Went on NewYear holiday break. Ordered E30/L30 via Drop. Meanwhile, a storm here for 50+ pages.
Some Nevada desert guy (where static is in the air) managed to jolt L30 and his headphones to death.
I would hire this guy to jolt/test all the equipment which is praised on ASR - esp Atom without any DC protection.
L30 I got is with 2010xxxx serial number. So it goes back. Thx to JohnYang and Topping for quick fix!
But, meanwhile, here's my subjective impressions of E30/L30 stack vs Schiit Modi3/Magni 3+ (PC Windows10, Foobar2000 with WASAPI output to USB, FLAC audio, AKG K7xx headphones).
E30 has no problem handling 32 bit/44.1kHz. I had issues with 32 bit on Modi3, it was set to 24bit. There is a difference with 32bit E30/L30 config (vs the same config of 24 bit) - it is sharper and crisper, not muddy.
I also played with different filters of E30, it comes with FF4 by default (slow rolloff, short delay). After playing a while I chose FF1 (sharpest, no delay) - the base had more energy. Other thoughts - I don't want my ears destroyed by supersonic high energy waves.
I set E30 to DAC mode (not PreAmp).
I set my L30 to 0dB gain and HPA. What I noticed - I had to rotate volume pot significantly between different tracks when trying to listen to different fragments of songs. I have my Foobar player set on per-track volume normalization, so it is not my source material issue. Looks like you will rotate more with L30. With Schiit Magni3+ my physical rotation was less. Not sure if it is good or bad. Just reporting.
Now to main thing - sound. It sounds good, only very slightly better than Schiit stack, very slightly. In other words - if you have Schiit stack - there is very little reason to change. Heresy maybe closer to L30, but I don't have Heresy.
Some Nevada desert guy (where static is in the air) managed to jolt L30 and his headphones to death.
I would hire this guy to jolt/test all the equipment which is praised on ASR - esp Atom without any DC protection.
L30 I got is with 2010xxxx serial number. So it goes back. Thx to JohnYang and Topping for quick fix!
But, meanwhile, here's my subjective impressions of E30/L30 stack vs Schiit Modi3/Magni 3+ (PC Windows10, Foobar2000 with WASAPI output to USB, FLAC audio, AKG K7xx headphones).
E30 has no problem handling 32 bit/44.1kHz. I had issues with 32 bit on Modi3, it was set to 24bit. There is a difference with 32bit E30/L30 config (vs the same config of 24 bit) - it is sharper and crisper, not muddy.
I also played with different filters of E30, it comes with FF4 by default (slow rolloff, short delay). After playing a while I chose FF1 (sharpest, no delay) - the base had more energy. Other thoughts - I don't want my ears destroyed by supersonic high energy waves.
I set E30 to DAC mode (not PreAmp).
I set my L30 to 0dB gain and HPA. What I noticed - I had to rotate volume pot significantly between different tracks when trying to listen to different fragments of songs. I have my Foobar player set on per-track volume normalization, so it is not my source material issue. Looks like you will rotate more with L30. With Schiit Magni3+ my physical rotation was less. Not sure if it is good or bad. Just reporting.
Now to main thing - sound. It sounds good, only very slightly better than Schiit stack, very slightly. In other words - if you have Schiit stack - there is very little reason to change. Heresy maybe closer to L30, but I don't have Heresy.