[Gray]

Hi Guys
Hopefully some of you who own the EF 5 amp will read this and be able to advise me. Be gentle with me....I am not the most technically minded ...just love my music.... and no doubt you have had hundreds of similar head fi virgins asking the self same questions.
Took delivery today of the HE 500 headphones and an EF 5 amp to drive them.
Had a few problems setting the amp up...mainly regarding the insertion of the tube.... could not get it in sufficiently far to grip and was really worried if I forced it it would smash. Think its in ok now. It glows a muted orange so must be connected.
Initially I could hardly get any sound  through to the phones but then realised there was a gain switch on the bottom of the amp which I found out from another thread.
I have moved both the little gain switches upwards one click which has now dramatically increased the sound volume but it still does not seem to be as loud as I thought it would be from what I had read.
Can the gain switch be moved further or is that its limit? A major ommision IMO is that there is absolutely no manual or instruction leaflet with the amp. Is their any resource or online manual that anyone knows of?
Its early days yet I know and the leaflet that came with the headphones says they have to be run for at least 150 hours before they start to really sing. I have them running quietly in the background to get some miles under their belt so to speak. From what I have heard thus far they sound very good but nothing out of the ordinary. I am hoping the sound will fill out the more they get used. Is the volume likely to increase as well or is it at its limit the way I have it. By the way I have the amp connected through the RCA inputs to my Sonos connect box which is being fed flac files and Spotify premium from my PC.
Is the sonos connection likely to be limiting? Previously I had the same set up with some Sennheisers HD600's and a Rega ear headphone amp and this did go louder even though the 600's have a much higher impedence than the HE 500's.
Sorry for going on but if anyone has any tips or tweaks or advice regarding the optimum set up of the amp I would be really grateful.

 

[Uncle00Jesse]

I agree it's pretty dumb that theres no user manual that comes with the ef-5. Hifiman is especially skimpy on the fine details. Anyways, I hope you didnt try to just smash the tube in there... You need a hex-key set to open up those stupid glass panels that house the tube before you put in or take out a tube. I think it's a pretty dumb design but the amp happens to be very good. There is no gain switch on the newest revision as far as I know, I wonder why you got an old model. Was it bought used?
 
Anyways, to get the most out of the system you have (which is very good by the way), you will need to get a dedicated DAC. I'm sure the output on the sonos player isn't very good. Assuming it has digital output you should get a DAC like the schiit bifrost or the equivalent entry level dac. You will notice a night and day difference. Hope this helps.

 

[Gray]

Quote:

I agree it's pretty dumb that theres no user manual that comes with the ef-5. Hifiman is especially skimpy on the fine details. Anyways, I hope you didnt try to just smash the tube in there... You need a hex-key set to open up those stupid glass panels that house the tube before you put in or take out a tube. I think it's a pretty dumb design but the amp happens to be very good. There is no gain switch on the newest revision as far as I know, I wonder why you got an old model. Was it bought used?
 
Anyways, to get the most out of the system you have (which is very good by the way), you will need to get a dedicated DAC. I'm sure the output on the sonos player isn't very good. Assuming it has digital output you should get a DAC like the schiit bifrost or the equivalent entry level dac. You will notice a night and day difference. Hope this helps.

Hi there
Hows the weather in NY? I was there a week or two ago for a long weekend break. Boy it was Baltic! Still had a wonderful time though. So much to see so little time to do it in.
Back to the amp......I bought it brand new from a headphone specialist outlet in the uk. As far as I know it is the latest model as it has on /off printed on the front and the tube is a full music one which as far as I know is the latest offering. Do you know for sure the very latest model has no gain switch. Its very small hidden away under the amp.....
I kind of guessed somebody would suggest a Dac......more money of course. Ho hum. Is it really that poor the sonos dac? I use it as my main source and have it running to a pair of AVI active speakers as my main system when not listening on headphones. The speakers sound superb but I assumed they were getting a pretty good transfer from the sonos,which I am well impressed with by the way. Would the whole sound improve from speakers and head phones with the addition of a Dac then. As I say its mighty fine already through the AVI speakers. They have their own amp preamp and dac onboard. Thinking about it though I suppose a new dac would just affect the link between the sonos and the EF 5. What sort of price you looking at for the Dac you suggested. Not even sure it would be available in the UK. Will have a look.
Thanks for the advice though. Would like to know  for sure if I have an older model though.

