Fiio E10 USB DAC Headphone Amplifier

by Fiio

• Volume Potentiometer, Barrier Free Design, Easy To Operate. Volume Digital Indicator, More Intuitive
• Bass Boost, OFF - 0dB;ON - +3dB, Built-In Bass Boosting Circuit, It's Different With Traditional Software To Set The EQ, The Effect Of E10 Will Be Better
• USB Digital Audio Converter To Coaxial Digital Audio Output; Line Output, Fixed Level Audio Line Output with Full Scale
• Support To Install Automatically Without Any Driver, Maximum Output - 96K/24Bit
• All- Aluminum Shell, Enhanced Anti-Interference Ability, Thus It's More Reliable And Durable

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.1 x 0.8 x 1.9 inches ; 2.9 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B005VO7LG6
• Item model number: E10-BK
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #12 in Electronics > Accessories & Supplies > Audio & Video Accessories > Headphone Accessories > Amps
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 24, 2011

Product Description

Features

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 57 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sounds great right out of the box November 2, 2011

By Jim TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Amazon Verified Purchase

I connected the E10 to my desktop PC (running Windows 7 64-bit), and the driver installed automatically in seconds. I then opened the computer's control panel, then sound, where I was able to select the E10 as the default device. (When I disconnect the E10 from the USB - connecting and disconnecting the E10 powers it on and off - the default automatically returns to the speakers I have attached to my PC.) On my computer the E10 is listed as SPDIF Interface (it names it as the FiiO E10 below this). In the advanced tab of the SPDIF Interface Properties window there is the option to select sample rate and bit depth, and I made sure this was set to the 96 Hz/24 Bit maximum specified for the E10. I then plugged my TDK ST800 High Fidelity Headphones into the E10, played some Bellini followed by Joy Division, New Order and Philip Glass - all lossless (FLAC). Wow. I have not heard music like this out of this computer before ever. With the E10 bass boost switch on while playing New Order's "Blue Monday," I feel as if I'm in a club (several decades ago). With all the music I used to test the E10 I could hear details I have not heard before. The E10 also sounds great paired with my Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones (tested with some Killing Joke and Dum Dum Girls with bass boost on, and some of Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports with the bass boost off, because Eno has some serious near-subsonic bass going on in there that gets distorted when the E10 bass boost is on).

The E10 comes packed in a tin just like the one the FiiO E11 Portable Headphone Amplifier comes in, with optional stick-on rubber feet, a USB cable and instructions. The high/low gain switch works fine and with the 250 ohm ST800s low gain is all I need (a rule of thumb I've heard for determining whether you need high or low gain with a given set of headphones has to do with volume; if with high gain the volume becomes too high too soon, e.g., when the E10's numbered volume knob is at 2 or 3 and the volume is super loud, switch to low gain; the volume knob on the E10 goes from 0-8). I find, however, that high gain is better when my 300 ohm Sennheiser HD580 headphones are connected to the E10, for at the low gain setting I can turn the volume to 8 without reaching a maximally loud volume. (Suitable headphone impedance for the E10 runs from 16-300 ohms). With my 38 ohm Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones, the low gain setting on the E10 works best.

The E10 can of course also be used as a DAC with any speaker system that would otherwise connect directly to a computer (i.e., to the computer's sound card). I am surprised at how much better my Logitech Speaker System Z523 with Subwoofer sounds when connected to the E10 instead of to the computer's sound card. There is a line out port on the back of the E10 for connecting speakers, which bypasses the E10's volume control, which only functions when headphones are connected through the headphone jack on the front of the E10. I don't imagine I will ever want to connect speakers directly to my computer's sound card ever again, now that I have an E10.

Crystal clarity... And so small it will be no problem to travel with it in a laptop bag. FiiO has hit one out of the park with the E10. Now I'm thinking of getting a second E10 so I can keep one connected to my desktop and have the other always handy for use with my laptop.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little device December 1, 2011

By P. Tran

Amazon Verified Purchase

I received my Fiio e10 today and have been going through my music collection to see how it handles different types of songs.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
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The first thing I noticed when taking it out of the box was how small it was. In the picture it looks huge, but in reality, it's a bit smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Another impression I got was how nice the packaging was, especially for a Chinese company. It came in black velvety feeling molded thingy inside of a tin box. The device itself seems pretty well made, with a metal enclosure and metal dials and switches. It has a nice blue LED on the front of the unit that's pretty bright but not overbearing.

