Product Review Of FiiO Products---From James
Chapter Night: F9
We have finished the product story of 2016. So today we would move to the year of 2017. The pioneer in 2017 was the DD+BA hybrid earphones, F9, released in July.
From the F1/F3/EM3, FiiO formally started the earphone segment. I still remember that earlier we have set up our strategies as follows.
1. Start from the entry-level/low-end products for experience accumulation. First, we need to figure out how this industry works, and introduce us to consumers. If we blindly release high-end products and fail to do that, it would be hard to do it again. However, consumers are more generous to low-end products. This is FiiO's principle all the time, getting it real and moving forward step by step.
2. Earphones made of metal materials are excluded. This is based on our understandings of user experience. Because for metal earphones, one con is that it is too heavy. The other is that it would be too cold in winter, which would put more coldness on the ears. However, the reality and practice told us that we have overly thought about this. The value of HiFi earphones is high yet it would be hard for plastic materials to contribute that.
3. Taking over-the-ear as the main design. This aims at reducing the cable microphonics and making it more comfortable to wear.
Based on our previous practices, plus the violent dynamic earphone market and the current market environment, we took our first step with the DD and BA hybrid earphone as our sword to enter the mid-to-high-end market. This was the background that the F9 was born.
In order to acquire better sound quality, as well as consider audiophiles' preference for metal components, we decided to choose the complicated metal shell from Five Axis Machining Center.
In terms of the driver configuration, the F9 has adopted the relatively popular and mature structure-1 Dynamic Driver and 2 Balanced Armature. Frankly speaking, it was influenced by the hybrid earphones, K3003 from AKG which can be somewhat regarded as the most successful DD and BA Hybrid Earphones even today.
In terms of the style design, the F9 has laid the design foundation for FiiO's future earphones. For the limitation of ergonomics, the main shape of the over-the-ear earphones can be divided into two types. One is similar to a football, whose typical representative was Shur and Weston. The other is the similar male mold which has a higher cost. Therefore, under the circumstance that the shape and material were unable to get a breakthrough, we decided to apply the stereo texture starting from the BTR1 and K1 to the F9. This has achieved a special characteristic for FiiO earphones. The FH5, FH7, FA1, FA5J, FA7, FA9 have all continued the same design language as it.
After being released, the F9 became a hit. It was sort of the masterpiece of FiiO in the HiFi earphone market. Thanks for its excellent sound quality and friendly price, it was popular among audiophiles at home and abroad. I remembered there was a whole year when we were busy with improving the production capacity and final passed yield in order to meet the market needs. Among the F9 series, including the latter F9SE and F9PRO, the F9 is not the best all around. However, from a historical angle, it is our most important earphones. What's more, its derived earphone F9PRO coming a few months later, has still taken space in today's market. From this point, we can see the vigor and power of it.