)? That way you would get a more modular setup that you can customize more easily and less expensively.

 
Is asus xonar u3 even an amp? I always thought It's a tiny usb speaker. I can get my hands on a xonar u3 from a store nearby for cheap, do you recommend it?
 
Edit: why would i need 2 amps? Isn't the xonar u3 alone enough?
 
Edit 2: seems like it does 48KHz @ 16bit‎ max, isn't that similar to the onboard audio?
 
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

FiiO stated they planned to make it cheaper than the E7, I believe around $80.

 
Sounds good, and if they upgrade their USB chip, I might actually get one, but high resolution support is a must. Still, it's meant to be launched along with E9's replacement, right?
 
Quote:

 
Is asus xonar u3 even an amp? I always thought It's a tiny usb speaker. I can get my hands on a xonar u3 from a store nearby for cheap, do you recommend it?
 
Edit: why would i need 2 amps? Isn't the xonar u3 alone enough?
 
Edit 2: seems like it does 48KHz @ 16bit‎ max, isn't that similar to the onboard audio?
 

 
Honestly, Xonar U3 would be better suited for movies, not games, as for that you have the regular X-Fi Go!, along with 24/48 support. The E11 recommendation is because it's a good entry amp that can help solve any amping issues for slightly less easy to drive headphones. Basically, if you can go modular on your setup, you should as it helps both tweaking and upgrading your setup with ease, and closer to what you're looking for.
 
Onboard isn't good because of output formats but because of lower quality components, surrounded by noisy hardware, which results in rather poor measurements.

 

[keanex]

Quote:

 
Sounds good, and if they upgrade their USB chip, I might actually get one, but high resolution support is a must. Still, it's meant to be launched along with E9's replacement, right?
 

You mean like this? http://www.head-fi.org/t/559380/e10-new-usb-dac-updated-with-photos-of-real-e10
 
=)

 

[Roller]

Quote:

You mean like this? http://www.head-fi.org/t/559380/e10-new-usb-dac-updated-with-photos-of-real-e10
 
=)

Hats off you to you, sir

 
That looks like something I could very well get for myself, and a couple more to gift to some friends who could very well catch the audiophilia bug and the following upgraditis