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Will I benefit from a new dac or amp? (Focal Elex + Radsone ES100)

hhkg34

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I'm somewhat dissatisfied with the bass of the Elex when driven by the ES100 (balanced). Would there be an appreciable difference in sound quality from a desk setup like the Topping L30/E30 stack?

Also is the Topping A50/A50s a direct upgrade to the L30? Considering it because of the balanced out.
 

M00ndancer

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Depends on how powerful the amp in the ES100 is, and how hard the Focal Elex is to drive.
Secondly going from wireless BT to wired should give you a better sound in general.
Disclaimer: It's also depends on you hearing and the BT codec used. I have a hard time hearing any difference between LDAC and wired with my MDR-1000x.

Have you tested you headphones connected to anything? Phone, computer, CD-player etc

If you want a different bass response, use an eq.
 

3125b

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You should get about 2.1Vrms from tue balanced output of the ES100 (acc. to Amirs measurements). That should be sufficient for 121dB peak with the Elex, so plenty for good dynamics at normal listening levels.
You might as well try another amp, but thats probably not your issue.
 
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hhkg34

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I'm usually driving the ES100 over my pc USB these days, so BT degradation doesn't matter.

@3125b I tested again today (balanced), volume (reported by ES100) was at 0.339 Vrms and 1.433 mW, and still heard popping and crackling on the louder parts of tracks like "Mountains" from the Interstellar OST. Is it possible my chip has degraded or wasn't as good? It was slightly worse before but turning off the onboard EQ seemed to help some.
 
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hhkg34

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Update: The issue with the crackling seems to have been from my media player, PotPlayer. It seems to have issues with FLAC playback. Switching to foobar fixed the crackling for me.
 
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