Friio E5 vs Fiio E11

kmufc77 · 14 Dec 2011 at 22:09

Hi i use a Fiio E5 amp with my Goldrings NS100 and it improves the sound/bass etc.

What im wondering is how much better the E11 is?,have any users swapped over from a E5 to a E11 and noticed a difference?

Edit : I see there is also a E7 out aswell?

Psycho Sonny · 15 Dec 2011 at 00:40

e7 is a portable dac/amp and the amp is the same quality of an e6.

the e5 is crap tbh, get an e6, they are £15-£20.

e11 is better than the e6 and e7 amp wise, but your headphones are hardly amazing, if you had better headphones i would recommend an e11, but save the cash and get an e6 and sell the e5 for £5 on ebay.

kmufc77 · 15 Dec 2011 at 01:08

So what headphones do you class as good then?

The NS1000 are hardly rubbish? im guessing Sennheiser ?

So are you saying the NS100 arent good enough for the E11?

Marsman · 15 Dec 2011 at 01:47

kmufc77 said:
So what headphones do you class as good then?

The NS1000 are hardly rubbish? im guessing Sennheiser ?

So are you saying the NS100 arent good enough for the E11?

NS1000's are very good headphones for £60, build quality aside.

I think he's saying they do not need such an amp, and a E6 is good enough. He just put it in rather a blunt way.

Ksanti · 15 Dec 2011 at 15:59

Yeah the NS1000's cope pretty well with a decent DAP unamped, I think we're talking hifi headphones before you get to really needing serious amping beyond what an e5 or e6 is capable of depending on the audio source.

Psycho Sonny · 15 Dec 2011 at 21:49

kmufc77 said:
So what headphones do you class as good then?

The NS1000 are hardly rubbish? im guessing Sennheiser ?

So are you saying the NS100 arent good enough for the E11?

headphones start at like £5 and go all the way up to crazy amounts like £3000.

now let's be realistic here, £60 headphones, are never going to be hi fi, no matter who makes them.

they are good headphones for £60, but £60 is hardly a lot of money in the headphone world.

i would say you need to spend at least double that £120 to get anything which makes an e11 worthwhile.

think about it, does it make sense to use a £45 amp with a £60 headphone?

no a £60 headphone should use a £20 amp at best.

i dont know why you would even consider an e7 it costs the same amount as your headphones and is a DAC/AMP.

if you want to know more google "head fi"

s452 · 15 Dec 2011 at 21:56

sorry to hijack, but is it worth getting the E11 for sennheiser HD598s, I'm currently using a E5 with a sgs2?

shephga · 15 Dec 2011 at 23:54

Psycho Sonny said:
headphones start at like £5 and go all the way up to crazy amounts like £3000.

now let's be realistic here, £60 headphones, are never going to be hi fi, no matter who makes them.

they are good headphones for £60, but £60 is hardly a lot of money in the headphone world.

i would say you need to spend at least double that £120 to get anything which makes an e11 worthwhile.

think about it, does it make sense to use a £45 amp with a £60 headphone?

no a £60 headphone should use a £20 amp at best.

i dont know why you would even consider an e7 it costs the same amount as your headphones and is a DAC/AMP.

if you want to know more google "head fi"

Hmmm your point is flawed the cost of headphones should never be used to qualify the expected sound quality of headphones, using your point above you'd be saying the same ns1000's would sound better priced at the original rrp of £149.00 on the ......fi website.

To the original poster get what you can afford, buy the amp you want then upgrade your headphones later if you want and have the cash. Think of it like buying separates.

Psycho Sonny · 16 Dec 2011 at 03:20

s452 said:
sorry to hijack, but is it worth getting the E11 for sennheiser HD598s, I'm currently using a E5 with a sgs2?

not in that setup, in fact you shouldn't even be using the E5.

these amps should not be used on a headphone socket, line out only.

get an ipod touch, line out cable and an e11.

or if the sgs2 does usb digital out, get a DAC and an E11 combo (a lot to carry about for a portable solution).

your headphones need an e11 but it must only be used with a line out signal not a headphone signal.

C64 · 16 Dec 2011 at 06:15

e11 as you can buy a new battery the internal battery on the e5/e6 wont hold a charge after about 2 years.
E11 you can just buy a new mobile phone battery I think it is should be pretty cheap.

s452 · 16 Dec 2011 at 15:43

Psycho Sonny said:
not in that setup, in fact you shouldn't even be using the E5.

Why is this, because with and without the e5, i notice a difference in the available volume, but no noticable difference in the sound quality (im not an audiophile)? I have heard that on an ipod, using the line-out is suppose to be better cos it by-passes the internal amp or something, but never thought it could apply to the SGS2 as well.

marc2003 · 16 Dec 2011 at 15:47

C64 said:
the e5/e6 wont hold a charge after about 2 years.

my e5 is still going strong after 2 and a half years. even it went kaput tomorrow, i wouldn't care as it's so cheap to replace.

Marine-RX179 · 16 Dec 2011 at 15:48

C64 said:
e11 as you can buy a new battery the internal battery on the e5/e6 wont hold a charge after about 2 years.
E11 you can just buy a new mobile phone battery I think it is should be pretty cheap.

