[Croozer]

The FiiO E9: The Little Amp That Could.

 

[hellomoto170]

Hello everyone, please excuse my ignorance regarding this forum and headphones, I am fairly new to both!
 
I want to get some Ultrasone's, either the 2500's or 2200's. However I can only afford a £100 amp and so figure the e9/e7 setup is the best I can get for my budget.
My question is, will the 2500's be powered sufficiently by the e9/e7's or does it need something more powerful?
And if so am I better off playing it safe and going with the 2200's?
Thanks very much, all help would be much appreciated
 
I have already had to cancel orders for the K701 and HD650's as I keep changing my mind/hearing new things about them, I think I have finally decided on one of the Ultrasones!

 

[kite7]

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
..."You need a $2000 DAC to REALLY bring out the Beta22's potential!"

...we all know people wanna justify all that hard earned money going to such high priced equipment.
 

You know how this hobby goes. It's like this, the sky is the limit as you should spend as much money as possible because the potential of your headphone is infinite really

 
Should be interesting to compare your E9 to the Lyr

 

[Voohoo]

Quote:

Hello everyone, please excuse my ignorance regarding this forum and headphones, I am fairly new to both!
 
I want to get some Ultrasone's, either the 2500's or 2200's. However I can only afford a £100 amp and so figure the e9/e7 setup is the best I can get for my budget.
My question is, will the 2500's be powered sufficiently by the e9/e7's or does it need something more powerful?
And if so am I better off playing it safe and going with the 2200's?
Thanks very much, all help would be much appreciated
 
I have already had to cancel orders for the K701 and HD650's as I keep changing my mind/hearing new things about them, I think I have finally decided on one of the Ultrasones!

Hey there, I have the Pro 2500s and the FiiO E9+E7. You don't have to worry about insufficient power. Ultrasones will run off of peanuts! From my experience, it doesn't take much to have the 2500s sound good but they definitely improve with some amping. I think they sound not too shabby straight out of my Sony MP3 Walkman but paired with my E7...quite a bit of improvement! Then there's the E9, which honestly doesn't bring as drastic an improvement. I haven't seriously compared my E7 and E9 in terms of powering my 2500s but I could live just as happy with just the E7 (or at least I like to think so). But let me tell you this: ever since I ripped my CDs to flac and played them off foobar with the E9+E7 connected...my Pro 2500s have been giving me eargasms every night! And this is after the couple hundred hours of burn-in which open up the cans beautifully. 
 
To answer your questions more directly:
Yes, E9 will be sufficient to power the 2500s.
It's up to you if you want the 2500s or the 2200s. If I am correct, the Pro are more serious cans, meaning they are more detailed and more balanced and neutral. The HFI are the fun cans with, I think, more emphasis on the low and high ends of the spectrum. Both are probably very similar in terms of amping but I could be wrong.
 

 

[hellomoto170]

Quote:

Hey there, I have the Pro 2500s and the FiiO E9+E7. You don't have to worry about insufficient power. Ultrasones will run off of peanuts! From my experience, it doesn't take much to have the 2500s sound good but they definitely improve with some amping. I think they sound not too shabby straight out of my Sony MP3 Walkman but paired with my E7...quite a bit of improvement! Then there's the E9, which honestly doesn't bring as drastic an improvement. I haven't seriously compared my E7 and E9 in terms of powering my 2500s but I could live just as happy with just the E7 (or at least I like to think so). But let me tell you this: ever since I ripped my CDs to flac and played them off foobar with the E9+E7 connected...my Pro 2500s have been giving me eargasms every night! And this is after the couple hundred hours of burn-in which open up the cans beautifully. 
 
To answer your questions more directly:
Yes, E9 will be sufficient to power the 2500s.
It's up to you if you want the 2500s or the 2200s. If I am correct, the Pro are more serious cans, meaning they are more detailed and more balanced and neutral. The HFI are the fun cans with, I think, more emphasis on the low and high ends of the spectrum. Both are probably very similar in terms of amping but I could be wrong.
 

Ah it's brilliant to come across someone who has exactly what I plan to buy
Thanks very much for your very informative answers, I'll go for the 2500 and the e7/e9 I reckon.
 

 

[Riku540]

On a scale of power hungry cans, Ultrasone is not even close to one of them. There are far more difficult headphones to drive than Ultrasones that are powered just fine by the E9. The E9 has enough power to actually cause your poor Ultrasone's titanium drivers to distort and some serious hearing damage before even maxing out...
 
... What? How do I know this? I have no idea... >.>

 

[Fasian]

I really lik the e7/e9 combo, but have noticed channel imbalance @ low volumes as well as "scratching" in the volume control.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

I also have (two) volume "scratching" issues on my E9.
 
1. The knob itself comes into contact with the front of the amplifier body.  The large diameter of the knob means that it takes very little lateral force to make this happen on my particular unit.  This is clearly audible without headphones or current of any kind.  It doesn't transfer audibly to the phones when listening, but I frequently feel it through my fingers.
 
2.  With the amp powered up, but nothing playing, "fuzzy" static as I run the volume dial.
 
 

 

[Jack C]

Quote:

I also have (two) volume "scratching" issues on my E9.
 
