Gadgetory

this video is brought to you by NCI XCOM great technology selection and service and before the review we are giving one away with mass drop to one lucky international viewer just use the link in the description to sign up for mass drop com that is an awesome community purchase site and if you already have an account just leave a comment with what you'd like us to review next from any of the items they dropped recently enjoy hello everyone I'm Dimitri with hurricane axe and welcome to another review so if you're not familiar with the brand feel they specialize and they've actually established a strong reputation among dax and amps that are portable so you can carry with them along with things that you actually put on your desktop but the Pheo e18 Kunlun is a very unique device that note everybody needs because it's got a certain weird functionalities built into it but if you're not totally satisfied with the audio out of your smartphone or adapt this is where the e18 comes in so this thing acts both as an amp and a DAC depending on how to use it and we'll talk over audio quality later but it basically a middleman between accepting either an analog or a digital signal from your smartphone or adapt into the e 18 and passing that through the headphones the e 18 Kunlun is not a cheap device it ranges from 150 to 200 dollars and you really have to question whether or not you value such an investment in your portable audio equipment in order to justify such an investment into your audio and before we get into the functionality of the Kunlun let's do a quick physical tour shall we now it's quite chunky it's much thicker and wider and longer than my iPhone 5s that I carry so this is not a super low-profile device in fact will be very difficult and uncomfortable having the entire system in your pants pocket for example as the basic mounting premise requires your smartphone to be held in with these rubber bands the exterior show is made of attractive anodized aluminum and trust me this thing has traveled with me with pretty much no signs of wear although it does come with a carry pouch to protect it so I use that whenever you can but regardless the frame is solid and resonates only quality-built the chrome outline and the slightly indented top portion strikes a good balance between style and also allowing you to recognize which side is up or down therefore making it easier to use the device and this is where you'll find the volume dial that also turns on the amp and DAC with the front red LED indicating power and the rest three LEDs for battery life the knob has a good amount of resistance on it so you don't accidentally turn up the volume just by sliding your finger on it and this is a good thing for sensitive headphones the number on the dial corresponds to the sensitivity or the volume level of the amp and I found that the using those numbers is very good if you use and you switch different headphones for example with my in-ear monitors the shure se215 I always set it to four so it doesn't blast out my ears and I lose half my earring but when I switch to something that requires a little bit more power to drive them like the dt9 90s I always set it to eight and I know it will be perfect volume every time here you'll also find game toggle for low and high the high switch adds over plus 6 DB to the signal allowing you to really blast the volume without introducing any hiss and in fact that the L toggle when there is nothing playing but things are plugged in turning the volume all the way to maximum does not introduce any noise whatsoever that means the amp is doing a good job and amplifying the signal without introducing any noise however you do hear a little bit interference in the high toggle when nothing is playing but obviously that's going to not going to be audible when you're actually passing some type of audio through it there's also a base toggle that deuced the lower frequencies and I only switched it on for open style headphones that really emphasize the body of the bass and it made it a little bit more enjoyable however for closed headphones it was a little bit too bumi my shure se215 s and the son Heiser the HD a DJ's did not favor the bass boost it was very very Bumi I do not appreciate that type of sound and that's sort of the premise of this e 18 it is a very basic amplifier and the bass when not is deep and rich but lower but boosting that base does introduce a little bit of Bhoomi into the lower frequencies but you know it could be what you're looking for exactly but I do prefer a more flat balanced sound so I left the base off pretty much all the time unless I was using open headphones on top of that is your three-and-a-half millimeter input for the amp and the headphone jack and you would use this to input the analog signal from your smartphone and output that through the plug with headphones the three side buttons are extremely sturdy with excellent clicky registration to be used when plugged in via a microUSB and the buttons are arranged as back forward and play/pause so you'd assume that the play/pause functionality would remain in the center but it's not so just keep that in mind and so looking at the bottom this is where the e 18 gets a little bit complicated first there's the s/pdif output that can be used with an included cable to pass the audio to your home theater speaker system for example then we have two micro USB ports the one on the right is strictly to charge the e 18 with a flashing indicator for the battery status the middle microUSB port however has multiple functionalities first you can use the device to charge your smart phone or adapt via a microUSB by switching a toggle all the way to charge out it has a thirty-five hundred million power battery pack inside so battery life on the e 18 is very good a couple of days no problem listening however you can also use that battery pack to charge your device your smart phone but only those smart phones that have the micro USB connection so you can't charge your iPhone with this thing because you can only the only cable that is provided is micro USB to micro USB and moving on the middle option is phone in using the included micro USB to micro USB cable to connect two compatible smartphones that support OTG or digital audio output with this option you are utilizing the DAC as well inside the e 18 to transfer a digital audio signal from your source device into the e 18 and output that through the headphones and only when in this USB mode you can use the side media buttons the list of compatible devices is still very short my Nexus 4 does not support OTG unless it is rooted and therefore I was not able to test out this feature so the last option is PC in allowing you to connect this to a Mac or a PC there are no drivers needed and utilize the USB DAC and the headphone amp for your computer now as for sound quality I used my iPhone 5s via an analog cable and I used multiple of headphones to hear the difference and the most evident audio element that really stood out is the opening of the soundstage listening through the shure se215 s that are really isolating and closed off give me a massive sense of environment this is a huge positive that I think improves listening but for open headphones that already expand the soundstage it is not as beneficial I would say the major benefit you get with the e 18 is the flexibility our devices that can be used with a 18 both IEMs open headphones closed headphones high period headphones something that has a lot of resistance on the electrical input and you can still drive them all with this thing because you have the dial and you have the high gain to really boost up the signal for high impedance headphones also it opens up the soundstage I really love the feeling of putting on on my IMS and really feeling like you're in a very large environment something that is not possible being replicated by the iPhone 5s even with equalizer settings that you can play around with on the iPhone the bass is improved it's not it's just slightly more bassy it is punchy so you kind of have to like that type of bass the mid-range of vocals especially for male vocals is much improved there's a lot of detail separation there's a good clarity and the high end is smoothed out it's not a sharp as with the iPhone 5s for example and all that ties in into I would say an acceptable and very enjoyable listening experience with the e 18 versus just your standard Android or an iPhone device of course you have to take into the price into account and whether or not you are able to you know make sure that you have enough space for such a contraption with these two devices sort of clunk together and the uncomfortable nature of them using your iPhone or your Android device when they are just strapped together kind of accessing buttons and stuff I found my way to work pretty good and I don't find that as a big one wins anymore just because I figured out the optimal way for me to plug everything in and to combine everything so that I can actually still use my phone while using the EEA team adjusting the volume and etc so guys this is a concludes basically our review of the e 18 Coonan from vo we hope you enjoyed and let us know in the comments below whether or not you are willing to make a purchase on something like this and whether or not you have had any other experience with any other portable Doc's and amps so share them in the comments below I'm sure that our viewers would like to hear alternative options but we really appreciate you watching this content make sure to subscribe for more similar things like this like this video if you found it helpful and we'll see you in the next one