But considering the E11 cost (more than) double of the E5/E6, wouldn't it be better to just get another one 2 years down the line? (E11 would probably drop to £20 by them with new models coming out?)

Psycho Sonny · 17 Dec 2011 at 11:01

s452 said:
Why is this, because with and without the e5, i notice a difference in the available volume, but no noticable difference in the sound quality (im not an audiophile)? I have heard that on an ipod, using the line-out is suppose to be better cos it by-passes the internal amp or something, but never thought it could apply to the SGS2 as well.

a headphone socket has already been amped, by the internal amp.

otherwise it would be a line out and need amping.

effectively by using an amp on a signal which has already been amped by a cheap internal phone amp means you are just amping a crap signal and effectively making it even crapper.

there should be much more distortion and hissing, etc by amping a headphone socket than just using the headphone socket on it's own.

basically as a rule of thumb, you never ever amp a headphone out line, if you want decent SQ, you only amp line out signals.

your setup is like this

sound > crap amp > good amp > headphones

basically your just amplifying the crap amp

on a line out on an ipod

sound > good amp > headphones

you bypass the crap amp and therefore you amplify only using the good amp meaning much higher sound quality.

amping a signal twice destroys the sound quality, otherwise every DJ, or home cinema setup or car audio setup would run 2 cheap amps instead of 1 expensive one, think about it.

s452 · 17 Dec 2011 at 22:49

ah, that does make sense, while im not going to buy a new MP3 player to get better sound quality, i'll try to see if a line-out is available for the SGS2.

Somnambulist · 17 Dec 2011 at 23:12

There isn't. Android has 'USB on the go' functionality which in theory means you can connect a self-powered USB DAC/amp, or USB DAC w/lineout into a portable amp, but it's currently gimped at a core level and there's zero Android devices which support it. One for the future, supposedly.

If you want a line-out, then you're limited to things like iOS devices. If you want a portable digital-out then you're talking either £500 for one of two different exclusive for iOS devices, or more expensive Chinese audiophile DAPs. Not that you'd need them for your headphones with a half decent DAP/PMP.

Psycho Sonny · 18 Dec 2011 at 11:00

s452 said:
ah, that does make sense, while im not going to buy a new MP3 player to get better sound quality, i'll try to see if a line-out is available for the SGS2.

yet you bought an E5?

i think the cheapest option is one of the sansa mp3 players can be had for £30 seen it on hotukdeals a few times for around that price and one of them has line out functionality and has an SD slot for upgrading internal storage.

Sansa player - £30
E6 - £20
line out cable - £5
SD card (optional) - £10-£20

i dont know which sansa player it is which does line out, but apparently it has the best SQ you can get for under £100.

hux · 18 Dec 2011 at 11:38

Sansa fuze.
Fiio l6 lod
Plus an e6/e11

As said don't double amp.

Not sure if the fiio lod has any caps inside, you'll need it as the fuze outputs a dc offset.

Otherwise you'll risk knackering your headphones.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/514061/review-mod-fiio-l6-lod-for-sansa-fuze

I personally use an e7 with my fuze and a custom lod, works very well but i can tell the e7 is holding things back.

Personally id choose an e11, then you have the option to upgrade the headphones without having to worry about the amp keeping up.

Rojin · 2 Jan 2012 at 00:44

Psycho Sonny said:
a headphone socket has already been amped, by the internal amp.

otherwise it would be a line out and need amping.

effectively by using an amp on a signal which has already been amped by a cheap internal phone amp means you are just amping a crap signal and effectively making it even crapper.

there should be much more distortion and hissing, etc by amping a headphone socket than just using the headphone socket on it's own.

basically as a rule of thumb, you never ever amp a headphone out line, if you want decent SQ, you only amp line out signals.

your setup is like this

sound > crap amp > good amp > headphones

basically your just amplifying the crap amp

on a line out on an ipod

sound > good amp > headphones

you bypass the crap amp and therefore you amplify only using the good amp meaning much higher sound quality.

amping a signal twice destroys the sound quality, otherwise every DJ, or home cinema setup or car audio setup would run 2 cheap amps instead of 1 expensive one, think about it.

I was always under the impression that the iPod line out was exactly the same as headphone output except for being of fixed volume and higher impedance, it isn't a clean output that bypasses the internal amp as such. Is this something that has changed in recent years?

Flibster · 2 Jan 2012 at 01:24

Somnambulist said:
There isn't. Android has 'USB on the go' functionality which in theory means you can connect a self-powered USB DAC/amp, or USB DAC w/lineout into a portable amp, but it's currently gimped at a core level and there's zero Android devices which support it. One for the future, supposedly.

If you want a line-out, then you're limited to things like iOS devices. If you want a portable digital-out then you're talking either £500 for one of two different exclusive for iOS devices, or more expensive Chinese audiophile DAPs. Not that you'd need them for your headphones with a half decent DAP/PMP.

Galaxy S2 does have a line out ability - it's available on the official docks for a start.

But, you can make a cable.

I don't know why no-one has started selling one yet though.

You do need a resister across the sense and ground pins.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1249775

or you can kick it into car dock mode

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1321491

Naturally it's at your own risk, I take no responsibility if by doing this your phone fries your granmother in whale oil and then sleeps with your mother.