SoundMagic Earphones and FiiO E5?

[Tcshad]

Little background:
I'm 16, I love music, listen to music about 8 hours a day (via laptop, iPod, radio, etc).
I listen to all kinds of music, ranging from pop, to rock, to rap, to blues, to rock and roll, to dance etc
I have an iPod Nano which is my main audio go-to.

So I was thinking about buying a pair of SoundMagic PL30 earphones, as they have really good reviews and I'd like to try them.
But I was just wondering, do you think it's worth getting the FiiO E5 pocket amp with it (which is nearly the price of the earphones themselves, and I'm only a kid, money is pretty hard to come by for me)?

I've read reviews, and they say "really good with some ear/headphones, but reduced quality with others".... and on some of the reviews they state that with the pl30's, there's a very noticeable hiss... But i'd like someone from this website to confirm or deny, as I trust this website a lot more.
So I'd mainly like to know how well it works with the SoundMagic Pl30's, or even whether the PL11's + the adapter would sound better...

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks
-Tom

[ShaunG]

Hi Tcshad. Welcome to the forum. Just spotted your post from a while back - it seems we missed your post from the Christmas break.

To be honest the PL30 doesn't really need a headphone amp. They are very sensitive earphones, so the improvement will be minimal. You may see a small improvement by take the signal from the dock connector on an iPod (with a LOD cable), but it won't be a massive jump in quality with such a sensitive earphone.

I can highly recommend the SoundMAGIC PL30 or PL11. The PL11 has a more chunky bass response and is more fun sounding than the PL30. They do have very different sound characteristics.