I'm going to cross post this from the er4s appreciation thread, as I think it's very relevant:
I've had an interesting night tonight with my earphones. First, let me say that the er4s with the sansa players is a really awesome combo and probably sounds better than a lot of other devices even with amps. However, tonight I have found without a doubt that the er4s sound better through my c5. I normally use my c5 as a desktop amp or to amp my ipod when I use it. I normally power my er4s raw from the sansa players.
For those following this thread, you might remember me talking a while back about not being able to tell why, but thinking the bass was better under certain circumstances. Those circumstances are the c5 by jds labs, no question.
I listened to some things for a while with the c5 and then listed without them. I did this with both my er4s and my pfe112. I found two things. First, the c5 definitely improves both earphones about equally. And second, the er4s is a lot better than the pfe112.
haha Don't get me wrong, the pfe112 is still my second favorite earphone, hands down. However, I've noticed a few things in this testing that have caused me to think even more highly of the er4s.
To start, the main differences between the fuze/clip/zip and the c5 even with those double amped, is are following:
- Clearer sounding overall. Not to be confused with bright treble. The frequency response is identical with either setup. However, I can "clearly" hear a more distinct and sort of crisp dynamic sound using the c5. This is true direct from my audio interface into the c5 and even double amping the sansa players.
- Tighter sound, especially in the bass. In fact, with the pfe112 I can't even get the same bass level/quality without the c5. For instance, if I boost the sub bass around 20-50hz by something ridiculous like 15db, the sansa player stops really showing any difference after say 8db. When I use the same eq with the c5 the bass, although still not noticeably bassier, does indeed show improved bass level and impact versus the sansa alone. Not a huge difference, but noticeable. I think this might be partly due to the fact that the pfe112 eq is much more complex with more ups and downs than the er4s eq. Perhaps another driver would help this. Either way, the same isn't as true with the er4s for some reason. The sansa players seem to power the bass pretty well unamped. However, the er4s requires very few and very little eq changes. The main difference with the er4s using the c5 is the improved clarity and dimensionality. Things stand out more and seem more present and spacious. You hear into the sound more, which is really impressive, as the er4s is already the most depth I've heard in an earphone.
Again, the differences are small, but tonight I found they are definitely there and easy to hear with certain music and listening. In fact, I think I'm going to start using my c5 all the time, even with my sansa players portably. At least for a while to see if the difference matters enough for me portably. Just thought I'd post that in case anyone was interested with all this amp talk going around.
So, while the sansa/er4s gives you, say, 93% awesome, the c5 brings it up to 98% awesome.
haha The ipod on the other hand (5th gen touch) goes from say 90% to 98% awesome.
Definitely worth the purchase. I'm very glad to have mine. Lately, I've also been using it to power my er4s with my wife's ipad while she uses her earphones in the same ipad. I use a splitter and route my split end to the c5 for my er4s earphones. This allows me to control my own volume, power the er4s properly and she is unaffected. Very cool. This is one example where a bit more power would be nice, because her earphones require her to have the volume a bit lower and thus I need to amplify things more. The er4s are quiet to begin with, so other earphones might not have this issue, however, I run the c5 at about 90-95% doing this. More than sufficient, but just saying.
Go buy a C5.