HOW IT SOUNDS:
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The headphones I am using for testing are the Denon AH-D2000's and the Sennheiser HD555's (modded).

This is my second external DAC/AMP. My other one is just an Mbox2, that I also use for recording. One thing I noticed was that the noise floor for the e10 was silent/inaudible, even when the volume dial was turned to the max. This is in contrast with the Mbox2, where I would hear a constant slight hissing when no song was playing.

To me, this little device sounds great. With the bass boost off, it doesn't seem to color the audio at all and I was able to raise the volume pretty loud. Compared to the default imac headphone out, it's like night and day. Hate to sound cliche, but the highs were crisp and the bass was controlled.

The bass boost does what you think it would, and does increase the bass. Though it sounds a bit muddy. I keep mine off. I'm a bass-head too (I also play the bass guitar!) so I like my bass. But it definitely sounds better off.

INPUTS/OUTPUTS
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Inputs: USB
Outputs: Line out, Coax out, headphone out (3.5mm jack)

FINAL THOUGHTS
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The e10 is a great little dac/amp that doesn't make me embarrassed to tell people how much it costs, and also doesn't make me hate myself at the end of the month when I don't have enough money to pay my bills.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice little DAC/HA for a nice little price. December 23, 2011

By Chris

Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased the Fiio E10 a little over a week ago and have spent the past week listening to it about 2-3 hours nightly.

I use it with a 2008 Macbook > Fiio E10 > Audioengine A5 speaker setup and listen through Sony MDRV6/Grado SR225 headphones.

I was satisfied with the built in Realtek soundcard on the laptop but after reading some reviews and seeing the price I decided to give the E10 a try and see for myself if I could improve the sound quality at all.

The E10 comes in a nice little aluminum tin with included instructions, 2 sets of rubber stick on feet (8 total), and a 1M mini USB cable. The unit itself is very small and looks/feels well made. The volume pot has a good amount of resistance and does not feel cheap at all. One of the complaints I read about them was some units introduced a crackly noise into the sound if the headphone cable or the unit was moved around as sound was being put through it. This seems to be a manufacturing issue on the first batch of units shipped from China. I seemed to get an E10 from the second batch as I haven't noticed the issue yet. If you have run into the issue, I suggest contacting Amazon for a replacement.

The E10 installs automatically upon plugging it into Lion 10.7.2 and Windows 7 64bit. You just go into your sound options in each OS and switch your output to the E10. Nice.

After a week and after doing some back/forth switching between the E10 and headphone out on the laptop there are some subtle, but pleasing differences. The main thing I noticed is the highs (treble) in any vocal music being 'smoothed' out. The overall sound is a bit better but, in my opinion and on my system, the difference is not a night/day change. But then again I didn't expect an $80 DAC to give me that WOW! factor. Its definitely helped the sound quality improve but not to a level of a much more expensive DAC. Everyone will be using a different laptop/PC, speaker, headphone and our ears are all different so remember that I can only give my opinion on what I hear. Others might hear more/less in their particular usage.

But the changes I did hear made me happy enough to give the E10 a 5 star rating and recommend it to others.

The headphone amp works really well and I only have to go to the 3/4 (out of 8) setting on the volume pot to get loud clear sound. My headphones are lower impedance phones so if you have higher ohm (250,300,600) headphones I can not give any opinions on how it would perform with those.

Nice little piece of equipment to improve the sound from your computer at work. Good little beginner DAC/Amp for someone just starting out in audio. Heck, even good for long time hi-fi guys who want a fun little gadget to play around with. It's reasonably priced, performs well and might even impress some folks using higher priced equipment.

Recommended and try to order from GSI/Sound Around Specials Inc. as the vendor. They are the authorized U.S distributor of Fiio products.

Will update review as necessary if I run into any issues. Thanks for reading.