FIIO E11K: THE NEW BUDGET KING

Author: Lieven

Review from: Headfonia

→→ Read the original article on Headfonia: >> Click here

Disclaimer. Fiio is a site advertiser and they sent the E11K sample free of charge.

Where to start

Everyone loves Fiio. Just look at their Facebook or check Head-Fi. The Chinese company is known for its budget friendly setups and they are genuinely nice people who really listen to the community. Lately they have even been targeting the high resolution market with their X5 DAP. Today however we take a look at the updated version of their successful E11 amp.

I don’t think there are a lot of people who never heard of the good old Fiio E11. It has been around for as long as I can remember actually. Now it has been discontinued. A said day? No, not for me. Mike always liked the E11 but I never was a big fan. I bought it back in the days to use with my Fischer Audio Eterna Rev. 1 IEMs, but there was no love shared between us. The sound didn’t satisfy me and so I bought an iBasso T3. Again, we didn’t hit it off and I sold that one too.

I have to be honest. I never sold the E11 but I never used it again either. I got it out of storage just for this review and I have to say I might have been a bit harsh for it in the past. Do I love it now? Not really, but it wasn’t that bad either.

A New Generation

The first E11 was quite normal if you looked at it. It had a gain switch and offered two EQ settings. It looked quite cheap as it was made out of plastic. On the positive side it had a replaceable battery and it had a logic lay-out but I’ll get back to that last point. It was light, weighing only 65g and it put out 180mW@32Ohm and you could travel for 10 hours before it stopped working.

The new Fiio E11K aka Kilimanjaro2 has followed the market trends and now comes in a black aluminum case with a bit of plastic on the volume button side. It weighs 92gr and measures 91.2 x 56 x 13.0 mm. It does look a lot better than the E11. The build quality has gone up a level too, making it as good as any other recent Fiio product. It features a gain switch (-3.8db to +11.7db) and Fiio’s famous Bass Boost (+4dB). It does look quite a lot better than the first generation E11. 

The E11K uses a 1400mAH battery that takes about 4 hours to charge and it gives you around 16h of musical pleasure in return. It doesn’t come with a self-replaceable battery however. There is a tiny blue LED that goes on when the E11K is in use and it starts blinking slowly when your device is being charged.

I do like how it looks but it do is quite particular. Two things come to mind. First, there is the curved form. Quite annoying if you want to stack it up with your iPhone or DAP like me. I had to put removable little rubber feet on my E11K just to make sure it stays in place and to make sure it didn’t scratch the other gear, the AK120ii in my case. But OK, problem solved. Not the most elegant looking though. Second, the special lay-out. The volume dial is on the other side of the connectors. The E11 did the lay-out right but with the new E11K, Fiio decided to put the volume control on the other side of the device. Now that’s not a huge problem but it will annoy the hell out of a lot of portable stack users.

The E11K uses a dead quiet ALPS volume pot, and I didn’t expect it to be as quiet as it is. One big thing however is the channel imbalance up to 2 on the volume dial. For low volume listeners like me that can get somehow problematic, especially with IEMS. And wasn’t the E11K made especially for that?

The Not So Secret Inside Stuff

Fiio opted for the OPA1642 voltage amp and as current amp they chose the AD8397. Fiio recommends using the E11K with headphones from 16 to 150Ohm, but it has enough power to drive a 300Ohm Senn as well (with lesser results though). Output power of the new E11K is 270mW@32Ω and 450@16Ω, while the output impedance always stays under 0.2.

Didn’t I just say in the Piccolo review that a lot of portable amps get too loud too quick? Well,we have found another one. Volume setting two, in Low Gain, already is way above my comfortable listening level with IEMs. This E11K plays loud!

I started listening with my favorite custom inears from Cosmic Ears, the six driver 6ECE (Impedance: 26 Ohms at 1kHz, Sensitivity: 121dB SPL @ 1mW) and I immediately noticed bad background noise (hiss) immediately after plugging them in and unfortunately it even gets worse when charging the E11K at the same time. At the same time volume never is at 0% with most IEMs, you always hear the music playing softly in the back ground. Like I said before there’s also the channel imbalance issue that is most noticeable with IEMs.