1. The knob itself comes into contact with the front of the amplifier body.  The large diameter of the knob means that it takes very little lateral force to make this happen on my particular unit.  This is clearly audible without headphones or current of any kind.  It doesn't transfer audibly to the phones when listening, but I frequently feel it through my fingers.
 
2.  With the amp powered up, but nothing playing, "fuzzy" static as I run the volume dial.
 
 

I think #1 is caused by a slight variation in the volume knob mold because most E9s do not have this issue, but I've heard a couple of other posters here that mentioned they experienced this as well. The easy solution is to take off the volume knob and put a small piece of something into the volume post cavity, so that when you put the volume knob back on it sits further away from the front plate of the E9.
 
Jack
 
 

 

[Voohoo]

Quote:

I also have (two) volume "scratching" issues on my E9.
 
1. The knob itself comes into contact with the front of the amplifier body.  The large diameter of the knob means that it takes very little lateral force to make this happen on my particular unit.  This is clearly audible without headphones or current of any kind.  It doesn't transfer audibly to the phones when listening, but I frequently feel it through my fingers.
 
2.  With the amp powered up, but nothing playing, "fuzzy" static as I run the volume dial.
 
 

1. I had that issue as well. And it bugged me so much! But then i just put some paper in the cavity to make the knob farther away from the body and make a tighter fit so the knob is not easily pulled off. The way I went about using the paper was... I placed the removed knob face down on a table so that the cavity faces upwards. Then I take a little scrap of paper (about fingernail length?)  and place it over the cavity; just laying it top...not actually inserting anything into it. Lastly, I take the E9 body and insert it into the cavity (make sure it is lined up!) and the paper should get pushed down with it. I think you get the idea of the effect the paper has.
 
2. Lots of people have this problem but it's really no big deal.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

Quote:

1. I had that issue as well. And it bugged me so much! But then i just put some paper in the cavity to make the knob farther away from the body and make a tighter fit so the knob is not easily pulled off. The way I went about using the paper was... I placed the removed knob face down on a table so that the cavity faces upwards. Then I take a little scrap of paper (about fingernail length?)  and place it over the cavity; just laying it top...not actually inserting anything into it. Lastly, I take the E9 body and insert it into the cavity (make sure it is lined up!) and the paper should get pushed down with it. I think you get the idea of the effect the paper has.
 
2. Lots of people have this problem but it's really no big deal.

E9 - the amp that gave me hemorrhoids.
 

 

[Pitts Pilot]

If "lots of people have (the) same problem" with an amp, one might argue that it is a big deal.
 
I don't know about the other people, but I do know that scratchy/staticky/fuzzy/yucky noises are the very last thing I want to hear coming from my audio equipment.  (Maybe it's just a weird idiosyncrasy I have?)  I don't know if whatever is causing that noise could also be affecting the sound of the unit when the volume knob is sitting still, because I have little knowledge/understanding of how it works, but it makes it more difficult for me to be confident that it's working as well as it could/should.

 

[Voohoo]

Quote:

If "lots of people have (the) same problem" with an amp, one might argue that it is a big deal.
 
I don't know about the other people, but I do know that scratchy/staticky/fuzzy/yucky noises are the very last thing I want to hear coming from my audio equipment.  (Maybe it's just a weird idiosyncrasy I have?)  I don't know if whatever is causing that noise could also be affecting the sound of the unit when the volume knob is sitting still, because I have little knowledge/understanding of how it works, but it makes it more difficult for me to be confident that it's working as well as it could/should.

I actually totally agree with you. There shouldn't be any of this unwanted noise from equipment such as this. 
However, the issue is like having your TV momentarily display static every time you change the channel.
I was really bugged out when I found out that my E9 had the scratching issue but I can live with it and it's not worth waiting for it to be repaired/replaced (IF it can even be repaired). 
But yea, FiiO should not let this issue occur in any more products down the line. 

 

[JamesFiiO]

Very sorry for the uncomfortable noise, it is cause by the potentionmeter, I had explain it in this thread or another thread.  and I did ask if we should choose digital volume control in the
 
new model. but most people want the analog potentionmeter because it can bring the best sound quality.
 
I think maybe we  should consider it again. it is not about cost because alps potentionmeter is not cheap.
 
 
James

 

[JamesFiiO]

BTW, any advice, suggestion, criticize is welcome if it come from our user, it will help us improve our quality. if something that we can not do, I will explain the reason to you.
 
We do have a new desktop amp which call E15, and we are discussing about the feature in it. so it will be good to avoid any potential problem, like the unbalance and noise
 
come from potentionmeter. it can be solved unless we use digital volume control IC, it may install very small distortion. but we can use the best IC.
 
BTW, I know it is a common problem in some high end audio device, even more than 1,000 usd. so far the potentionmeter come from mass production , can not avoid the
 
unbalance problem, but it can be solved by use marching type volume control switcher, which is hand work products as below， but it also have noise during  adjusting, and
 
most of them is very expensive, big size, and only have 24 step, ( some are more than 500.00 usd) , so it is not a wise decision because you pay lots but still can not solve the
 
problem