[vapman]

  Hi,
 
I bought the Creative E5, tested it out for an hour now but I'm not that much impressed as I thought I will be.
Bass is good but starts to distort soon with my JVC HA MR 77X.
 
I bought a Fiio A3 again (as I was disappointed for home use,but good for mobile) and compared them (Fiio A3 on a Notebook with standard Realtek Chip and E5 as DAC).For sure the A3 has not that much power but sounds much more clearer imo, especially the bass.
 
Maybe I do something wrong.
 
Thinking now for sure for an E12.

Is it distorting with SBX turned on? Install the creative E5 app on your phone or computer (I installed it on windows 7) where you can configure the SBX.
Turning off the "surround" effect as well as dropping the bass boost's crossover frequency to 10hz. At stock is at 40hz which causes weird muddiness and distortion.
As soon as I did SBX was way better. No more distortion issues and bass was way more powerful & clear.
 
Warning: you should probably use the creative phone app if you can. The installer for windows comes with bad drivers and could leave you unable to use your E5 until you manually uninstall Creative's driver and let Windows' driver take back over, then it works again

 
 
 

 

[luigisaMa]

We need to get more support for the Kannon kickstarter... does anyone know if they still plan on producing them even if the kickstarter doesn't get funded?

 

[MargosDezerian]

 
Is it distorting with SBX turned on? Install the creative E5 app on your phone or computer (I installed it on windows 7) where you can configure the SBX.
Turning off the "surround" effect as well as dropping the bass boost's crossover frequency to 10hz. At stock is at 40hz which causes weird muddiness and distortion.
As soon as I did SBX was way better. No more distortion issues and bass was way more powerful & clear.
 
Warning: you should probably use the creative phone app if you can. The installer for windows comes with bad drivers and could leave you unable to use your E5 until you manually uninstall Creative's driver and let Windows' driver take back over, then it works again

 
 
 

I did that also but at 10Hz it has only acceptable bass for Rap and bad bass for Hardcore Gabber.
If I put it on 40Hz or little less it will begin with distortion.And only when I turn off Bass it is ok,but seems for me DAC is the wrong way to go.I need it mostly for my Notebook.

 

[vapman]

  I did that also but at 10Hz it has only acceptable bass for Rap and bad bass for Hardcore Gabber.
If I put it on 40Hz or little more it will begin with distortion.And only when I turn off Bass it is ok,but seems for me DAC is the wrong way to go.I need it mostly for my Notebook.

Hmm, well I don't think it's for everyone, or all headphones.
It sounds great with that setup and I happened to test both rap and gabber too
maybe try messing with the EQ page too. If that doesn't do it for you it might just be bad with your headphones.
It does sound a little off with certain headphones and great with others.
 
BTW even if you have SBX turned off, EQ will be enabled unless you turn it off in the settings. I have mine set to boost 31hz and 62hz super high and cut 16kHz near entirely. I'm insanely treble sensitive and always EQ it out.

 

[MargosDezerian]

 

  Hmm, well I don't think it's for everyone, or all headphones.
It sounds great with that setup and I happened to test both rap and gabber too
maybe try messing with the EQ page too. If that doesn't do it for you it might just be bad with your headphones.
It does sound a little off with certain headphones and great with others.
 
BTW even if you have SBX turned off, EQ will be enabled unless you turn it off in the settings. I have mine set to boost 31hz and 62hz super high and cut 16kHz near entirely. I'm insanely treble sensitive and always EQ it out.

I use that setting above
 
 
 
and use now the same as you told me with SBX, sounds better now.Will test it out for longer.Thx for the help!

 

[chillaxing]

@vapman can you post a pic of the E5 strapped to your phone on either of the threads?
 
Thanks Bud

 

[vapman]

 
@vapman
 can you post a pic of the E5 strapped to your phone on either of the threads?

Thanks Bud

Well since I use a blackberry and nobody knows what those are anymore I borrowed my gf's 6 non-plus and took a pic with that.

Here it is lined up with the top of  the iPhone 6



The angle looks weird but it is lined up directly at the top, is equally as wide and a bit shorter.

 

[vapman]

 
 
I use that setting above
 
 
 
and use now the same as you told me with SBX, sounds better now.Will test it out for longer.Thx for the help!

Glad to hear it helped, but you're probably still getting distortion because your pre-EQ level is way too high! Put it a little below 0db.
Looks like it's "stufe" for you
 

 

[Oregonian]

  Is it natural that all open headphones' bass sucks? 

Try a HE-400 straight out of speaker taps on a vintage speaker amp if you want slam................not to mention (which was already) the HE-6 fed the same way.  I don't think it's the same head vibrating slam the JVC gives but both are quite visceral in the bass. 

 

[chillaxing]

 
Try a HE-400 straight out of speaker taps on a vintage speaker amp if you want slam................not to mention (which was already) the HE-6 fed the same way.  I don't think it's the same head vibrating slam the JVC gives but both are quite visceral in the bass. 

 
 
with open backs, i feel they rival good iems.  Like my lcd2, it has good bass and will compete with my sony iems, but will never get to the level of headshaking bass like the top 10 list on this thread.

 

[gikigill]

Selling the XB1000. I'd rather sell it here before I sell it online.

PM me for more details.

 

[vapman]

Soundblaster E5 paper test with SZ2000, 55x pads



I decided not to waste HBB's time watching the video which shows you just what this picture does. Paper test failed.

Don't comment "blah blah your paper is too small", I tried every size of paper before cutting it down this small hoping for any reaction. none. Plugged it into my Project Starlight and had some movement so I know I didn't f that up.

Still fine for IEMs and earbuds but disappointing on high gain with full sized cans.

 

[chillaxing]

triple thumbs ups.
 
 
thanks for confirming my suspicions of companies not putting down power specs.
 
 
if theres nothing to hide.....
 
 
 
We'll just chalk this one up as an iem amp 

 

[vapman]

  triple thumbs ups.
 
 
thanks for confirming my suspicions of companies not putting down power specs.
 
 
if theres nothing to hide.....

I mean I could have HBB post a video of the cans bumping at max volume and me flicking on high gain and then moving the cord into something else that can actually move the paper, but unless anyone wants hard proof it doesn't rattle the paper, I think we can close this case.

 

[chillaxing]

 
 
We good...