Also, don’t turn on/off your E11K when your IEMS are inside your ears. Pop alert! With full sized cans it is doable but I would not recommend it for your headphone drivers or your ears. Could the E11K really be that bad for IEMs?

When I tried my good old Eternas Rev 1, I couldn’t hear any hiss at all. Alright, that’s good news. RHA 600 and 750, same story: no hiss. Back to a custom 4 driver: small hiss. Custom 1 driver dynamic: No hiss. The new Brainwavz S5 with the horrible cable: no hiss. Others have reported not to hear any hiss at all with the E11K and so I’d dare say the general consensus is the E11K does not hiss, except for with some specific Custom IEMs. I can live with that!

With the Beyerdynamic DT770 AE , Beyerdynamic T51P, Sennheiser HD650 and Hifiman HE-560 there also is channel imbalance till two on the dial but you can’t hear any background noise at al. Yay! The E11K of course wasn’t made to drive orthodynamics or 300Ohm Sennheisers but it doesn’t hurt to try, right? All headphones, except for the Audeze’s that sounded terrible, played more than loud enough on low gain, except for the HE-560. No surprise there. The numbers might not show it but this little amp packs a punch!

Music, Maestro, Please

To me the first generation E11 had more forward vocals and was less refined overall. The new E11K has a fuller sound with good body from bass to highs and has more detail everywhere. I would describe the general sound as smooth and musical with a relaxed presentation of the sound. It’s less in your face and there’s a bigger sound stage then before. It’s basically better in every single aspect.

Sound stage, detail and dynamics wise the E11K is a normal performing unit, it’s good but nothing spectacular. Sound is more centered even when left right balance is pretty good. You’re more inside of the music compared to the bigger and more expensive amplifiers. It doesn’t live up to the Duets and RX-MK3s of this world but no one expects it to either. For its price it does exactly what it needs to do.

A lot of people, me included, love the Bass Boost (BB) function that companies like Fiio and JDSLabs use. Depending on the headphone used or the music you’re listening to you can, with just one simple click, get more or less bass. It’s perfect. With rock in example, it’s always on. With female vocals, it’s off. Easy! Bass depth, layering and detail aren’t the greatest on the other hand; it’s more the added bass body you get when you turn on the BB. Without boost it is actually pretty neutral like the mids section.

The (lower) mids, with the bass boost engaged, are fuller than on the original E11 and that to me is a good thing. Without the BB, mids have less body, are more neutral sounding and they’re perfectly in line with the bass. The E11K’s treble isn’t that extended. It’s not completely rolled of either, it’s somewhere in between but tilting more to the rolled off side just to make that clear.

The Result

For Fiio this isn’t a warm sounding amplifier. I’m sure a lot of people actually expected that. It actually sounds smooth, musical and has adjustable bass. With the BB off you get a fairly neutral, linear sound and with thebass boost on you get extra bass and body in the mids.

I found it for 60€ here in Europe at AudioGarden and in the US you can find it on Amazon for $59.99.

So do I like the new E11K? Yes. I do like it with full sized headphones and universal IEMs. Its small, doesn’t cost you a fortune and it does its job in a very good way for a small price. If your DAP or phone can’t handle your headphone and you want to keep it budget and pocket friendly, the E11K might exactly be what you need. Sound wise you won’t be disappointed but don’t be expecting a high end sound either, that’s no surprise at a fraction of the high end amp cost. Fiio’s own E12 amplifier is twice the E11Ks price but it also delivers a better sound. Price/quality wise the E11K scores very well as a matter of fact. Don’t forget it only is $60!

I’m glad I turned out to like the new E11K, my ears have been spoiled with higher end gear a lot but if you can enjoy your musical collection and headphones with a $60 amp, you just know Fiio did it right. Again.

You’ll be seeing a couple more Fiio reviews on Headfonia over the next few weeks cause there’s also a new Fiio E10K DAC and a brand new budget friendly X1 DAP which I already love. (Don’t tell anyone)