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What the...yes? I have the dt990 600ohm and my e10 powers them just fine. To the point of uncomfortable levels even. I'm sure there's a better amp/dac pairing for the 990 but hey - gotta start somewhere.
The E10 powers things. Someone will likely argue that it cannot achieve full dynamics. That may be technically true. But funny enough, our ears are pathetic devices for knowing much of a difference. I tested the E10 versus other amps to see if it really could show the difference in dynamics on headphones and found it impossible to truly tell if the difference was dynamics or simply synergy of the pairings. You'll get a lot of flack recommending an E10 for 600ohm headphones and planar magnetics. I have in the past myself. But the end result is that if it sounds good together, then it's fine. Not everything is numbers and theory in this game. Most of it is truly simply preference, and a lot of psychology.
The E10 truly is a marvel for it's price tag. I say that as someone who uses speaker amps as I love over-kill. But I try to be objective for
others and honestly the E10 is very surprising in what it's able to make
sound good (let's leave theory behind).
Here's some examples of the E10 sounding fantastic with headphones it probably shouldn't according to Head-Fi lore (hah...):
T70 (250ohm), DT880 (600ohm), HE-500 (Whhaattt???), HE-400 (whattt??)
Again, sounds great. Technically maybe should not. Most certainly shouldn't, according to numbers and measurements, be able to make the DT880 600ohm and HE-500 sound great and dynamic. This would normally be pretty troll worthy, actually. But I'm a fool without golden ears, so I like to test things out.
And I'm not an E10 fanboy with more headphones that I ever need. I actually run my headphones from 50 watt speaker amps. I don't bother with low powered "headphone" equipment.
Very best,
