an electronic product can be sold for nearly 10 years. In today's era of rapid product change, it is undoubtedly a "minority". This also shows its classic from one aspect. Feiao E10/E10K decoding earpiece is just such a product. And this product has recently ushered in an upgrade. Feiao has launched a E10K-TC. As a continuation of the classic, let's see where it has changed.

Specification Table

USB chip: XMOS 208

DAC chip: PCM5102

Ear Chip: LMH6643

Output power: 200mW(32 Ω) to 219mW(32 Ω)

sampling rate (USB decoding): 384kHz/32bit

Signal-to-noise ratio: ≥ 114dB

Coaxial output: The sampling rate can be 192kHz/24bit.

Frequency response: 20Hz ~ 20kHz

earphone adaptation impedance: 16 Ω ~ 150 Ω

Power Supply: USB-C Interface

size: 79mm × 49.1mm × 21mm

weight: 78g

reference price: 499 yuan

Small "Desktop Pie"

E10K-TC continues the classic square box shape of the previous work, which is not much bigger than a lighter. Although portability is very good, compared with their own Q series portable decoding earphones, which are mainly equipped with mobile devices such as mobile phones, E10K-TC positioning is still in the desktop usage scene. After all, it has no built-in battery and must rely on external power supply. The E10K-TC is all black color matching, the surface of the aluminum alloy body is made of metal wire drawing process, and the two sides are decorated with neat stripes. The texture of the product is good. The top of the fuselage is a white FiiO Logo and a small gold logo Hi-Res Audio, which plays a certain decorative role.

▲ There is a knob with scale on one side of the body, which is responsible for power switch and volume adjustment, the middle is a lever to control bass enhancement, and the left is a 3.5mm earphone output interface.

just look at the layout of the E10K-TC interface and knob, a desktop earpiece is completed, but look at the real machine and you will find that it is a "mini version" the size of a palm ". The eye-catching knob on one side is almost the same height as the body, and on the same side there is a 3.5mm headphone output interface and a lever to control bass enhancement. The knob controls the power switch and volume control at the same time, with a scale of 0~8 on it, and the "pointer" position is an RGB indicator, which will light up blue when working.

, there is a protruding coaxial output interface, one side is the USB-C interface responsible for power supply and data transmission, and the other side is the high and low gain lever and the line output interface. Compared with E10K, the most obvious change in the interface part is that it has changed from the former Micro USB to the current mainstream USB-C interface, which has better compatibility with various existing devices. The high and low gain lever provides two gain modes. In the high gain mode, it can push headphones with higher impedance, and its adapted earphone impedance can reach up to 150 Ω.

"Core" upgrade, multiple optimization

▲ The indicator next to the volume knob will light up when working.

, let's look at the changes in E10K-TC internal components. The flagship USB decoding chip XMOS XUF208 can be seen on many high-end players and earphones in Feiao, and this time it is also applied to E10K-TC. XMOS XUF208 has stronger USB decoding capability and better compatibility for devices. The most obvious change is that the E10K-TC USB Audio mode is upgraded to UAC2.0, and the PCM sampling rate is increased from 96kHz/24bit to 384kHz/32bit, ensuring that more music details are preserved.

As for the DAC chip, E10K-TC continues the classic PCM5102 chip used on E10K, which can effectively improve the flatness and delay of the internal digital filter. The earpiece part adopts a LMH6643 chip to ensure the driving capability without losing the transient response. In addition, the E10K-TC also optimizes the design of active low-pass and BASS circuits, which can control the bottom noise lower in various states. In the sampling rate of coaxial output, the E10K-TC is also increased from 96kHz/24bit to 192kHz/24bit.

audition experience

the E10K-TC is connected to the USB interface of the notebook computer using Windows 10 system, the system directly recognizes the E10K-TC and the user does not need to install the driver separately. However, to use USB Audio mode, you still need to download the corresponding driver from Feiao official website and install it on the device.

with Feiao's FD3 headphones for audition, E10K-TC can give full play to the loose and natural sound characteristics of FD3. E10K-TC has a neutral style, which can make the FD3 partial pop music adjustment path more accurately displayed without bringing extra "seasoning" to it, making its original characteristics blurred. Let's talk about its three-frequency performance. When the BASS lever is adjusted to the "OFF" gear, the E10K-TC's support for FD3 low frequency is mainly manifested in better elasticity and solid feeling, but it is not helpful to the presentation of quantity feeling. After the BASS lever is adjusted to the "ON" position, the sense of quantity at the low frequency is obviously enhanced. The sound originally condensed within a certain range spreads more, but it will not spread too much, and the dive will become deeper, but the resolution performance of the low frequency part is still limited.

the intermediate frequency part, FD3 under the E10K-TC has a good dynamic performance. The singer's image is three-dimensional and vivid, the listening feeling is relatively full, and the details are moderate. It is a gentle and delicate sound style. In terms of high-frequency performance, the E10K-TC also continues its soft and smooth style, which is neither dark nor rough. The transient and density are well presented, which sounds more relaxed. However, in dynamic music, the E10K-TC's treatment of high-frequency details is a bit coarser, resulting in a decrease in the permeability of hearing.

talk about the thrust of the E10K-TC. In the low gain mode, the volume control on the PC is adjusted to 50%. The E10K-TC knob only needs to be adjusted to scale 2 to make FD3 reach the volume suitable for listening. The sound characteristics of FD3 are also fully displayed. It is easy to use it to push in-ear headphones. With Sennheiser H600, adjusting the E10K-TC to high gain mode can also easily push out enough volume. The overall dynamic performance is OK, and it can also present a sound field with a certain space. The control force for the three frequencies is relatively in place, and there is no obvious distortion, but the details are somewhat grainy, but delicate. On the whole, with such a small volume of the E10K-TC, the thrust it shows is still good.

E10K-TC is commendable for suppressing bottom noise. Even if the knob is turned to the maximum, pay special attention to it, and basically you can't hear the noise and the sound bottom is clean. It seems that its optimized active low-pass and BASS circuit design does a good job in controlling noise floor.

is a positioning desktop application, but at the same time it has a compact design of decoding ear, which E10K-TC a good balance between the two. It supports earphone, coaxial and line output, and has good thrust. It can be matched with many mainstream audio equipment. It is really rare for a product that is not much bigger than a lighter. Therefore, if you are going to choose a decoding ear with good sound quality and small size for your PC and notebook computer, Feiao E10K-TC will be a good choice.

author:Microcomputer Official Microblog09-23 11:29

website: https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404684552235778527