[Dill54F]

Just bought the HIFI WALKER H2 dap based on amazon reviews.

But saw the Fiio e12a amp on sale. I mainly use IEM but I also have some low impedance headphones like the vmoda m100 and akg k7xx (62 ohm), sensitive stuff that'll have hissing issues that's why I avoided the e12 regular black version. Should I bother with it if I'm getting that dap?

I like my bass hard hitting, but also enjoy all kinds of music, classical, oldies, whatever. Would the amp help boost the bass and increase sound quality or should I just fiddle with the EQ?

I haven't gotten my DAP yet to find out either :/

Was maybe thinking of getting a higher impedance headphone further in the future.

 

[Me x3]

K7XX is not sensitive stuff. It needs similar voltage to the Sennheiser HD600/650 (300 Ohm) and much more current.
For an amplifier driving a single K7xx is like driving 4 units of 300 Ohm Sennheisers at once.

 

[Dill54F]

Excuse if I might misinterpret stuff. I checked and the k7xx that I have says it has 62 ohm, Sensitivity: 105 dB/V.
It's not as sensitive as the others but with my pc soundcard on a 64+ impedance, I can hear some hiss. Though I do find it odd that it only hisses when I play videos but not while playing music files.

 

[Me x3]

Yes, it's approx 103.5dB/V according to third party measurements.
That's 92dB/mW

For reference:
HD650 is 99dB/mW

If you can hear hiss on K7XX then your soundcard is not very good or it's not working perfectly fine with certain software/configuration.

It's a common misbelief to think that lower impedance always means easier to drive.
The opposite is true when it comes to low impedance headphones with low sensitivity like the AKG K7-series, Hifiman HE-560, Hifiman HE-1000, ...

 

[Dill54F]

For an amplifier driving a single K7xx is like driving 4 units of 300 Ohm Sennheisers at once.

So based on that, I'm a bit confused about what you said then.

And to the original question, is it worth using with the DAP with the fiio amp to boost sound and bass quality or just fiddle with the eq?

 

[buke9]

Not to be to speak for them but there are two different sensitivity units of measure. The one is for voltage and the other is for wattage. The wattage is what most use as most makers supply the output of there amps in watts and most headphones give the dB/mW as it is usually higher in dB/mV. The statement about driving more headphones is that dB is a logarithmic scale .

 

[Me x3]

So based on that, I'm a bit confused about what you said then.

And to the original question, is it worth using with the DAP with the fiio amp to boost sound and bass quality or just fiddle with the eq?

It's not straight forward because of the logarithmic nature of the dB scale.
HD650 is 99dB/mW so the amp should provide 1mW to make HD650 go up to 99dB.

1mW only makes a K7XX go up to 92dB.
In order to make K7XX go up to 99dB the amp should provide more than 4mW
Hence, more than 4 times the power needed for a single HD650

Can't speak for your DAP, since I haven't tried it and I wasn't able to find its output power on the net.
I've tried the FiiO E12A with other K7-series (K702 and K712) and worked very well to my ears. It's similar to the newer FiiO A5.
Quality amp can help with dynamics, bass body, layering, tonal balance. Differences are most of the times subtle but not hard to hear.
At the end of the day, only you can judge your eqquipment since personal preferences play an important role in this hobby.

 

[Dill54F]

Ah, I'll have to look that up, totally new to this so did not know about that.

This is directly from the seller
"When tuning the EQ in high gain, the output votage is 1.2V. When in low gain, the output voltage is 0.6V"
In terms of the output power.

K, I'm asking cause I saw the e12a on sale and I nabbed it, thinking that's what I needed but after researching, I became unsure since I was planning to use it with the Dap....and sometimes my cellphone...maybe. So was trying to see whether to keep it or resell it.

 

[Me x3]

It's adviceable to have something capable of 2.5 Vrms to drive the K7XX allowing room for dynamic peaks on quality recordings.
For reference FiiO E12A is capable of more than 4 Vrms.

 

[buke9]

It's adviceable to have something capable of 2.5 Vrms to drive the K7XX allowing room for dynamic peaks on quality recordings.
For reference FiiO E12A is capable of more than 4 Vrms.

Just curious want is the Vrms output of the E12 as it has twice the 440 mW of the 12a?

 

[Dill54F]

Here's the manual of it, I believe. I just googled it and got this.

http://hifiwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Hifi-walker-H2-En.pdf

I don't know how to calculate the vrms for it, but I did ask him, not sure when he'll reply.

 

[Me x3]

Just curious want is the Vrms output of the E12 as it has twice the 440 mW of the 12a?

If I recall correctly it's a bit over 6.5 Vrms.
E12 can do more than 150mW into 300 Ohm, while E12A a bit over 60mW into 300 Ohm

 

[Me x3]

Here's the manual of it, I believe. I just googled it and got this.

http://hifiwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Hifi-walker-H2-En.pdf

I don't know how to calculate the vrms for it, but I did ask him, not sure when he'll reply.

Sadly, there's no output power information on that manual, so it's not possible to calculate the the Vrms from it.

 

[buke9]

If I recall correctly it's a bit over 6.5 Vrms.
E12 can do more than 150mW into 300 Ohm, while E12A a bit over 60mW into 300 Ohm

That is still awesome had let my E12 go over 2 years ago and it is still hard to beat.

 

[buke9]

The E12 and now the A5 are still the amps to beat.