[beeman458]

I can't say for any other IEM but unequivocally, to a certain extent, it "definitely" does make a difference for the IE8.  It's called dynamic range and when demands are made on an amp, if the dynamic range (headroom) isn't there to be called on, you bet it will "easily" and "noticeably" affect sound quality at that singular poignant moment when the musical piece you're listening to, makes a momentary demand on the amps ability.  If what I'm writing isn't true, then there's no need for anything but inexpensive amps and anything more is just another consumer rip.
 
Having made a point of seeking out and auditioning an E7 this week...
 
What IEM's did you audition the E-7 with?
 
???
 
Why is this an important question to explore and answer?  If the IEM's used for the audition are lower end IEM's then the IEM won't have the ability to take advantage of an amp's capability and you won't notice a difference.  Also, music choice matters in an audition of this type for if the music piece isn't an amp challenging piece, then you won't notice the clipping.  It's all synergy and the weakest link of the sound chain.
 
I bet that iBasso is long onto my above as that's why they make so many different choices with so many different possible output choices for consumers to choose from.
 
FWIW, I'm not knocking the iBasso D2+ Boa.  I'm simply suggesting that output power is a point that should be considered when making a choice of this kind.

 

[Lex]

 
 
Tried the E7 with it's owners IE8, a couple of pairs of Ultrasones and some Yuins.
The Fiio is a nice little amp, beats the iBasso in size, battery life and general gizmo grooviness but to my ears is bested by the bass extension and control of the D2+.
 
(Sources were my iMod and Clip+, friends T51 and my eeePC ) 
 
Quote:

FWIW, I'm not knocking the iBasso D2+ Boa.  I'm simply suggesting that output power is a point that should be considered when making a choice of this kind.

It's a valid point, especially if a pair of low sensitivity cans are a possibility in the future.

 

[ryan00davis]

While im not sure how much of this does and does not apply to headphone amps vs car/home amps, it sounds like you're talking about the difference between RMS power and peak power.  I am not sure what spec you're listing when you say the E7 has a lot more power.
 
from what I can read, the d2+ has "up to 100mW + 100mW into 32 ohms", while the e7 lists "150 mW into 16 ohms, 16 mW into 300 ohms". Since these are not listed at the same resistance, they are not very easy to compare, and I have no idea what it means when they say 100mW + 100mW. in the car audio world, things tend to act fairly linear, meaning that an amps output into 4 ohms will be roughly double what they are into 8 ohms, but on this scale i dont think that holds true. in a perfectly efficient system, i believe it would be exactly linear (someone correct me if this is wrong).
 
beyond power, there are many other factors that are a bit above my level of understanding. For example, if you go listen to a 50W/channel harman kardon amp and then listen to a 100W/channel onkyo amp, there is a good chance that the harman kardon will actually sound a lot better, even at pretty high volume. Part of this is that HK frequently under specs there power, and they measure it in a different way; and from what i've read, part of it is due to the capacitors they put in the amp to have that power be more accessible, and im sure a huge part of that is the art that goes into amp design that makes specs not always valid.  Having said that, if you have a 30W HK receiver against a 100W onkyo receiver, you may start to run into problems with running out of power on the HK system.
 
Not trying to say I dont value power comparisons at all, just wanting to point out that power stats dont always relate to quality when it comes to audio (at least based on my experience with home theater and car audio).
 

 

[beeman458]

Not trying to say I dont value power comparisons at all, just wanting to point out that power stats dont always relate to quality when it comes to audio (at least based on my experience with home theater and car audio).
 
I think what you're describing is what I term headroom or dynamic range and yes, this is a point worth writing about.  Now in the case of HK vs Onkyo vs a headphone amp, yes, there's a bit of a difference between output vs Ohms vs mW vs watts.  Don't know why, but I see they're not spec'd linear.
 
