[DaBomb77766]

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I was gonna get the E17 but I just found out it is gonna take 2 more months to come out.  Should I wait that long or should I just get a dac now?  And which one is the best but under $150?
 
 
Edit: whoops, i just saw your recommendation for Behringer UCA202.  So is it better than the e17's dac?

Well, if you want to be able to use it quickly, you could just go to radioshack or somewhere and get a 3.5mm-3.5mm cable, it'll cost more there than online but it'd work.  Be sure to get one that's long enough though, most of them tend to be pretty short.
 
I doubt the behringer will be better than the E17 though, but it is cheap which is nice.  It's only really any good as a line-out though, not so much as an amp.  It'd certainly be better than your PC's built-in amp, but by how much I do not know - some onboard amps are pretty good, and some are just pieces of crap.

 

[skeeder]

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Thanks guys but still need this question answered, get a headphone jack, plug it in my computer, plug the mini to mini cable to jack then plug it in the e9 line in?

get the sound cord it will look like this:

plug that into your PC and then your amp.  
 
I have the UCA202.  It does okay for $30.  better than onboard sound.
 
 

 

[TheChosen0ne]

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get the sound cord it will look like this:

plug that into your PC and then your amp.  
 
I have the UCA202.  It does okay for $30.  better than onboard sound.
 
 

 
So I only need this thing, not the mini to mini cable?

 

[Head Injury]

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So I only need this thing, not the mini to mini cable?

That is a mini-to-mini cable.
 
As a DAC, the Behringer UCA202 measures pretty much inaudible in everything but noise, where it's only mediocre. I'm an objectivist, so to me that means you can't get much better. I don't expect any of Fiio's DACs to be able to beat it, only match it. Since you already have the E9, which is a pretty good amp, I personally would just get the UCA202 and forget the E17 unless you want it for portable use.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

That is a mini-to-mini cable.
 
As a DAC, the Behringer UCA202 measures pretty much inaudible in everything but noise, where it's only mediocre. I'm an objectivist, so to me that means you can't get much better. I don't expect any of Fiio's DACs to be able to beat it, only match it. Since you already have the E9, which is a pretty good amp, I personally would just get the UCA202 and forget the E17 unless you want it for portable use.

Well, the UCA202 doesn't do 24-bit, right...?  That's something that can be useful, although not necessarily just because it "sounds better."

 

[TheChosen0ne]

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.  I just found a spare cable and it's working now.  I gotta admit I have a hard time telling the difference between my old klipsch image one headphones to my current set up now with the hd600 but i guess with the E17 it will sound better?  And maybe I should try listening to better quality songs?  Right now Ive tested out on 720p/1080p music videos i've downloaded in youtube and some 320kbps songs and like I said I havent notice any difference between quality.  Also I just think im gonna get the E17 cause I listen to my ipod touch too.

 

[TheChosen0ne]

Also what does gain on the e9 do?

 

[stv014]

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Also what does gain on the e9 do?

It determines (together with the volume knob) how much the input voltage is amplified. In short: if you can get loud enough volume on the low gain, then use low gain. Otherwise use high gain.
 

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.  I just found a spare cable and it's working now.  I gotta admit I have a hard time telling the difference between my old klipsch image one headphones to my current set up now with the hd600 but i guess with the E17 it will sound better?  And maybe I should try listening to better quality songs?  Right now Ive tested out on 720p/1080p music videos i've downloaded in youtube and some 320kbps songs and like I said I havent notice any difference between quality.  Also I just think im gonna get the E17 cause I listen to my ipod touch too.

You're gonna wanna get a LOD cable with the E17 if you want to use it with your ipod.
 
Anyway, I'd recommend you just keep on using your headphones like this for awhile, you'll eventually learn to find the difference between them and your old ones.  It would definitely help to have a better DAC though.

 

[TheChosen0ne]

Quote:

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.  I just found a spare cable and it's working now.  I gotta admit I have a hard time telling the difference between my old klipsch image one headphones to my current set up now with the hd600 but i guess with the E17 it will sound better?  And maybe I should try listening to better quality songs?  Right now Ive tested out on 720p/1080p music videos i've downloaded in youtube and some 320kbps songs and like I said I havent notice any difference between quality.  Also I just think im gonna get the E17 cause I listen to my ipod touch too.

So ever since I got the HD600s, I've been listening to music for at least 10 hrs total and just 5 minutes ago I went back to my Klipsch Image Ones and wow, I do notice a difference between those and my HD600.  The bass on the Image One's was overpowering.  I've been working otherwise I would've been listening to music more around 10 hrs a day so I might notice more things between the two as well as when I get my E17 in a couple months. 
 
And I got another question, is there such thing as a badly converted FLAC file or is a FLAC file a FLAC file and have the same quality no matter what?  If I can't legally find FLAC songs that I want I might be required to find it some other way if you know what I mean so I need to know if there is such thing has a good/bad converted music files in FLAC, 320kbps, etc.

 

[jerg]

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So ever since I got the HD600s, I've been listening to music for at least 10 hrs total and just 5 minutes ago I went back to my Klipsch Image Ones and wow, I do notice a difference between those and my HD600.  The bass on the Image One's was overpowering.  I've been working otherwise I would've been listening to music more around 10 hrs a day so I might notice more things between the two as well as when I get my E17 in a couple months. 
 
And I got another question, is there such thing as a badly converted FLAC file or is a FLAC file a FLAC file and have the same quality no matter what?  If I can't legally find FLAC songs that I want I might be required to find it some other way if you know what I mean so I need to know if there is such thing has a good/bad converted music files in FLAC, 320kbps, etc.

Nope, FLAC = lossless = all information will turn out identical on the analog end no matter what. 320kbps should be 99% same to FLAC, with the 1% being exposed at the most layered and confusing parts of certain music.
 

 

[TheChosen0ne]

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Nope, FLAC = lossless = all information will turn out identical on the analog end no matter what. 320kbps should be 99% same to FLAC, with the 1% being exposed at the most layered and confusing parts of certain music.
 

Lets say two people upload the same album but they use different converters and one buys the album on itunes and the other buys a CD and both converts them to FLAC, both of them will have the same quality?  I think they will be different cause one is CD quality and itunes i think has only 256 kbps quality songs but I don't know so tell me if Im wrong or not.

 

[KmhK]

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Lets say two people upload the same album but they use different converters and one buys the album on itunes and the other buys a CD and both converts them to FLAC, both of them will have the same quality?  I think they will be different cause one is CD quality and itunes i think has only 256 kbps quality songs but I don't know so tell me if Im wrong or not.

You cannot upconvert the quality. The information in the files have already been lost.

 

[TheChosen0ne]

So if I choose from 100 different people who upload the same album in FLAC then they will all have the same sound quality?  I just wanna be 100% sure so I know Im not wasting my time with bad quality music when I could get better quality from someone else.

 

[juman231]

If the flac files were converted from WAV or was converted from flac of different compression, then the quality should be the same. But there are cases where the flac files were converted from lossy file formats like MP3.  In these cases, although the file is flac, the quality isn't. Once you compress lossless into lossy, the data loss from the compression is permanent.