Impressions: Edifier S1000

A while back there was a JD sale, and the Edifier S1000 had a pretty good price. I’d been wanting to replace my old Edifier R1600TIII anyway, so I just went ahead and bought it.

At the same time, to make swapping in headphones easier, I picked up the Aune X1S, this DAC/amp combo unit.

So just getting these two things set up took a hell of a lot of effort.

Both boxes were pretty big when they arrived. First the Edifier S1000 — this thing’s volume is genuinely huge, but fortunately it can still kinda be crammed onto the desk.

The Aune X1S, on the other hand, isn’t big, so it’s easy to find a spot for it, and its front panel looks pretty nice — that’s a big reason I bought it.

At first I wanted to buy a jingyin hedgehog clone, but after discussing it back and forth with the seller, the thing is, one, it’s just too ugly; two, it’s too big; three, it belongs to the “brute force works miracles” category. It might be fine for driving the K701, but my headphones definitely won’t stop at the 701, and blindly going with a hedgehog isn’t necessarily good, so I finally decided to give up on it.

The sound card I use is the ASUS Xonar Essence STX, which supports optical and coaxial output, and of course analog output too. It has a built-in headphone amp, and I’m actually not unhappy with that amp — it’s just that with the Q701 the sound is very sharp and a bit tiring to listen to. What’s more interesting is that the Edifier S1000 also supports coaxial input, optical input, analog input, and even Bluetooth input (ignore that one).

After testing for a while, I found that outputting from the Essence STX via optical to the Edifier S1000 gives the best result — the sound comes out very pure, while coaxial output is a bit worse, somewhat muffled. A lot of people online complain about the Essence STX’s coaxial output, thinking analog output is best and that coaxial isn’t its strong suit, let alone optical. But the Essence STX’s optical paired with the Edifier S1000 really is the best-sounding combo. Why? How the hell should I know…

Even though it sounded best, I ultimately gave up on that combo. After all, I need to hook up the Aune X1S — I can’t just connect straight to the PC via USB and add another sound card (though that would work too: Essence STX outputting to the Edifier S1000, Aune X1S outputting to headphones). So I figured I’d give it a try: connect the Essence STX’s coaxial to the Aune X1S, then run the Aune X1S’s analog output to the Edifier S1000.

How should I put it — it’s not as pure as the Essence STX’s direct optical output, but it has some weird sense of atmosphere. I think it might be because the sound isn’t as pure, but it doesn’t sound bad. The only shortcoming is the bass is a bit heavy. Fortunately the Edifier S1000 lets you adjust the treble and bass, and after tweaking it feels pretty good. It’s not as clean and pure as the Essence STX’s direct optical output to the speakers, but still way better than the previous R1600III.

So how’s the Aune X1S’s headphone output? I can only say there’s a fairly obvious difference compared to the Essence STX — again, the sound details are no longer so sharp. Put positively, it doesn’t pierce the ears; put negatively, the details aren’t as clear.

But ultimately, the Aune X1S’s sound signature is still on the balanced side. Compared to the Essence STX itself there isn’t a huge difference, but on hard specs it’s not as good as the Essence STX. Yet thanks to this thing’s slightly inferior hard specs, the sound isn’t so piercing, and it no longer feels tiring to listen to — it even feels a bit comfortable. A few times I nearly fell asleep slumped over the desk (though I can’t rule out that I’ve just been tired lately).

The Aune X1S has a built-in headphone amp and filter adjustment; I just used Fast and it felt fine. But that amp doesn’t have any Turbo level — you can only adjust the volume. Plugging the Q701 straight in works well, but with somewhat more sensitive headphones, like the Grado SR225 or the Philips 9500, the sound seems a bit piercing. Maybe the Aune X1S was designed specifically for high-impedance headphones. Not that it’s a problem — there are impedance adapters.

Oh right, speaking of cables — I put the DAC/amp on the desk, and the original headphone cable was way too long. Since it’s replaceable, I swapped the Q701’s cable for a one-meter one. It’s a bit short but just enough, so the desk system is now perfect. I figure maybe I won’t need to fiddle with this stuff anymore. Sound, after all, listen to it long enough and it’s all about the same. Better to save the money and buy more good music — the gear serves the content, and getting good speakers and headphones is just for enjoying the music you love better.