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Dan Clark E3 Headphone Review

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 4 1.6%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 11 4.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 38 15.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 196 78.7%

  • Total voters
    249
Check out this paper based on research by Sonarworks: https://www.sonarworks.com/blog/research/white-paper

Very interesting and well worth the read. I have questions about some aspects of their methodology, particularly regarding some of the human limitations they themselves acknowledge, but I like what they have to say in principle. Looking at their app, I see their approach seems to be in its infancy since there aren't many headphone models supported, but the approach sounds promising. I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks for the link!
 
Very interesting and well worth the read. I have questions about some aspects of their methodology, particularly regarding some of the human limitations they themselves acknowledge, but I like what they have to say in principle. Looking at their app, I see their approach seems to be in its infancy since there aren't many headphone models supported, but the approach sounds promising. I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks for the link!
SoundID is supported on just a few headphones as the integrated software, but it also works with big number of normal headphones as an external app, though only on Android (Apple probably don't allow such level of integration). The list of supported but non built in SoundID headphones is here: https://www.sonarworks.com/soundid/supported-headphones
The research was interesting and to me eye opening how much we differ and how extremely different subjective experience is compared to speakers. From the manufacturers standpoint the target is impossible to hit as it is constantly moving, the best they can do is just to aim at something, be it flat response or harman curve, but also give EQ built in to the consumer. This is exactly how I use my wireless headphones, I choose them based on comfort and ANC performance, but then I changed the response to my preference with it's integrated EQ (which could be better itself, there's not enough control on the low end, but the idea is good and there are different headphones with better software support).
It's really no different than speakers with built in room correction software, even if both aim to correct different thing
 
The former owner of DCA Expanse is here

I bought myself E3 yesterday. Overall, these are very good headphones and probably the first closed design that suits me.

The headphones look pretty good. Not as good as expanse or stealth, but good. The position on the head seems less comfortable from memory, it seems like the pressure on the head is stronger. Also, subjectively, they seem heavier to me than stealth.

I will say right away that their leakage is average. It is not the best and not the worst, mediocre. From memory, stealth isolated better, but it is difficult for me to verify

Comparison with expanse will be from memory, but I owned them for about a year and a half. I am only briefly familiar with stealth, I was not the owner.

When I heard stealth for the first time, I saw what good headphones they are. The sound is clean, the tonal balance is correct, the sound is not slowed down or "nasty", not too sparkling in a bad sense, as I often hear in many other planar headphones. Even though the sound was generally lively, with a good amount of bass, I felt that it was kind of "lightweight". Like there was not enough upper bass. Yes, I have eyes and I can see that Dan Clark raised this range, but it does not work for me. I heard about expanse and decided to wait for them.

When I tried expanse, I immediately realized that they have fixed this problem in some way. Rather, the sound became "heavyweight". Later I applied -2.5dB correction Q=2.6 to them using my RME 2/4 PRO SE, which makes the sound a little more transparent and lighter. Overall, I liked these headphones, they are good, with excellent detail. For some reason, I especially liked listening to an orchestra on them, but they are generally very good. However, I could not shake the feeling that the Expanse sound was kind of soft, as if you were listening to a tube amp. Personally, I did not like it very much, especially on percussion, transients. It did not sound bad, but not how I want it. I'm not sure if the Stealth had the same problem, but maybe it lacks sharpness too. I wonder why I heard it like that.

However, thanks to the E3, I finally found a closed headphone that I like and is not bright. At the same time, I have enough energy in the high frequencies in them. Also, it seems to me that in general the entire upper frequency range sounds different, as if smoother than in the Stealth. The low frequencies sound different too. Despite the frequency response, they no longer seem lightweight. I think the low frequencies are a bit buzzy, but it's not distortion, it's something else. Overall it sounds more natural to me.
It seems that all this together creates a feeling of a more lively sound, with better dynamics. What was done for them is more effective than the frequency response correction like in the Expanse. As far as I remember, the detail retrieval in the Expanse and Stealth is better, but not very much. In any case, you need to set the same volume here and compare, which I can’t do. I was quite annoyed by the softness of the Expanse, although I know people who like it.

Overall, I would say that all three pairs of headphones are close in sound quality, but they may or may not suit someone for various reasons. In terms of ergonomics, I would choose stealth or expanse. Also, the more expensive models sit better on the head. But for me, the E3 sound better in terms of the sum of its parameters.

