[Aaron1006]

I believe the general consensus is that the E10 is better for easier to drive headphones and the E9 is better for harder to drive headphones. You can tell if a headphone is hard to drive based on their impedance and their sensitivity ratings. The E10 will probably be fine for anything under $200 in general. It's when you start looking at things like the Sennheiser 6x0 line, Beyerdynamic DT770/880/990 or AKG K70x, things around that price range as the entry levels for needing more powerful amps.

 

[ivantoar]

Quote:

I believe the general consensus is that the E10 is better for easier to drive headphones and the E9 is better for harder to drive headphones. You can tell if a headphone is hard to drive based on their impedance and their sensitivity ratings. The E10 will probably be fine for anything under $200 in general. It's when you start looking at things like the Sennheiser 6x0 line, Beyerdynamic DT770/880/990 or AKG K70x, things around that price range as the entry levels for needing more powerful amps.

I tried to compare my headphone with Sennheiser 6xx and Beyerdynamic DT880. I noticed that Senns and Beyerdynamic have noticeable higher impendance rating above 150Ω, while my Superlux or other cheaper headphones only have low number of impendance. About the sensitivity, I'm not sure, is it the SPL? So is the larger the impendance the harder they're to drive?
 
Luckily I'm able to swap my E9 to an E10 tomorrow.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Sensitive headphones would still benefit from the E9. Just because a headphone is easy to drive doesn't meant they couldn't get better with a powerful amp. For example, the Denon D2000/5000/7000 are all very easy to drive, but improve with very powerful amps. It tightens up bass, and refines the sound a little.

No reason NOT to use the E10 and E9 together. Its a great combo.

 

[ivantoar]

So, I was told by Aaron1006 that I might be better off with the E10 alone. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, there's no reason not to use better devices. But will my headphone able to get noticeable improvement? I'm afraid that I might have pushed this Superlux to the limit where there are no noticable improvement could be made.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

You probably won't notice a major difference. I dunno how well that particular headphone improves with more power, but you already own the E9, so it would be silly not to use it with the E10.

 

[ivantoar]

If I have them both it would be silly not to use them both. But, I have a chance to swap my E9 to an E10. In your opinion, should I swap my E9 to E10 and use the money and invest it on better quality headphone next time or should I buy the E10?

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

In your situation, considering you don't have a DAC, then yes, the E10 is a better option than the E9.

 

[ivantoar]

 
Quote:

In your situation, considering you don't have a DAC, then yes, the E10 is a better option than the E9.

 
Thanks for your opinion. I'll swap my E9 to E10 tomorrow. I might buy it back when I have a headphone that will needs amping.

 

[JRG1990]

The e9 has ahigh output impendance of 10ohms on the 6.3mm jack the superlux are 32ohms , so the 10ohm output impendance of the e9 might mess with the frequency responce and damping which is probley why it didn't sound good, the e10 only has a 0.3ohm output impedance so the superlux headphones will be much better of with the e10.

 

[ivantoar]

Quote:

The e9 has ahigh output impendance of 10ohms on the 6.3mm jack the superlux are 32ohms , so the 10ohm output impendance of the e9 might mess with the frequency responce and damping which is probley why it didn't sound good, the e10 only has a 0.3ohm output impedance so the superlux headphones will be much better of with the e10.

So how do I match the amplifier output impendance with the headphone impendance? I don't quite get the numbers.
 
Anyway, I got my E10 today. Haven't spent much time on it but I think the bass gain is quite something. It's fun to listen although most of the time I turn it off to be able to listen my music clearly.

 

[seslwr]

I initially purchased the e7/e9 combo to use with my HD600's.  After much A/B testing, I really didn't hear much of a difference when using the e9 with or without the e7 docked.  FWIW, I have the e9 hooked up to an iMac.  Does anyone else get this same impression?

 

[ivantoar]

Quote:

I initially purchased the e7/e9 combo to use with my HD600's.  After much A/B testing, I really didn't hear much of a difference when using the e9 with or without the e7 docked.  FWIW, I have the e9 hooked up to an iMac.  Does anyone else get this same impression?

 
When using E9 without any DAC, I also didn't hear much difference. Most of the time I don't hear it if I don't listen to the music carefully. Not sure how it performs with E7 as I don't have it.