FiiO E5

Since I’m a pretty cheap person, I surf DealExtreme.com a lot, and a few months back, I noticed a portable headphone amplifier called the FiiO E3. The FiiO E3 got pretty good ratings, and apparently drastically improves the sound coming from headphones. At the time, I was sort of intrigued. As you may or may not know, I’ve been going through a phase where I wanted to get a pair of decent headphones, but couldn’t exactly because of my extremely limited budget, the FiiO E3 seemed to be a completely plausible solution. Then I read up on the FiiO E3, and found that a new revision called the E5 was to be released, addressing all of the issues of the E3. I waited and waited, and finally, it was on sale at DealExtreme for $21.50, a hefty increase from the $9 of the E3.

The FiiO E5 has received some pretty good reviews, there are lots of graphs online showing how it manipulates different headphones to put out better bass or more even distributions of the frequency, but I didn’t understand much of it. In essence, I think the FiiO E5 does a good job of what it is advertised to do, but sometimes the numbers or technical terms that other reviews put out really distort your expectations. Here I was, expecting my headphones to sound loads better, but the FiiO E5 just doesn’t do that. It has its merits for sure, but don’t be misled to think you’ll get what a real amplifier does or that your headphones will now sound like hundred dollar ones.

I opened the FiiO E5, expecting a bulky “portable” amplifier, but was pleasantly surprised. It it slightly bigger than an iPod shuffle, and really compact in size. If you have a tiny MP3 player, it might seem a bit odd to hold it, since it might be doubling the size of your portable right, but for those of us who have full sized MP3 players (such as my iPod Classic), the extra bulk wasn’t much of a problem. It has some tiny buttons that might be a bit hard to press for some people, but the overall design was nice. The case is metallic and doesn’t scratch all that easily. And the clip, you’ll find after some usage, is a godsend.

I’ve attached the FiiO E5 to the back of my iPod Classic on my silicone case, but I’ve also used it with an iPod Nano, clipping it to my belt. The tiny size makes it almost unnoticeable. The most annoying part of dealing with the FiiO E5 in my opinion is the wires. There is a wire going from your MP3 player to the FiiO, and the package supplies two of these cables, one long, and one short. The short one is the one I use since I rarely separate my FiiO E5 from my iPods, but the extra slack tangles with my headphones in my pockets and just makes a mess.

In terms of actual usage, the FiiO has a USB port to charge the battery, which is rated to last 20 hours. I usually charge my electronics long before they actually need to be charged, so I haven’t pushed it to the limit. All I know is that it’ll definitely last more than 15 hours, and that charging generally takes 2-4 hours depending on how drained it is.

Going back to the basic functions of the FiiO E5, we also have the volume adjustment. I think that this might be absolutely useless for some of you, since you are perfectly happy with your MP3 player’s ability to adjust volume, but I always thought that the lowest volume on the iPod could go lower, and the highest volume could go higher. So the FiiO E5 was definitely an eye opener, you can go way lower or way higher. You can fine tune your volume because you now have two sets of volume adjustments. One major complaint I have is that there is hissing when the FiiO volume is really high, but the source volume is really low. It is extremely rare, and literally only happens when the FiiO E5 is turned to the maximum volume and my iPod is turned to the minimum, but I happen to use that setting quite a lot. It’s true that I can adjust simply by lowering the FiiO E5’s volume and increasing the volume of the iPod, but why is there hissing in the first place? It is very minor, and probably shouldn’t worry any of you, I guess I just have to get used to adjusting the volume.

When paired with the Soundmagic PL30’s that I bought from FocalPrice.com, the FiiO E5’s ability to sharpen sound and increase bass is amazing. The FiiO E5 has two settings that you can choose, one is flat and the other is bass boost. Flat gives you a sharper, sort of colder sound. Everything is crystal clear on the PL30’s in flat mode, and you can hear all the instruments as clear as water. The vocals are amazing, the high pitched sounds don’t get distorted, and the PL30’s just benefits so much from the E5. Even better is the bass boost mode. One of the problems with this amazing clarity is that some, read as most, of my MP3’s quality just isn’t good enough. They aren’t bad or anything, but because of the low quality, I needed to use better music files to adjust. I heard some blurs in the background or some graininess, and it was odd. I thought it might have been the FiiO E5, but no, it was the files. I went and got some higher quality versions of the files, and they are just a joy to listen to. But so much of my library has that graininess in the background, and it is such a hassle to replace them, that perhaps it might not be worth it.

Bass boost adds a bit of warmth to the mix and of course boosts the bass. The warmth means that you get slightly less clarity, but all of the instruments seem to mingle together nicer, and you get a sense that all the music is meant to be together. The extra bass isn’t a huge difference, but is very welcomed on the PL30’s. Normally the PL30’s has fairly weak bass, you really have to jam it into your ears and make a good seal before it comes through, but with the FiiO E5, you can feel the bass a little better, and it feels just right. If you are one of those people that love a huge amount of bass, this isn’t your solution, the FiiO E5’s bass boost doesn’t actually boost bass all that much, but merely gives it more of a push.

So using the Soundmagic PL30’s, I was really impressed with the FiiO E5, they seem to work together extremely well. Unfortunately the PL30’s aren’t my main set of headphones. They are great and all, but I always thought that they felt kind of weird, and I avoided using them. Instead, I use a pair of fake Creative EP630 headphones, also from FocalPrice.com. At $5, they do sound pretty good. Certainly doesn’t match the PL30’s but they are extremely comfortable. When I paired it up with the FiiO E5, under flat, I heard absolutely zero difference, ZERO. Bass boost did almost nothing as well, only a very, very slight boost in bass that is barely detectable. I was not happy, my favorite pair of headphones gained absolutely nothing from my $21.50 investment.

The FiiO E5 is definitely a nice way to enter into the headphone world, especially when paired with a set of Soundmagic PL30’s. There are headphones that benefit greatly from the FiiO E5, and others like my fake pair of EP630’s that don’t. It is a bit of a gamble, and in that sense, it might be a better choice to simply buy the older, cheaper version, the FiiO E3. I know that if I didn’t have a pair of Kanon headphones or my Soundmagic PL30, I would have been quite disappointed in my purchase, but as luck with have it, I did, so I am very happy with my FiiO E5. You will find mine permanently attached to my iPod Classic, with a set of PL30’s attached to it.

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