The E18 Kunlun (whats with Fiio naming products after mountains, eh?) works as a headphone amp that pairs to android phones via USB using an OTG cable, a 24/96 USB DAC (it has a Tenor TE7022L chip to receive USB and a Burr Brown PCM1798 DAC chip), as a standalone headphone amp, as an external DAC for your computer, and even as a coax out source.
The coolest (if spotty) feature it offers is the ability to play/pause the song on your phone using a button on the E18.
Plus it has a volume potentiometer! And in a pinch it can charge your phone.
It's regular price of $150-160 is a bit steep, but when it's on sale at the $120-130 price point it looks very attractive from a price-performance perspective.
A criticism that has been leveled against the E18 on more than one occasion is that it exhibits electromagnetic interference (EMI) when paired with a GSM smartphone. GSM buzz is an issue with most electronic equipment. It is an unfortunate side effect of the frequencies GSM uses and fact that GSM phones use the TDMA channel access protocol to sync to towers. Usually EMI is worst when the phone uses the EDGE data system. Since newer GSM technologies are less prone to GSM buzz, it may be worth disabling EDGE service on your phone if possible. Of course your mileage maay vary because there are other causes for interference too.
Of course we could eliminate GSM buzz altogether if everyone switched to verizon, but that would be a pretty terrible solution too.
The coolest (if spotty) feature it offers is the ability to play/pause the song on your phone using a button on the E18.
Plus it has a volume potentiometer! And in a pinch it can charge your phone.
It's regular price of $150-160 is a bit steep, but when it's on sale at the $120-130 price point it looks very attractive from a price-performance perspective.
A criticism that has been leveled against the E18 on more than one occasion is that it exhibits electromagnetic interference (EMI) when paired with a GSM smartphone. GSM buzz is an issue with most electronic equipment. It is an unfortunate side effect of the frequencies GSM uses and fact that GSM phones use the TDMA channel access protocol to sync to towers. Usually EMI is worst when the phone uses the EDGE data system. Since newer GSM technologies are less prone to GSM buzz, it may be worth disabling EDGE service on your phone if possible. Of course your mileage maay vary because there are other causes for interference too.
Of course we could eliminate GSM buzz altogether if everyone switched to verizon, but that would be a pretty terrible solution too.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting! Comments on this blog are moderated.