Upgrading Fiio E10/Sennheiser HD558 combo

Soldato
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If you were to improve this combination to provide a step change (i.e clearly noticeable) increase in sound quality, what options would you be looking at?

I'd imagne that the focus would be on the DAC/Amp rather than upgrading the headphones themselves, so would money be better spent on a better amp than say, a pair of HD650's?

Interested to hear your thoughts.

I listen to a very wide variety of music, so can't pin down specific genres the kit should excel at.
 
What's your source?
There's very little difference between amps, some higher end have intentionally different sound 'signatures,' but otherwise it's just about having sufficient power.

Speakers and headphones however vary a lot in their characteristics. I own a ton of headphones and IEM's for that reason, and I change those around, not amps or sources.
 
Little difference in various dacs and amps at that level. (some might say almost zero difference) Changing headphones will yield a big difference every time as no 2 cans will sound the same. You don't necessarily have to change brand to get a big difference, but each brand will have a sonic signature. I have a thing for AKG cans, tried beyer and sennheiser but always come back to AKG.
 
Ah didn't realise the E10 was a DAC as well. Wouldn't worry about the source then.
Are you looking just for 'better' or do you want something different liked closed or closed+portable? You can't go wrong with a pair of 650's, for me they're my reference set and I've no interest in trying alternatives as I love the >comfort< and sound. I went 570 > 580 > 600 > 650 over the past decade and I've never felt a need to change. I'm schizophrenic with IEM's though, I think because they're cheaper so you get to try many more.

some might say almost zero difference

I'm still afraid of getting hordes of 'audiophiles' jumping on me if I say something too controversial like that.
 
Everyone is different so I won't give them stick for what they can perceive vs me.

From my own experience, I've tried (and very hard) to hear the differences between sources and provided the source is of reasonable quality I couldn't hear the difference. Like the 192KHz 24 bit vs 44.1KHz 16 bit argument and persistent lowering of noise floors that are already far beneath what the human ear can hear. I've tried various 1 bit based bitstream dacs against hybrid 1-bit multibit dacs against traditional multibit and i simply could not hear a difference worthy of note. (various burrbrowns, philips, sony, AKM and wolfson) The only changes I've found that ever make any significant change (<- the important words) is to change the transducers. (speakers or cans) The only time changing the source or the amp has had an effect like that is when it's either a really crap design or when it's got iffy components.

I would hope that audiophiles would be open minded enough to understand that everyone hears things differently and have different opinions on what sounds best. Subjective opinions have to be taken with a pinch of salt, (even mine) and its always best to try things out before you buy.
 
What media player are you using to play the files off?

2 very good upgrade ideas if you are not already using them

J River as a media player
Then J Play as an upgrade to J River - I would make sure you can run J Play before buying, you can download the demo for free and try as much as you want

You can check out the JPlay forum - I have heard it through an asus essence stx and it makes a huge difference to the sound output from that soundcard - it cleans it up and brings it to life - well worthy of a look
 
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