Should I switch from Arturia Minifuse 2 to Topping E2x2?

[thesondurak]

Hello all,

I've Arturia Minufuse 2, condenser mic and Truthear Zero Red IEM. I record vocal/instrument and mix my songs. I don't observe any latency issue when recording and IEM sounds good to me although not sure if headphone output impedance affects frequecy response. I'm planning to purchase Beyerdynamic 900 Pro X or Fiio FT1 Pro for mixing and Rode NT1 5th gen for recording.

Based on my research, generall suggestion is headphone output impedance should be 1:8 compared to headset. Arturia has 10 ohm output impedance, Zero Red is 17,5 ohm with dynamic driver, Beyerdynamic is 48 ohm with dynamic driver, Fiio FT1 Pro is 20 ohm with planar magnet driver.

• Would either of these headphones above will have frequency response issue with Arturia Minifuse due to impedance mismatch?
• I'm thinking of purchasing Toppping E2x2 because of its low headphone output impedance and high power for driving any headset. How is Topping's recoding performance compared to Arturia
  • in terms of latency?
  • in terms of recording quality?
  • compatibility with dynamic or condenser mics?

I actually watched Julian Krause's video but there has been change on Topping's microphone input impedance and I don't know if that's enough for good recording.

 

[staticV3]

Hi @thesondurak! Welcome to ASR.

The FT1 Pro has the same 20Ω impedance from 20Hz to 20kHz which means that, compared to a reference Amp with 0Ω output impedance, plugged into the Minifuse with 11.2Ω output impedance (source), the FiiO will play 25% quieter but will otherwise have the same sound.

That's not the case with the Truthear or Beyerdynamic, as those have varying impedance with frequency.
Here, you will not only lose volume, but also change the headphone's tonality:


You can just compensate for that with EQ, but it's good to keep in mind.

 

[thesondurak]

@staticV3 thank you. I'm glad to be here and for you to share the graph. Do you have any link/video that I can learn more about frequency damping and understand which headphone will have damping problem or not in general?

Apart from that,

• Would Arturia drive FT1 Pro enough? How much volume (dB) can it provide for FT1 Pro?
• What do you think about my microphone input questions of Topping compared to Arturia?
• Would it worth to move to Topping for working with Truthear Zero Red and FiiO FT1 Pro?

 

[thesondurak]

Alright, I purchased Topping E2x2 OTG and compared to Arturia with FT1 Pro and Zero Red.

• Arturia is able to drive both. Although it can drive FT1 Pro, it can't provide "too loud" volume if you'd like to have. If you're chill listener, Arturia will be enough but sometimes I want a bit louder headset. I didn't measure but my assumption is that Arturia drives FT1 Pro around 90 dB based on my perception (not scientific measurement).
• Topping's mic input is cristal clear. I didn't have issue with Arturia earlier but when compared, you see the difference.
• I've seen clearity difference on Topping when with tested Zero Red. So, headset output is really flat compared to Arturia due to impedance. Would it worth, yes for me.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Topping's mic input is cristal clear. I didn't have issue with Arturia earlier but when compared, you see the difference.

People do not seem to like the Minifuse preamps that much in general. I suspect they may be a bit short on GBW, the high end seems to droop quite a bit at max gain so heaven knows what distortion is doing then.