Review: Fischer Audio FA-003 - a neutral champ! - Page 14

Quote:

Originally Posted by gopack87 

I received my pair this morning from Bugden Audio and have listened to them for the last two hours.  These have to be the most open sounding closed headphones I've ever heard.  They are incredibly accurate to the recording and have great, neutral bass.  I'm absolutely loving these and for $180, they are a bargain.  It's cool they I got a pair of soft pads as well as the leather ones.  Thanks LFF for the great review!  I should also mention these sound incredible out of my Meir StepDance

Sigh, another happy Fisher listener.  So umm, LFF.  Feel like giving up or trading your 003s for a few days?  

Quote:

Originally Posted by gopack87 

I received my pair this morning from Bugden Audio and have listened to them for the last two hours.  These have to be the most open sounding closed headphones I've ever heard.  They are incredibly accurate to the recording and have great, neutral bass.  I'm absolutely loving these and for $180, they are a bargain.  It's cool they I got a pair of soft pads as well as the leather ones.  Thanks LFF for the great review!  I should also mention these sound incredible out of my Meir StepDance

What are the soft pads made out of, and are they of the same thickness?

And I must ask, how do you they sound compared to your HD600? 

I ordered mine from Bugden as well, so hopefully I will get the new soft pads too. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philimon 

What are the soft pads made out of, and are they of the same thickness?

 

And I must ask, how do you they sound compared to your HD600? 

 

I ordered mine from Bugden as well, so hopefully I will get the new soft pads too. 

The soft pads seems are roughly the same as the leather ones and they are sorta like Senn or Beyer pads but more firm.  My HD600 are only a week old so I'm not too familiar with them yet but the FA003 have some of the same qualities(neutrality, good soundstage).  My order from Budgen arrived a week later from ordering, so pretty quick from Canada.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gopack87 

 

The soft pads seems are roughly the same as the leather ones and they are sorta like Senn or Beyer pads but more firm.  My HD600 are only a week old so I'm not too familiar with them yet but the FA003 have some of the same qualities(neutrality, good soundstage).  My order from Budgen arrived a week later from ordering, so pretty quick from Canada.

The material then is velour.

I would like to hear your formed opinion on both phones when possible. Thanks.

Okay, I received my FA-003's from Ethan today, and first impressions (listened to them at work driven by my Thinkpad T61) were quite good. Extended low end, mids sounded good, soundstage surprisingly good for closed headphones, and the highs just a touch steely sounding, but not as steely as Shure SRH-840's. Will need some time to break them in, and I will bring them home once I get my amp back from being finished, so I can do some serious listening / comparison to my AKG K501's.

CYoung234,  would you tell me when you placed the order of FA-003?
I tried to contact to Ethan about the availability of FA-003 and DBA-02 last week. Still have no response from him so far.

I placed an order on Aug, still waiting for it. Hopefully Ethan is busy distributing all the orders:)
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sopp 

CYoung234,  would you tell me when you placed the order of FA-003?
I tried to contact to Ethan about the availability of FA-003 and DBA-02 last week. Still have no response from him so far.

I ordered mine on August 15th, 2010. So, you should be getting yours soon, I would think. I did not get any notification that my order was complete, and Ethan did not respond to email this week, so I think LFF is correct - he is swamped. Remember, he is doing this solo and has a daytime job. I feel bad about perstering him as much as I did, so if you multiply that by the number of other people who were doing the same over the DBA02 first and now the FA002 / FA003 - well you get the picture.

Have only been listening about 10min, but I really like them. 

I actually bought an FA004 as well, and I tried the FA004 first. Once I put on the FA003 it felt relieving. Bass is much better. I am letting the FA004 burn-in while I listen to the FA003.

They came with both style of pads like gopack mentioned, and I switched to the "softs" right away without even trying the leathers. I will of course try out the leather pads later. The FA003 also came with the carrying bag like LFF's.

Will report back later with some impressions.

Differences in the pads:

The velour pads are a little thicker (approximately 1cm to the naked eye, too lazy to find ruler at moment) and harder (doesn't compress as easily due to pressure like the leathers). The inside of both the pads are made of the same material, which is good because that probably helps them keep the same sound. However, since the velour pads are thicker and don't compress as easily - I think that it makes the drivers more distant from your ears while wearing the headphones. I have listened to both pads, and I think the leathers sound like they might have a little more forwards mids and bass. I sense this could be true, because of my experience with switching pads on Grado phones, the large salad bowls allow more distance between your ears and the drivers compared to the stock pads, and the larger distance creates a different sound (less bass and less forward mids, more treble?). I do not know if my listening tests between pads on the FA003 is accurate or not and I have only done little, so I would like someone else to try and post their results. 

By the way, I thought the vocals were a little too distant on the velours, but they are sounding right on the leathers. The vocals were the most immediate/apparent improvement when I switched to leathers, but it seems bass has also become stronger which I felt was slightly lacking on the velours. 

For reference due to lack of pics: I stacked one of each style of pads on top of each other and then slowly applied pressure on them with my hand, and the leathers would almost completely fold in on themselves before the velours would even start to crumple...

Well, swamped is certainly right! I haven't been replying to many DBA emails for the sole fact that I don't have any new information and will pass that on as soon as it is known to everyone who wrote in asking. I suspect it is soon that more will be ready but I would rather pass on fact than speculation. Additionally I'm stocking another brand of audio products now, so I've been working on that too. My apologies to everyone waiting for a reply, you'll be informed as soon as possible. As usual, all new information can be found in forum threads and will be found on my site.

Finally i just got my hands on FA-003 =)  Thank you LFF for the suggestion , it is indeed good headphone and need an amp for it to show its true power

Just listened to FA-003 for one hour with flac music input from my sansa fuze and my desktop without amp , it really sounds opened compare to other closed back headphones . I have the 'space' feeling in my head which i have never experienced when i was using Futuresonics M5 iem. It already sounds quite good to me without amp and i can imagine how sweet they can be with a proper amp. I know that sansa fuze doesnt have enough power to drive this can , so i will order the budget amp fiio e7 for 003 and hope e7 can drive them well =)