Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

this review is for those who have never owned any headphone amps before. the fiio e3 is one of the cheapest headphone amps out there and that fact may very well tempt newbies to purchase it as their first foray into the world of portable headphone amps. that was indeed the reason i bought it as my first amp. however, it's probably better to first ask yourself why'd you even consider buying an amp to begin with. headphone amps in general offer: 1) improvements in sound quality, 2) increased power to better drive high impedance headphones (such as the sennheiser hd600), and 3) an external volume control. that's for starters. there are some headphone amps with even more bells and whistles like crossfeed, optical input, and so forth. you don't need any of those special features if you've never heard of them. as you gain more experience with amps, you'll grow wiser and figure out for yourself what you do and don't need. let's focus on the fiio e3's ability to handle the basic improvements an amp should provide. 1) sound quality -- the fiio e3 is not a neutral amp. the e3's sound is bass heavy to the detriment of the midrange and highs. for example, details in guitars and vocals will seem muddier because of the exaggerated bass. if you intend to actually listen to your music, then you will want an amp that's as neutral as possible and doesn't distort too much what the artist intended for your ears to hear. the soundstage on the e3 is small and the instrument separation and imaging is not really improved much beyond what the headphone out of your music player would provide. for example, a large orchestra will still sound compressed together with details from different instruments obscuring and blending into each other. 2) power -- the fiio runs on one aaa battery. that pretty much says it all when it comes to power. this amp will not drive a pair of headphones any better than the headphone out of your mp3 player. in fact, the e3 might make things worse by being in the signal chain! 3) volume control -- one nice feature amps in general provide is the ability to fiddle with a volume knob in your pocket so you don't have to take out your ipod to adjust the volume. neat. unfortunately, the fiio e3 does not have a volume knob, so this benefit is non-existent on the e3. the e3 makes the music louder by a fixed amount, but louder volume without control is of quite limited use. more importantly, amps without volume controls are essentially useless if you're planning on using a line-out dock to bypass your mp3 player's output section to get a cleaner signal. the fiio e3 falls far short on these basic features one would want out of a headphone amp. you are better off saving yourself the hassle of changing batteries every few days, and doing something else instead with the $9 or so that it would cost to buy an e3. sure, it's not a lot of money, but personally i'd rather spend that money on another cd for my collection. or better yet, save that $9 and put it toward the purchase of a better amp that will actually improve the music listening experience.