Interesting note about EQ for them:

Overall I don't feel like I need EQ with the E3. However, I did notice something counterintuitive: +1.5dB around 50Hz Q~1(or maybe 1.1 I don't remember) makes the sound more transparent. I repeat. Correction in +dB makes the sound cleaner! At first I thought I was crazy, but after double-blind testing (just pressing the button many times and trying to guess the result) I realized that firstly it is audible, and secondly I feel it as a cleaner sound. My friend was nearby and he heard it that way too. For me it's just something very strange.

It's also a real mystery to me why some people didn't like the bass in the E3. I tested different music on them, including techno, all sorts of heavy stuff(extreme doom metal as esoteric, black as blut aus nord etc). Everything sounded powerful, lively, with good tonal balance and good punch.

I didn't even feel like I needed some kind of exciter as it often happens. I don't see anything wrong with adding harmonics when they can be removed on demand. My setup is a fairly powerful and neutral RME 2/4 PRO SE. However, at this moment I like the sound in stock, without DSP. Without "room harmonics", changing the Harman curve in the low frequencies or anything else.

For me, these are my favorite sounding headphones from Dan Clark. But DCA has models with better design and comfort, less weight on your head, and slightly different tuning that you may prefer.
 
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What about the SPL Phonitor xe vs RME ADI 2 for E3, guys ?
With my own pair of DCA Expanse my RME 2/4 gets you 123.8dB. More than enough :) With DCA E3 you gets more than enough too, even low gain with via 6.3 jack in.
Not sure about SPL. Specs need to be justified by measurements.

Oh, sorry. You not about SPL as loudness.

Then just get RME, perfect in design, engineering and sound quality. Also, as you see you get a lot of headroom with it. But kinda expensive ~3k$. There are cheaper options with the same sound, but you then loose all-in-one device.
 
What about the SPL Phonitor xe vs RME ADI 2 for E3, guys ?

Do you mean the ADI-2/4 PRO SE or the ADI-2 DAC FS? The ADI-2/4 PRO SE in balanced mode offers similar power to the SPL DAC. However, the ADI-2 DAC FS might push itself to its limits in certain scenarios, such as when handling higher dynamic range music when driving difficult-to-drive headphones. I wouldn't expect to hear any audible differences other than possibly the volume level with any of these DACs.
 
I mean the ADI-2 DAC FS
If I decide to get the Phonitor, I'd go for the one with DAC included. Another option : I could keep the ADI-2 DAC FS as DAC only, and get only the Phonitor amp, but I wanted to know how the Phonitor DAC is ( sound quality, soundstage, bass, treble, imaging, depth, details ) vs the ADI-2 DAC FS.
Thank you so much
 
The ADI-2 DAC FS has built-in parametric EQ.
For the Phonitor you would have to do that in software.
The Phonitor can play 10dB louder though in high imp. headphones (so about twice as loud) but the RME goes a tiny bit louder in low imp headphones.
 
I don't know what to say, never tried Phonitor
 

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I don't know what to say, never tried Phonitor

The probability is that whoever made the comparison was not doing it blind, so it can't be trusted.

Sound quality, soundstage, bass, treble, imaging, depth, details will be the same if the DACs/amps measure well.

The question you should be asking yourself is:
Is the old amp able to play loud enough?
Does the DAC have all the features I want?
and go from there.

The looks are also a legitimate reason to buy a new DAC/amp, just don't be disappointed when there are no audible differences.

Lastly, if you dislike how your system sounds, try EQing your headphones to taste or buy new ones. Don't waste money on DACs/amps - they will not fix the problem.

On other forums, there are a lot of claims that E3 needs a $3k amp to somehow unlock its full potential. These opinions should not be taken seriously if no proof is provided i.e. passing a proper blind test.
 
Just got my set of E3's. Initial impressions are very positive. Had a pair of Ether 2's before, and these definitely sound better to me. They do seem to need some power to make them open up and sound their best. Quickly worked out that my headphone amp (Aurouasound HEADA) needed to be set to high gain vs. low gain was required to get them to sound their best. The HEADA sounds wonderful overall with the E3s.

Went through a LOT of reviews before settling on the E3s. A number of the more popular headphone reviewers on YouTube actually seem to prefer the E3s over the Stealth. Perhaps Mr. Clark can comment on why that may be? The distortion with the E3s is very low, among the best I've come across. I wonder if the average user would be able to discern the distortion deltas between the E3 and the Stealth? At some point, would like to audition the Stealth, but for now, the E3s more than fill the bill.

