[goremachine]

Was thinking about getting a Fiio E7 as a desktop/portable solution. My headphones aren't difficult to drive so I'm sure they'll be fine from that regard. However, I also wanted to get a pair of powered monitors -- as far as I can see the E7 only has a mini jack for line out. I would be using the E7 as my DAC since my sound card sucks. Would the sound quality suffer much using a mini->RCA y-cable to the monitors? I don't know how much I would need high quality interconnects.

 

[bangraman]

That's what the E9(+E7 of course) is for, isn't it?

 

[goremachine]

The E9's headphone out doesn't allow you to use the bass boost of the E7 which is put in during the amping stage. Also I would probably not be using the E7 as a portable amp very often if at all -- I kind of want a one box solution. I don't need the extra amplification of the E9.

 

[bangraman]

You want to further amp the bass boost? That's a recipe for disaster. Granted, apparently most people can't hear it since they're too busy worrying about the amount of bass than anything else but... jeez. Get a pair of powered monitors with bass control. Or a nuforce udac (assuming the portable is a notebook).