FiiO FT1 Over-Ears Review | Trusted Reviews

Judgment

As items, the FiiO FEET 1 are an unarguable success. As earphones for listening to, however, they are far from all-rounders …

Introduction

Given that it’s an unusual day that passes without the launch of a new FiiO item, the reality that there are no closed-back, over-ear headphones in its line-up is rather shocking.

Well, that all adjustments with the launch of these FT 1 hard-wired headphones– and, as is developed FiiO technique, the way these earphones are specified is at chances with the cash the firm is asking.

FiiO has offered significant worth for money in the past. Is it doing so again?

Accessibility

The FiiO FT 1 closed-back over-ear earphones are on sale, and in the UK they sell for a distinctive ₤ 139, while in the USA they’ll cost you $ 159 Australian prices has yet to be validated, but understanding how These Points Had A Tendency To Work I would certainly visualize you’re taking a look at AU$ 269 or thereabouts.

This is not a terrible whole lot for some nice-looking closed-back over-ear headphones, yet the feet 1 are far from the only video game in town. Austrian Audio and Beyerdynamic are 2 well-regarded brands with likewise specified and priced items that occur …

Design

• Black walnut earcups
• 12 -step headband adjustment
• Outstanding passive noise seclusion

Certain, generally talking the FiiO FT 1 resemble any kind of other pair of over-ear headphones. But the quality of the products they deploy establishes them besides any price-comparable choice.

One of the most evident of these is the black walnut that forms the outer surface of the earcups. The acoustic benefits of wood are long-established, of course, and the truth that it makes the FT 1 resemble an instead a lot more upmarket suggestion than any kind of small competitor does not do any kind of harm either. Combined with kindly stuffed earpads of pleather and breathable material up front, the earcups appear to be from a much more costly style.

They attach to the headband (which itself features a quantity of pleather and breathable material over a judicious amount of cushioning) utilizing slim, refined metal. There’s a level of expression in vertical and straight lanes allowed, however not a substantial quantity– and the feet 1 don’t fold, so their smart traveling case gets on the large side.

The very same metal is made use of to develop the headband modification device that’s exposed over the headband itself. There are twelves phases of modification available right here, so it must be easy sufficient to get comfy inside the FT 1– although those earcups are on the large side, so the smaller-headed amongst us might really feel overloaded. A minimum of FiiO has actually judged the wall mount setup and securing force so well that the FT 1 do not truly feel their 340 g when they remain in situ.

The business is declaring an impressive – 26 dB for passive sound isolation. A lot of this is down to the size if the earpads and the fit they can accomplish, obviously– yet FiiO has additionally consisted of sound-absorbing cotton, an acoustic damping tube and spiral-shaped resonance dissipation chamber between the internal part of the wooden earcup and the vehicle driver itself. So as well as the fundamental absence of outward leak a close-back style deals, less external noise gets in than you could imagine would certainly hold true.

Spec

• 60 mm vibrant vehicle drivers
• 10 Hz– 40 kHz frequency action
• Balanced and out of balance cords included

FiiO offers 2 lengths of cable television with which to attach your feet 1 to a source of songs. Both are 1 5 mm long, both are made using silver-plated oxygen-free copper, and both split at one end into a couple of 3 5 mm discontinuations– both FT 1 earcups have to be wired.

One has an out of balance 3 5 mm link at the other end, and FiiO offers a 6 3 mm adapter as well. The various other has a 4 4 mm unbalanced discontinuation. Which indicates that the feet 1 will link to virtually any kind of tool with an earphone outlet– and that 4 4 mm jack suggests that includes more upmarket gadgets. Which is handy when you take into consideration these earphones are certified Hi-Res Sound qualified by both the Consumer Electronic Devices Association and the Japan Audio Society.

As soon as the audio info is aboard, it’s provided by a number of 60 mm full-range motorists that FiiO insurance claims are good for a frequency response of 10 Hz– 60 kHz. The chauffeurs are primarily made up of timber fiber, and each one is backed by a 25 mm voice coil and W-shaped suspension gasket in an effort to minimise driver break-up. A conelike baffle plate ahead of each driver allows them to be positioned parallel to the customer’s ears, which should certainly maintain standing waves to a minimum too.

Level of sensitivity is a helpful 98 dB and sensitivity is a just as practical 32 ohms– so the feet 1 need to be no trouble to drive, even if you affix them straight to a smartphone or something like that.

And regarding features go, well, that has to do with your great deal. These are economical passive headphones, after all– there’s a limit to what you can reasonably expect.

Audio Quality

• Energetic and sincere sound
• Good interest to information
• Confined and single-minded presentation

When the FiiO FEET 1 are good, they are– by the criteria of their price-comparable opponents– excellent undoubtedly. When they are much less excellent, however, they weaken a lot of the positive work they’ve done– and the result is a pair of earphones that somehow sounds less than the amount of its parts.

On the positive side, the FT 1 are a thorough and assaulting pay attention. At every stage of the frequency range– and these earphones can dig as deep into the low frequencies as they can reach up at the contrary end– they recognize and contextualise a lot of information both broad and fine. They’re attentive to the trivial matters of even the most complex recordings, and will gladly contextualise also the most transient events in a 24 -little bit/ 48 kHz documents of Skinny Pelembe and Beth Orton’s version of Leonard Cohen’s Who By Fire. They drive the recording forwards remorselessly, seemingly figured out to maximise every shred of power and drive it’s imbued with.

The top of the regularity variety is virtually wilfully attacking, yet there’s almost enough compound to treble noises to keep their shine and luster on the best side of painful. At the opposite end of the frequency array, the FT 1 control bass appears well adequate to ensure persuading rhythmic expression– and they’re able to shape low-end details efficiently too. There’s excellent variation to the bass right here, a feeling of shade and texture, that’s by no means a given up earphones as aggressively valued as this.

In between, the midrange interacts eloquently, and again there’s a lot of information readily available– so a vocalist’s way of thinking and motivations are explained just as fully as the nuts and bolts of their vocal technique. The overall regularity reaction is relatively also, and tonality is commendably neutral.

Switch over to a recording that doesn’t require feral levels of drive or attack, however– a 24 -bit/ 88 2 kHz file of Bright Steeds by Nick Cave & & The Bad Seeds will do– and the feet 1’s efforts to hurry the tune forwards and invest it with some entirely undesirable and unwarranted energy are uneasy.

The FiiO in fact seems hurried, resistant or not able to enable the recording to unfold at its own speed. And when you include an instead two-dimensional soundstage into the mix, the immediacy of the FT 1 discussion is a lot too much. Regardless of the songs you’re listening to, it’s doesn’t ever before get the breathing room on the phase that it requires– instead, whatever is required in the direction of the front where it needs to try to muscle its way past every other component of a recording. Completion outcome is a presentation that’s slim, flat in regards to estimate, and eventually rather tiring.

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