 

[davidsh]

Night and day, you say
That is definitely a subjective statement.

 

[Uncle00Jesse]

We're bracing for another round of snow here, probably on Friday. I had the scariest drive home from work of my life when the last snowstorm we had hit. It snuck up on everyone at rush hour, long story short it took 5 and a half hours to go 20 miles. The spring can't come soon enough. 
 
Maybe night and day is the wrong term, I'm looking more for "significant" I guess. I'm just the kind of person who thinks that if you're spending $1000+ on a headphone system, you might as well throw in the extra couple hundred bucks to get the complete package, i.e getting a dedicated dac. I would suggest to the OP to listen and enjoy with the sonos player as a source at first. Spend a few months with it, get to know what you like and what you don't. Then, when you do decide to get a dac and complete the deal, you will notice the differences much more and you can really appreciate them. 
 
Also, make sure you have the right cables and everything. Seems a little odd that you aren't getting loud sound. I just plugged lcd-3s into my amp and can't go past 11oclock on the volume pot. If you really are finding that you have an issue with the amp, definitely contact customer service at head direct. The ef-5 I have now is a replacement, the original completely died on me after 1-week. This one has been great though. I wouldn't rule out a hardware issue.

 

[Gray]

Quote:

We're bracing for another round of snow here, probably on Friday. I had the scariest drive home from work of my life when the last snowstorm we had hit. It snuck up on everyone at rush hour, long story short it took 5 and a half hours to go 20 miles. The spring can't come soon enough. 
 
Maybe night and day is the wrong term, I'm looking more for "significant" I guess. I'm just the kind of person who thinks that if you're spending $1000+ on a headphone system, you might as well throw in the extra couple hundred bucks to get the complete package, i.e getting a dedicated dac. I would suggest to the OP to listen and enjoy with the sonos player as a source at first. Spend a few months with it, get to know what you like and what you don't. Then, when you do decide to get a dac and complete the deal, you will notice the differences much more and you can really appreciate them. 
 
Also, make sure you have the right cables and everything. Seems a little odd that you aren't getting loud sound. I just plugged lcd-3s into my amp and can't go past 11oclock on the volume pot. If you really are finding that you have an issue with the amp, definitely contact customer service at head direct. The ef-5 I have now is a replacement, the original completely died on me after 1-week. This one has been great though. I wouldn't rule out a hardware issue.

Hi.Thanks for the reply. Your weather experience sounds like fun.....not!
As for the amp I think its gotten louder if thats possible?! However I ran it through my CD players RCA outputs and it was considerably louder although the sound was not as good. So I suspect its the Sonos connect that is capping the sound at a certain level. It certainly sounds loud enough now though...I have it at about 2 o' clock and its a lovely full and clear sound. Only about 4 hours on the clock for the headphones too so after their proper run in I am expecting great things. They are sounding awesome already. I kept doing quick A/B comparisons this afternoon with my outgoing HD 600's and they (the 600's) sounded so good too but the more I listened I realised that the HE 500's were sparkling more,whereas the HD 600's were a little duller. The 500's have a much punchier bass presentation. And things can only get better as the song goes! Would you do me a favour and have a quick look under your EF 5 and see if you have the little gain switch . Then I will know for sure if I have an earlier incarnation. Thanks again!

 

[planx]

I currently use my EF-5 with my Marantz CD5003 or Calyx Coffee DAC. The Calyx is brilliant for the price, especially if used via RCA instead of 3.5mm. A well performing Sabre DAC and inline controls sealed the deal for me. I personally find it pointless in spending so much for a DAC when the price difference doesn't compensate for the increase of "performance". Get a decent DAC and it should be good enough. The Bifrost is certainly a better DAC than my Calyx, but $200 more? No, never, I wouldn't pay that much for something that is unable to outperform my DAC. Another strong contender is the JDSLabs ODAC, but the problem is it only has a 3.5mm output so you need to buy an adapter.