[Vamp898]

Thanks I'll look at more reviews for both.

Too much money, $1200 here for the K9 Pro ESS. From the few reviews I read about those Fiio dac/amps no one really mentioned any hiss with sensitive IEMs, except one with Andros on high gain, what's the noise floor on the Cayin Ru7 that others suggested? It looks quite good at least from the reviews I saw.

That says more about the reviewers than the products. FiiO themselvs openly tell you the noise floor on the homepage and it is high.

Maybe they tested the IEMs on Single Ended? With Analog Amps, you only have half the noise on Single Ended as you use only one amp.

The RU7 is an portable device, its just an dongle and it has pretty bad measurements overall. It has an Channel Separation of 96db on Balanced. There are devices who have better channel separation on 3.5mm. Dynamic Range and SNR is also bad.

The Channel Separation on balanced is almost on the level of my Smartphone.

But it uses an ladder dac with two very cheap amp chips, so that is no surprise. If you put nothing in the device that sounds good, it will not sound good.

Cayin tells nothing about the Noise Floor... you can think for yourself what that means.

The FiiO KA Dongles or the Moondrop Dongles or even the Shanling Dongles are significantly better in everything so i would not recommend it.

 

[Jimmy34]

That says more about the reviewers than the products. FiiO themselvs openly tell you the noise floor on the homepage and it is high.

Maybe they tested the IEMs on Single Ended? With Analog Amps, you only have half the noise on Single Ended as you use only one amp.

The RU7 is an portable device, its just an dongle and it has pretty bad measurements overall. It has an Channel Separation of 96db on Balanced. There are devices who have better channel separation on 3.5mm. Dynamic Range and SNR is also bad.

The Channel Separation on balanced is almost on the level of my Smartphone.

But it uses an ladder dac with two very cheap amp chips, so that is no surprise. If you put nothing in the device that sounds good, it will not sound good.

Cayin tells nothing about the Noise Floor... you can think for yourself what that means.

The FiiO KA Dongles or the Moondrop Dongles or even the Shanling Dongles are significantly better in everything so i would not recommend it.

Thanks, if you were to recommend a dongle then that pairs nice with the z1r( balance and 3.5 would be a bonus if I do choose to use other not very demanding headphones) with good separation etc what would you recommend?

 

[Vamp898]

Thanks, if you were to recommend a dongle then that pairs nice with the z1r( balance and 3.5 would be a bonus if I do choose to use other not very demanding headphones) with good separation etc what would you recommend?

If i personally would buy a dongle, i would buy the Moondrop Dawn 4.4

https://shorturl.at/efoI1

But its 4.4mm only. If i would need both 3.5mm and 4.4mm, i would get the Moondrop Moonriver

https://shorturl.at/hvN78

But that is just what i personally would buy.

 

[Jimmy34]

If i personally would buy a dongle, i would buy the Moondrop Dawn 4.4

https://shorturl.at/efoI1

But its 4.4mm only. If i would need both 3.5mm and 4.4mm, i would get the Moondrop Moonriver

https://shorturl.at/hvN78

But that is just what i personally would buy.

Thanks I'll look into those 2, as for a desktop unit is there anything even worth looking into for $500 or less or just stick with one of these dongles for work as at the price point there won't be much notable difference in SQ?

 

[thang3291]

Hi guys, someone wants to sell this to me for a very good price. One problem is the missing L piece. Does it affect the sound? I personally don’t hear anything wrong with it. And is it possible to fix or find a replacement? Thanks

 

[Vamp898]

Thanks I'll look into those 2, as for a desktop unit is there anything even worth looking into for $500 or less or just stick with one of these dongles for work as at the price point there won't be much notable difference in SQ?

I think these Dongles will offer higher quality than an 500$ Desktop Device.

Desktop Devices are very complex to develop and manifacture. One of the main reasons is that, unlike dongles, the have a large Power Supply with AC/DC Conversion from 100-240V and so on.

If you look at the FiiO K9 Pro Board

You can see that almos half of the board is just used, to clean the power source. And because it is complex, it is expensive. To only way to save money/make them cheap is to not bulid them complex, but then they will suffer from the unclean power supply. And not just the power supply, this is just one of many aspects. Large Desktop Amps have lots of components that induct noise into the circuit like Bluetooth Receivers, ADCs for COAX and optical and so on.

Its not one single thing, its a sum of things that will result in an very high complexity that will result in an high noise floor.

At a certain point, ther is no way around separating DAC and Amp.

For example if you use a separate DAC+Amp, you can have 6W @ 32 Ohm (3-times of the K9 Pro ESS) with less than <2µV of Noise.

The PCB of an very well implemented DAC is already bigger than the FiiO K9 Pro which is DAC+Amp. The PCB of an good implemented Amp is roughly the same size as the DAC.

This is the S.M.S.L. D400 EX

Its almost the double size of the FiiO K9 Pro ESS and its just a DAC alone.

The more Power you want/need, the more complex is it to handle that power. As soon as wall sockets come into play, you'll spend half of the PCB just cleaning the power from the wall socket. That is why a lot of DAC/AMP like the DMP-Z1 (and others) use an battery array to store the electricity. But thats even more expensive and causes its own set of problems.

So bottom line, if you really really want an desktop setup, invest once and wisely to save yourself from constant upgrades and issues. I am a big fan of buy once and be happy.

 

[gerelmx1986]

Hi guys, someone wants to sell this to me for a very good price. One problem is the missing L piece. Does it affect the sound? I personally don’t hear anything wrong with it. And is it possible to fix or find a replacement? Thanks

I don't rhink you can fimd a replacement for that part. But anyways tey contaceing sony for a repair quote. Is likely put of warranty, but tey contacting sony

 

[gerelmx1986]

Hi guys, someone wants to sell this to me for a very good price. One problem is the missing L piece. Does it affect the sound? I personally don’t hear anything wrong with it. And is it possible to fix or find a replacement? Thanks

Bytheway did this person explain to you how it did happen? It sounds as if a kid had play with it and ended in disaster or a DIY gone wrong.

 

[zenki]

I'll take Tanchjim space for budget dongle

 

[iDesign]

Hi guys, someone wants to sell this to me for a very good price. One problem is the missing L piece. Does it affect the sound? I personally don’t hear anything wrong with it. And is it possible to fix or find a replacement? Thanks

The missing vent may create an imbalance in the sound because Sony’s Sound Space Control technology was applied to finely control air flow at the rear of the drivers using an acoustic tube. This illustration of a different Sony monitor gives a clearer view of how the acoustic tube works.

IER-Z1R Sound Space Control

 

[thang3291]

Bytheway did this person explain to you how it did happen? It sounds as if a kid had play with it and ended in disaster or a DIY gone wrong.

He said it must've fallen off when he was listening on the train. I'm asking a guy who knows 3D printing if he can print it for me.

 

[Vamp898]

He said it must've fallen off when he was listening on the train. I'm asking a guy who knows 3D printing if he can print it for me.

That sounds very unlikely to be honest. I could not think of any scenario in an train, except for fighting an siberian tiger, that would cause this

 

[gLer]

Why buy a damaged Z1R? Personally, I wouldn't take the risk.

 

[psikey]

Anybody else do a dual dynamic driver as this seems a winning combination?

 

[psikey]

Why buy a damaged Z1R? Personally, I wouldn't take the risk.

Depends on price and ability to fab a replacement cover, assuming that's only 'defect'. I'd take a punt at £250 worth that for cables.

I suspect price is much higher.