In my comparison, I'm not comparing mW for mW but I'm comparing available headroom each amp supplies when one maxes the lower value unit as compared to the more powerful unit when pumping at the same maxed output of the smaller valued amp,  Even in the case of a 50w Harmon Kardon Vs a 100w Onkyo, it makes a difference if you're maxing the Harmon Kardon out.  If you don't have the dynamic range or headroom, no matter how good the gear, you're going get clipping if pushing the gear and it then just becomes a case of amplifying noise as opposed to an amplification of music.  One also needs to take into consideration the size and price one pays for a Harmon Kardon unit when compared to that of either a FiiO E-7 or an iBasson D2+ Boa.  The smaller the unit, the more critical parts become as it's now a case of price of internal parts, engineering and microization of the product.  At no time am I trying to knock iBasso as I have a good opinion of them.
 
When it comes to high end gear, yes, money talks.  It's not going be the final arbiter but it's sure a starting point regarding questions such as this.  I don't have any experience with a D2+, so I don't know how much headroom it has at max volume.  A suggestion, due to your bad experience with the E-7, if you're really sold on a iBasso D2+ Boa, see if you can buy a used iBasso D2+ Boa, or a new one, and if you're not happy, sell it out on the Buy/Sell forum and get something different which will hopefully please your ears.  From your above comment, it reads like you really want to buy the D2+.

 

[ryan00davis]

didn't mean to come off saying that I was sold on the D2, just explaining a bit of what i know about amp power ratings, both for someone to correct me if im wrong and for someone else to read if they are looking at power and come across this thread. As of now, im of the mindset that if Fiio can make it right and get me a working amp, I will probably stick with that, but I will not be returning it and buying another E7, so they have a week or two to get me a new one that works or im going to return it and look at my other options, d2 being at the top of the list, otherwise consider a dedicated dac and a smaller more portable amp, but that will likely cost more. since both headphone jacks are broken on the e7 i have, it's basically useless, at least the last one had 1 working headphone port and I could use it as a dac/amp with the computer.

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

This is kind of off topic but how do you like your s4is and does the filo e7 make a significant sq boost?
 
Btw...People have said that the t3 and t4 are really good options but they are only an amp so I don't think you'd be that interested because you are looking at amp/dac combos.

 

[ryan00davis]

i did like the sound, when it was working right, it was noticeably better than the headphone port on my mbp and dell, i never got a chance to use it with my ipod through the lod since that is back in the states, but even amplified twice i felt like it improved the sound. I generally kept it on base boost of zero, but on an occasional song i felt it sounded better on 1. Like others say, it definitely seems to do more than just adjust the base. I've never owned an amp (not attached to the source), so i cant compare to anything else, and i dont really have the experience or terminology to give a decent review. with USB out of the macbook pro, i was usually listening in the 1-10 range (out of 60) on volume. from what i recall, if i wanted it loud i might go up to 15 or so. there was an occasional time listening to a loud tv show in a quiet room where i wish it would go a little lower in volume, but if anything i was looking for something about 80% the volume of 1, so it wasn't far off.
 
When i got around to checking with my audio cable i have here for the car, it worked fine, and if i had to guess, i would say that there is probably a sensitivity in the design to the 4 pin connector of a headphone jack with mic. since one of the 4 headphone out jacks i have tried worked fine (across the 2 e7s i went through), im guessing that the part just has a tolerance such that it should work if perfect, but anything off center and it doesn't work, and it was probably only ever tested with 3 pin headphone jacks.
 
I got the impression that Fiio was attempting to make things right, but the response was slow, and my situation was awkward (with currently living in a hotel and all), so i've decided to return it.
 
I was actually looking the other day at getting a T3D and a dac cable instead of an amp/dac combo. even with the small size of the e7, it seemed larger than i liked to keep in my pocket and use as amp only with the ipod, but a significant part of what i want is use out of the crappy sound of the dell laptop, so a dac is necessary. it's probably going to be january before im home in the states in one place long enough to feel comfortable ordering from one of those companies with slow shipping options, so i have plenty of time to make up my mind.

