[NickFox]

Hi all,
I again come seeking your advice to make an educated purchase. I've enjoyed my DT 880 250 + e17 setup for a while now, but lately it seems like I've been lacking the power to fully drive these headphones. And it's not that the amp doesn't output enough gain, because half volume at half gain is plenty volume for classical music. Is there a difference between volume and power, for lack of a better word? The instrumental separation isn't there, and the clarity is generally lacking. Is this a credible observation, or am I deceiving myself into an upgrade? Even if so, one must admit the allure of an analog volume knob is tempting. 
 
If my observation is credible, please tell me this: should I sell my e17 and upgrade to the Schiit stack (modi/magni)? Or should I keep the e17 and LO to a magni? That would give me more connectivity and I'd get to keep the e17 for portable use (not that I use it much, but I could in the future). However, I haven't found anything to help me compare the quality of the e17 LO with the modi. There's also the vali option, since I've heard so much about the 880s with tubes. In any case, I have a somewhat elastic budget of $100, but I am open to suggestions.
 
Or maybe I should just stop worrying and save my money for a different set of headphones to complement the beyers, maybe SR 80s or something. 
 
TLR
I have Beyer DT880s and a Fiio e17. Would the modi/magni be a reasonable upgrade? What if I used e17 LO to the magni?
 
Thanks for any feedback.

 

[PurpleAngel]

What source so you use with the E17 and which digital connection do you use with it?
 
The LO on the E17 only works when docked.
There is the FiiO L7 adapter for the E17, which turns the E17 into a USB DAC
 
Maybe sell off the FiiO E17 and get the Schiit Modi/Vali stack?

 

[NickFox]

 What source so you use with the E17 and which digital connection do you use with it?  
The LO on the E17 only works when docked.
There is the FiiO L7 adapter for the E17, which turns the E17 into a USB DAC
 
Maybe sell off the FiiO E17 and get the Schiit Modi/Vali stack?

 
Sorry I forgot to mention that. I use mini SPDIF from my MacBook Pro to stream 16 bit FLAC files. By LO I meant using the L7, which I formerly assumed worked with SPDIF input to the e17—is that not the case? 

 

[PurpleAngel]

   
Sorry I forgot to mention that. I use mini S/PDIF from my MacBook Pro to stream 16 bit FLAC files. By LO I meant using the L7, which I formerly assumed worked with S/PDIF input to the e17—is that not the case? 

 
I believe the FiiO L7 only comes with a USB input.

 

[NickFox]

   
I believe the FiiO L7 only comes with a USB input.

 
Yes, but the L7 goes in the bottom of the e17; can't I still use the S/PDIF for digital in, as it's on the top? Or do I need to plug directly into the L7? It's a minor detail, in any case. I'm more concerned about the plausibility of an upgrade. 

 

[PurpleAngel]

   
Yes, but the L7 goes in the bottom of the e17; can't I still use the S/PDIF for digital in, as it's on the top? Or do I need to plug directly into the L7? It's a minor detail, in any case. I'm more concerned about the plausibility of an upgrade. 

I've always assumed the FiiO L7 only works with it's own USB input and not any of the E17's inputs, but I can't say it's a fact.

 

[billybob_jcv]

I'm going to try to completely over-simplify, and I know it isn't this simple, and I'm going to make the engineers cringe, but here goes...

There are (at least) two aspects to an amp. One is gain. This is the increase in voltage between the input signal and the output signal. This is essentially volume. Low efficiency headphones need high gain amps. The second aspect is power. This is the ability of the amp to supply the current required to satisfy the most dynamic parts of the audio signal. This is the dynamic range that gives the sound energy and life. These things can be related - they are not always independent. OTOH, there are also low-gain amps that have the ability to supply gobs of current.

