Welp-- in efforts to further wring out every last bit of juice from an ipod, I did a passel more research on headphone amps. Despite being way happier with my ipod having connected one of those fiio e5's to it... it still wasn't sounding SUPER effortless like with a real stereo rig.. so i kept on digging.

I looked at a bunch of DIY kits- lots of CMOY amps and such-- which all appeal to me for being simple-- but I also didn't want to keep chucking 9v's in the garbage... so I wanted to find one that was rechargable if I could.

I shored up on this thing: the Fiio e11.



Doesn't look like much, and it's about the size of a credit card. Weighs about nuttin'.

So far, I've had it about a day or so-- and holy shit does it have some serious juice. I can drive my 80 ohm beyer 770's LOUD.. like unhealthy loud. same with my grados. I had to drive the amp into distortion to get loud enough with the beyers before-- now, not.

Anyhow-- it's got a coupla nifty features-- a high and low gain setting for the amp, and a 3 position bass boost- which actually sounds good instead of turning things to murk. It also has a rechargable cell phone battery in it, that's REPLACEABLE. ??? what... non throwaway technology?! unheard of!

I can honestly say, it's nice to have a sorta iron clad familiar, flat, reference point with non-mushy bass to check mixes and listen to. MUCH more reliable than the e5 which ran out of steam. The e11 has no such impression of losing dynamic range or juice even when it's loud-- but it's clear enough that you don't really need to drive the piss out of it to hear everything.

I still need to put my ears on this thing a few more days to see what it does.. but way cool so far!

nice. Thanks for the heads up.

Cool. I ended up getting rid of my iPod and replaced with a samsung galaxy w, the sound quality is much better. I just don't understand why apple are so shit at headphone amps. It's meant to be a premium/quality product and yet it sounds like utter shit.

I think audio fidelity is one of the few corners they can cut without much backlash... for our kind are few. Case in point the prevalence of those damn white earbuds. And handy iTunes functions like 'turn everything into 128kbps'.

Because everyone wants it to sound like they're immersed in a swimming pool when cymbals are heard

In all honesty, I'd take a cassette Walkman every day (and twice on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and the second Saturday of every month) vs. 128k mp3s.

Hard drive space is cheap now, guise.

I think it's funny in a way that it's an audio playback device that's gonna be used with headphones most of the time, and the headphone map sucks. (And as mentioned, the iPod has no excuse given its positioning as a "premium" thing- and Apple's rep as such did come from somewhere, once.)

Now, a better headphone amp is probably gonna have a lot more juice to it and clearer bass, and that's about all you need as far as I can tell to market any consumer audio product "loud/better bass".

As a corollary, there's the "check on average consumer system" too. I keep a pair of like $5 earbuds around for this purpose. Also, computer speakers and built-in laptop speakers: if it doesn't sound like ass on those and you can still hear the details, it wins. Also, if the bass instrument (guitar, synth, upright, etc.) doesn't disappear entirely on the laptop speakers, same deal.

And the second quoted point is the curse of weak headphone amps. You need so much less with a good amp. Which has more on tap. Even a middling amp by audiofool standards- my Yamaha or my Presonus HP4, for example- will beat the crap out of most things. I don't even bother with the one on my Focusrite unless I have to.



Digital aliasing is sexy. I want a pedal that adds an assload of digital aliasing to everything.





Okay, that might make an interesting fucked-up effect.

Isn't that a bitcrusher?

I imagine it could work for your brand of electronoiserock actually snaxo

yeah.. i'd go back to a cassette walkman too, but for the bag full of cassettes and broken boxes to hold them

its REALLY stupid how ipods are marketed as music devices with SHIT headphone amps. the one i have has been tested with a low freq cutoff of 100hz (!!!).WTF? musically, uh... there's pertinent stuff down there, thanks. that's why i went the route of the line out dock and a TOTALLY secondary amp. this fiio thing is rated from 10-40k or something stupid. totally unnecessary on top-- i'm not a bat. but a linear device is appreciated.

the only goofy thing that you have to worry about is the impedance matching between cans and amp.. you can end up with either too much or too little bass-- and even the fiio folks get that... hence the 'bass boost'.. 'cause you're more likely to end up with too LITTLE over too much. the 'eq' on this thing is actually functional, and doesn't sound like a giant wet fart... unlike what you're talking about 'MOBass' buttons and the like. embarrassing at best.

i sat and listened to cans for a while last night, i'm digging this thing-- and MAN does it make a huge dif in the car. if you're using any kinda line in-- your car stereo wants to see a higher voltage, i think, for the dynamic swings. this certainly provides it. Not too bad to be able to have fully stable drive to drive 80 ohm cans in your breast pocket either. i can even drive relatively cheap cans like my sennheiser 202's to adequate bass- and they're fairly lean!

now, if i can only get one made with tubes and transformers... that fits in my pocket..

You would need either smaller tubes and transformers or a larger pocket.

I'm thinking something the size of a large EHX pedal housing with a 12v battery? Totally practical...