Review: Fiio E5 Headphone Amplifier

The fake iPod Shuffle looking device in the picture above is the Fiio E5 Headphone Amplifier. For the past few years I have been using earphones (the kind you stick deep inside your ear) for traveling. They’re great because they isolate a lot of the airplane noise and if there is any kid screaming next to me I hear nothing. Now the disadvantage is after using these earphones for over an hour they start getting uncomfortable. They also aren’t practical to put on and take off every time you need to communicate with someone.

That’s why I ended up getting the Sennheiser PXC 250 sound isolating headphones back in July and since then I’ve used them a few times while traveling. They are very comfortable and cancel out the engine sound pretty well but I didn’t find them loud enough. In fact, my last trip I ended up using my older earphones instead. So, I decided to get a headphone amplifier to help increase the volume for when I find my headphones too low. I didn’t want to pay a lot and was looking for something portable. My two options ended up being either a homemade cMoy amp I could purchase from eBay or the Fiio E5 which was recommended by some users on Head Fi. I went with the Fiio.

Although it looks like an iPod Shuffle I don’t mind, the size is practical and I can clip it to my seat belt which makes thing tidy. It uses a non-removable rechargeable battery which charges via a usb port and it comes with all the wires needed to connect it to my headphone and video player. How the device works is you connect your media players headphone jack to the bottom of the Fiio E5, and then you plug your headphone to the top of the Fiio. You can then increase the volume of the sound from the Fiio’s volume control. So if your volume is already at the maxium on your media player, you can increase it further more via the headphone amp.

I haven’t tried it on the plane yet since I got the amp after I got back from my last trip but I did try it at home and wasn’t too impressed. The amp feels like it increases the volume of my media player by around 20-30%. That isn’t enough for me or maybe I am expecting too much but I was hoping the amp would allow me to increase the volume a lot louder than just 30% so that I could completely drown out the sound of everything around me. For $19.99 its not bad though and its extremely portable. A good quality cMoy built would have cost me $60 and those Altoid tins they come in aren’t that small. Final score will have to be a 3 out of 5. If you’re interested in a Fiio you can find them on eBay. The Fiio does work well when it comes to helping your media playerpower higher impedance headphones. The Fiio gives you a more fuller and better sound then you would get without the amp. I tried it with my AKG’s and they sounded clearer and less muddled with the Amp.