The one delta that jumped out at me when first listening to these was that compared to dynamic headphones (the Ultrasone Edition 15s,) is that the presence region seems a bit recessed by comparison. It's not a big difference, but enough to notice. Similar to the difference between a tube and solid state amp, where the E3's have the SS signature, whilst the Ultrasone has more of a tube signature.
 
Many reviewers prefer the dynamics factor of the E3 to the ever so slightly more accurate/a hint more damped representation of dynamics from the Stealth. To my HRTF, Stealth is more accurate/refined in the mids to treble region than E3 and as overall is still the best DCA headphone for me. E3 however is the best closed back headphone in its price range IMHO.
 
The one delta that jumped out at me when first listening to these was that compared to dynamic headphones (the Ultrasone Edition 15s,) is that the presence region seems a bit recessed by comparison. It's not a big difference, but enough to notice. Similar to the difference between a tube and solid state amp, where the E3's have the SS signature, whilst the Ultrasone has more of a tube signature.


Ultrasone Edition 15 has a signature that's for sure.

1719265765464.png


There is just no comparison.
 
On other forums, there are a lot of claims that E3 needs a $3k amp to somehow unlock its full potential. These opinions should not be taken seriously if no proof is provided i.e. passing a proper blind test.
I run my E3 on a drop O2 most of the time, and that has plenty of headroom, as does the Fiio A5 I use when I want to move around while listening. And that's with recordings with extreme dynamic range (large symphony orchestras). For more compressed music something as little as the Qudelix 5K is sufficient.
 
Here is a link to the Ultrasone Edition 15 review, along with a host of measurement graphs. Both the E3 and the Ultrasone Edition 15 are excellent sounding headphones.

Ultrasone Edition 15 Review
Alternative review, from a trustworthy reviewer:

Tried the inverse of the EQ settings from oratory1990 on the E3. Since the E3 is really close to Harman that should have got me to approximately the frequency response of the Edition 15.
Result: Surprisingly not an immediate trainwreck. The null around 3 kHz is probably just narrow enough to not really stand out, I seem to be more immune to 6 kHz peaks than I thought, and the bass/lower-mids hump is broad enough that the ear tries to adjust. Still, this sounds boxy and wrong after a bit. Not something I would want to listen to longer term.
 
Saw this review. Disagree with his assessment. The majority of reviews on the Edition 15 do not no reflect this reviewers opinion. Truth be told, headphone reviews are often all over the place. They are fun, but need to be taken with a grain of salt. Let's face it, every reviewer has their own bias when they conduct the assessment. Trustworthy reviewers are not always spot on. I've seen reviews where three different trustworthy reviewers have much different takes on a given set of phones. I think the past bias against Ultrasone from Tyrll Edition 10 review has a lot to do with pre-conceived notions.

Check the link below. This review is more representative of the majority opinion with the Edition 15. Check out the section where it is driven by the Chord Hugo TT2.

As for the E3s, so far, so good. They seem to do almost everything right. Great clarity, excellent dynamics, and no apparent need for any EQ. Hard to beat that.

Ultrasone Edition 15 Review[/MEDIA]
 
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Saw this review. Disagree with his assessment. The majority of reviews on the Edition 15 do not no reflect this reviewers opinion. Truth be told, headphone reviews are often all over the place. They are fun, but need to be taken with a grain of salt. Let's face it, every reviewer has their own bias when they conduct the assessment. Trustworthy reviewers are not always spot on. I've seen reviews where three different trustworthy reviewers have much different takes on a given set of phones. I think the past bias against Ultrasone from Tyrll Edition 10 review has a lot to do with pre-conceived notions.

Check the link below. This review is more representative of the majority opinion with the Edition 15. Check out the section where it is driven by the Chord Hugo TT2.

As for the E3s, so far, so good. They seem to do almost everything right. Great clarity, excellent dynamics, and no apparent need for any EQ. Hard to beat that.

Ultrasone Edition 15 Review[/MEDIA]
The review I linked fits with the measurements and with my own impressions. As I stated I listened to the E3 EQ'd to the FR of the Edition 15 and it does sound tubby and off.

Most reviewers out there basically only publish positive reviews since they depend on the manufacturers sending them new gear, so I do not consider any majority opinion to be important.
 
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