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

Sounds good... I'm probably gonna get the e7+e9 combo but waiting for some reviews since people are just starting to get their e9s. Oh and I'm still wondering about my other question. How do the s4s sound amped or unamped. I was thinking to get a amp/dac first because my soundcard on my Dell sounds like crap with a lot of hissing..my hp much better but still not perfect. Anyways I only have a ksc75 and cx500 so I was thinking of getting an upgrade but with so many options now like the mc5 and reo I'm stumped. 

 

[ryan00davis]

if your question is about the s4 in general, I have enjoyed them. I used to own some shure e2c (many years ago) and I would guess that the shures were a bit more detailed, but a bit less enjoyable to listen to. Compared to the ath-anc7 (noise canceling), they are definitely more detailed, but obviously, being IEMs, they lack soundstage, and I find them less comfortable than the over the ear phones. I list the er4 on my profile, but i owned them for such a short time that I cant really comment. the main reason I kept the s4i, and prefer them to the shures, is that i found them very comfortable for an iem with good isolation, even with the smallest tip, i felt like the shures were trying to rip my ears apart (i use the dual flange tip on the s4i). when amplified (and through a proper dac), the s4i sounded quite a bit better. how much of that was due to the dac, how much to the amp, and how much due to me just thinking it was an amp so it must sound better than on board audio, i dont know. I tried my best to do a back and fourth comparison between the e7 and my mbp headphone jack, and i would say that with compressed audio, the amp definitely *helped* point out the poor quality; with lossless music, it just seemed more detailed and more alive. movies and tv also sounded better. I do still have the e7 as I haven't gotten around to sending it back to amazon yet, i'll probably send it back later this weekend or early next week, so if there is a comparison you want me to do, let me know and i'll do my best to describe it.
 
edit: and for the record, I think the mbp has pretty good audio on board, there was a huge improvement in all kinds of audio, including compressed audio with the dell, i believe that even someone who has never listend to anything other than the ipod headphones out of a shuffle or something like that could tell the difference.

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

Thanks for all your help, I'll probably pick up the e7 and s4 soon hopefully...I wish you got paid to go to high school lol
Anyways, a short review on the e7 would be lovely. Thanks for all your help!

 

[ryan00davis]

There are lots of people on here with comments about the e7 if you do a search, i've heard some say it is one of the best bargains around, some say the amp sucks but the dac is good. I basically had zero use out of the amp alone, since i didn't have a true line out source from anything (my lod is back in the states and im overseas for a while). from what I understand, the amp is the same as the e5, so you might be able to find some good reviews of the e5 to compare that part. I really dont know how to comment much more than i already have on the parts as i dont have enough experience to compare to. think of it like asking someone who just lost their virginity how good the girl is in bed.... of course she is awesome, but all he has to compare to is his hand. I haven't found the search function on this site to be too useful, but one trick is, if you go to google and search for "site:head-fi.org e7 s4 OR s4i", you might get some better results, if you say "site:" it will tell google you only want to search this site, if you say OR (capital matters), then you are saying that you want to search for either of those terms, not necessarily both, the difficulty with using this is that you will get lots of signature results, so it may do more in pointing you to who you might be able to PM with questions than leading you to the direct answers. dont mean the google lesson to be insulting but a lot of people dont know these details, so it's quite useful if you dont, and really i dont know how much more help i can be.

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

Thx for your help..btw I cant seem to find any filo e7 threads except for this. Whenever I type filo e7 in the search engine...this and 2 somewhat unrelated threads pop up. Any ideas on this?

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

Haha you already kinda answered my previous question..lol funny "nothing to compare to but his hand."..I really need to stop being immature <333

 

[ryan00davis]

try this
 
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site:head-fi.org+intitle:e7

 

[xXFallenAngelXx]

Thx that was very helpful..btw u might wanna consider returning the e7 and get the e7+e9 combo from micca even though the ones on amazon are from micca 2 I think. I would w8 for more impressions/reviews though.