Comments on: HIFIMAN EF400 Review

By: Oren Sofer

Oren Sofer — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 17:50:07 +0000

anyone else experiencing a hiss when playing Hi rez music at higher rates (like 192khz)?

By: Louis Gonzalez

Louis Gonzalez — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 04:07:53 +0000

Hi Leonel. That was the big caveat this model had which grounds it to desktop use. It would have scored higher if it had more inputs but it still scored rather high due to the high quality build and excellent sound quality for the asking price.

By: Leonel

Leonel — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 22:51:08 +0000

Very tempting, but the lack of any legacy Digital Input (AES, Coaxial, Optical) is deal breaker for me. A pity…

By: Louis Gonzalez

Louis Gonzalez — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 15:46:33 +0000

In reply to Bill Kilpatrick. Hi Bill. You're just like me. I usually resort to boosting the low end with an equalizer a few decibels and prefer it over a bass boost which most times will muddy the sound sig excepting the iFi XBass variant which is my favorite of them all.

By: Bill Kilpatrick

Bill Kilpatrick — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 01:37:36 +0000

I just paid off my EF400. There are lots of technical points worth discussing but for me, the bottom line is sound. I like what I hear.

I can’t afford an amp that comes with a car payment, although $599 isn’t asking that much for a decent desktop amp. My HE1000 v2 sounds meatier with it, as does my HD800.

I’d rather EQ than look for an amp with variable bass boost. I prefer a clean presentation that lets me make theodificati9ns where and when I see fit. By default, I run it flat but when I want bass that feels as warm as a campfire, I create a bass shelf. Just a 3 dB gain in the lowest frequencies – up to 50-100 Hz – is enough to provide ample bass without muddying up the mix.

By: Louis Gonzalez

Louis Gonzalez — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 16:45:28 +0000

Hi Dave and thanks for the comment. I felt that the amp section on the ef400 is a little dry but that DAC section has plenty of body with a natural timbre and high detail retrieval. Since the amp section can’t be accessed on it’s own I could not verify the amp 100%, perhaps 95% far as what I heard with the unit as a combo. I never used another source other than a raw USB 3.2 port coming off my PC. You can’t use any of the sources or units you mentioned above with the EF400 cause they only have analog output ports and they don’t have USB outs. I guess the input section is where the only weakness lies.

By: dave elliott

dave elliott — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 16:03:10 +0000

Thanks for the review. Trying to sort out whether the weaknesses you found were from the Hifiman kit or the source. Hopefully the source was something like an Innuos, Aurender or Lumin server? I’m a big fan of R2R DAC’s, they extract orchestra instrument timbre so well.