OK, so, when you say that your current amp gets loud enough, but still doesn't sound as good as you would like, that could be several issues. Here's a few:

- The amp may have enough gain, but not enough excess power to handle the dynamic parts of your songs. The amp can't get there, so it does the best it can. The result is a rather dull presentation that sounds like it is thin or constrained. Having an amp with more headroom can help to provide more dynamics and life to the sound. However, you do need to be careful, if you increase both the power and the gain too high for your headphones, you might create distortion and noise.

- The headphones may just not be capable of producing the sound you want to hear. The amp might be giving the headphones plenty, but if the headphones can't convert that signal into sound, then you get whatever it can do. Being recessed in certain parts of the frequency range can make you feel like something is missing, or conversely, if one part of the range is boosted, that can overwhelm the sound and the result is the same - you feel you are missing parts of the music - because you are! It's pretty hard to hear that delicate soprano when there's a pounding cannon of bass assaulting you.

- The music you are listening to could be over-compressed (eg, 128K MP3), or it could have been produced very poorly. Just because you rip the CD to FLAC doesn't mean the record company didn't put a cr@p bunch of bits on the CD. If you buy your CDs from the back of an old pick-up truck at the local swap meet, you shouldn't expect your ripping to FLAC to result in a great sound.

The last thing I'll say is that humans are very poor at volume matching by ear. Increasing the volume can be mistaken for making the sound better. We *think* we have matched the volume with and without the amp, and we then say "Wow it's a lot better with the amp!" - but a lot of that could really be an increase in volume that we just aren't recognizing. I also think there is A LOT of psychoacoustics effects at work - we *want* to believe it is better with the amp, so we are biased in that direction before we ever press the play button. Of course, this is not always true - and amps really *do* help - but I think it's always healthy to be skeptical of the golden-eared audiophiles that hear differences in the sound based on the phase of the moon and whether Jupiter is rising in Virgo.

 

[Me x3]

  Hi all,
I again come seeking your advice to make an educated purchase. I've enjoyed my DT 880 250 + e17 setup for a while now, but lately it seems like I've been lacking the power to fully drive these headphones. And it's not that the amp doesn't output enough gain, because half volume at half gain is plenty volume for classical music. Is there a difference between volume and power, for lack of a better word? The instrumental separation isn't there, and the clarity is generally lacking. Is this a credible observation, or am I deceiving myself into an upgrade? Even if so, one must admit the allure of an analog volume knob is tempting. 
 
If my observation is credible, please tell me this: should I sell my e17 and upgrade to the Schiit stack (modi/magni)? Or should I keep the e17 and LO to a magni? That would give me more connectivity and I'd get to keep the e17 for portable use (not that I use it much, but I could in the future). However, I haven't found anything to help me compare the quality of the e17 LO with the modi. There's also the vali option, since I've heard so much about the 880s with tubes. In any case, I have a somewhat elastic budget of $100, but I am open to suggestions.
 
Or maybe I should just stop worrying and save my money for a different set of headphones to complement the beyers, maybe SR 80s or something. 
 
TLR
I have Beyer DT880s and a Fiio e17. Would the modi/magni be a reasonable upgrade? What if I used e17 LO to the magni?
 
Thanks for any feedback.

 
If you want a noticeable change in sound you should try something drastic, I guess neutral SS Amps like Magni or O2 won't give you what you are looking for.
 
I've done some comparison between my Fiio E07K and the headphone out of my Yamaha A-S500 (Pure Direct Mode) which has a much higher output impedance.
When plugged into the Yamaha these Beyers sound fuller and smoother some would say more 'musical' or 'refined'.
 
Laptop ---> E07K ---> DT880 250 Ohm
Laptop ---> L7 ----> E07K ----> A-S500 ----> DT 880 250 Ohm
 
You can always use a clean parametric equaliser in order to tweak the sound a bit to your liking, I'm sure many people in the sound science forum can recommend you some nice plug ins.
 
If you want a new amp you should consider Schiit Vali as a nice option for your purposes - that won't break the bank.
 
Best Luck!