[Loquah]

I have previously (on multiple occasions) lamented the poor HP out on the X5 so I think I have to apologise now to Fiio as the difference today between X5 and X5+E12DIY is much smaller. I guess there must be some capacitor burn-in.

The E12DIY is still better, but the margin is small enough now for me to seriously question the value of the extra size.

 

[CH23]

I have previously (on multiple occasions) lamented the poor HP out on the X5 so I think I have to apologise now to Fiio as the difference today between X5 and X5+E12DIY is much smaller. I guess there must be some capacitor burn-in.

The E12DIY is still better, but the margin is small enough now for me to seriously question the value of the extra size.

Yesterday night i switched from X5+E12DIY+IEMs to X5+IEMs, and i have to say, the difference is quite noticeable. There was hiss, and clarity was less.

This is no attack towards the X5's HP out, but more of a praise for their E12DIY.

 

[ClieOS]

E12DIY might be sold for a mere $200, it is every bit as good as most TOTL portable amp out there.

 

[CH23]

E12DIY might be sold for a mere $200, it is every bit as good as most TOTL portable amp out there.

As i'm europe based, i had to pay a little more (or it has to do with limited availabillity?) of €230, but I'm very happy with my decision to spend some extra money on the DIY version. Rollable opamps is a big plus.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

  E12DIY might be sold for a mere $200, it is every bit as good as most TOTL portable amp out there.

 
Would the iBasso PB2 be better? Besides balanced output with more power, is it more impressive sounding or does the E12 win that point? The PB2 seems to be more customizable from the standpoint of having more opamp slots, but the E12 has interesting types of opamps soldered to pcbs?

 

[Loquah]

Yesterday night i switched from X5+E12DIY+IEMs to X5+IEMs, and i have to say, the difference is quite noticeable. There was hiss, and clarity was less.

This is no attack towards the X5's HP out, but more of a praise for their E12DIY.

 
Which FW are you using on X5, which IEMs and how much time have you used the X5's HP out for?
 
Not disagreeing, just interested to compare notes. I'm using UM Miracles, FW2.0 and have used the X5's line-out for around 30-40 hours I think.

 

[CH23]

Which FW are you using on X5, which IEMs and how much time have you used the X5's HP out for?

Not disagreeing, just interested to compare notes. I'm using UM Miracles, FW2.0 and have used the X5's line-out for around 30-40 hours I think.

FW 2.0, Grado GR10, considering that from 8th of april i've been using the X5 for an. Average of 16 hours a day, that's close to 500 hours.

 

[Loquah]

Wow. I wonder why we're hearing such different things!?
 
I definitely find the E12DIY to be an upgrade, but there's no hiss or anything nasty - just slightly less separation and clarity in the soundstage.

 

[ClieOS]

   
Would the iBasso PB2 be better? Besides balanced output with more power, is it more impressive sounding or does the E12 win that point? The PB2 seems to be more customizable from the standpoint of having more opamp slots, but the E12 has interesting types of opamps soldered to pcbs?

 
Just so others won't confuse - wee are not talking about E12, but E12DIY.
 
PB2 has a lot of power, but only beneficial in balanced mode and when the headphone needs that power. Both are kind of a moot point for most since many are not going to (or can't) recable their headphone, nor has headphone that actually need anywhere near 2.5W. So these are overkill features for those who don't use them. As for customization - no, PB2 isn't more customizable, just easier to customize because it has a bigger housing.with easier access. It has twice as many sockets but that's only because it has a balanced topology (which you need to double everything). In SE mode, half of those opamp / buffer won't do you much good except eating up battery.
 
In any case, I have not heard PB2 myself and can't common on how it compared to E12DIY. But personally it is a portable amp that I don't see a lot of value of, given I don't want to run a balanced setup.

 

[sovereignty68]

Does anyone here notice high gain sounds noticeably better than low gain setting? When I turned on high gain mode and lower the volume down to roughly same level as I was listing under low gain, I can hear the instruments clearer and more forward through DN-2000.

 

[shakur1996]

Does anyone here notice high gain sounds noticeably better than low gain setting? When I turned on high gain mode and lower the volume down to roughly same level as I was listing under low gain, I can hear the instruments clearer and more forward through DN-2000.

I did not hear any difference between high and low gain.

 

[shakur1996]

FW 2.0, Grado GR10, considering that from 8th of april i've been using the X5 for an. Average of 16 hours a day, that's close to 500 hours.

I had the tour unit. I have installed FW 2.0. I have used low and high gain at the volumes between 27 up to 34. No hiss on my CIEMs which are 121 db sensitive and 16 ohms impedance, except for tracks which have embedded hiss i.e. the hiss is part of the recording.

 

[thericochet]

   
I just received my player a few days ago.  I upgraded to 2.0 as soon as it came out of the box.  My gapless since I've tested it has a distinct gap.  Could it be it doesn't work well with MP3s?  Could it be I need to be patient and not fast-forward to the end of the song before I test the gapless?  Not sure yet.

Only LAME-encoded mp3s support gapless playback (via header information). If you instead encoded them with iTunes' encoder (Xing or FHG) for example, they will naturally just have little gaps at either end in the actual audio information (even if you later convert them to FLAC). As far as I know iTunes/iPod is the only commonly-used thing that will play these back gapless*, which is because iTunes pre-scans them for said gaps when they're added to a library. Most other software does not account for this, as using such an encoder is not recommended or good practice, so I don't know about the X5 (I only used FLAC on it) but it wouldn't be surprising or non-standard if mp3 gapless playback relied (as it normally does) on the mp3s being LAME-encoded (and on them not being transcodes).
 
*Not strictly just iTunes - foo_dop for Foobar/ipod will do it correctly I believe and send the correct info to an ipod, but thinking about it, I have never used anything that's not a LAME encode with it, so I can't actually confirm that. GoneMad Music Player for Android has a special mode which successfully detects these gaps as well, on top of normal gapless playback options for formats that support it.
 
Perhaps try using something that you know is a LAME encode and nothing else.

 

[thericochet]

edit: double post

 

[JamesFiiO]

I have previously (on multiple occasions) lamented the poor HP out on the X5 so I think I have to apologise now to Fiio as the difference today between X5 and X5+E12DIY is much smaller. I guess there must be some capacitor burn-in.

The E12DIY is still better, but the margin is small enough now for me to seriously question the value of the extra size.

 
when we start the development of x5， we decided to make a more transparent SQ with very little warm for the headphone out in X5. now sure what you guys feel about whether the HO of X5, 
 
but it is quite interesting that I think most Chinese user will more like warm sound.  so , this will become a big problem to us when we develop X7 in the future.