FiiO E17 Portable Headphone Amplifier with USB Digital Audio Converter DAC

Fiio E17 The FiiO E17 Alpen portable headphone amplifier with USB audio decoder DAC is designed for dual functionality. The E17 Alpen both replaces PC on board sound cards as the primary audio decoder which can lead to an increase in audio quality as well as provide high quality sound amplification and drive high powered high end headphones. The E17 Alpen supports different inputs including optical and coaxial. The E17 Alpen is a step up from the older FiiO E7 providing a wider support for various input devices as well as overall more functionality and control. The E17 Alpen was built to be a much more complete product than the E10. The most significant addition was the ability for it to serve as a portable headphone amplifier. With batteries built into the Alpen you can unplug it from USB and take it for a spin together with your Ipod. The E10 was limited to the USB DACAmp functions and the E11 amplifier only to amplification purposes. The E17 Alpen does them both and obviously this is a good thing. In addition to that they also added features such as coaxial and and toslink digital inputs making it one of the most affordable DAC with complete digital inputs. The Alpen is the successor to the E7 and there are great improvements on aspects other than just the sound. The first improvement is clearly in the amplifier section. You get better impact and much higher gain level. The E17 Alpen comes with three gain levels. The second improvement is the way it does bass boost. Instead of the three steps bass boost on the E7 you now get five steps and the increments are much more linear than that on the E7. There is no more I wish I can have the bass slightly more than ...