FLC tour – The little known package with a big sound
Where to start on these little guys… Firstly, thanks to Forrest at FLC Technology and @DJScope for putting together this tour. It is always a privilege to be a part of a head-fi tour and this one was no exception.
Me and My Bias
I do acknowledge that I have a couple of inherent biases. Many talk about the obligation to the review and their inherent sound bias, I will own the second but the first I find myself not conforming to very well. I have noticed that I appear to have the opposite. I love my own gear due to the need not to spend more money and the research and investment that I have made. This means that I have found it easier in the past to not see quite the same value in the brief flings with review units. I work to counter that bias and will note it later in the review.
On the sound sig bias, I grew up as a bass head who swiftly turned into a treble head coming to head-fi and working through oldest to newest:
Hippo-VB->shure 425->UE900->ety er4s->dunu titan 1
Also along the way journeying in the world of over ear and on-ear:
AKG Q701, UE6000 (a real outlier) and now the Grado 325e’s
But to temper that treble tilt sound bias I thought I had better inform you of my latest passion, the Aurisonics Rockets. These have a receding treble but they are non-fatiguing and have such a beauty, delicacy and shimmer to the treble that I can forgive it (and turn it right up).
So all that to say, think as you will of me and my bias and take a moment to understand it before you read my thoughts on a product that you may invest your hard earned on J
Package
To me this package is sublime. Initially you are greeted with a relatively plain cardboard box which has a nice heft to it and not too much give. From there you lift, turn and twist to open out this origami masterpiece into segments revealing parts of the impressive kit in their glory. You get the tuning kit, lots of tips (the large dark silicone fit me better than any of my alternative tips), the iems themselves (nicely presented and packed), tweezers (which are practically useless) and a screw top case.
I think the case while a little bulkier and heavier than most is absolutely stunning. I love the finish and I love the sound it makes as you unscrew it. It has that slick metal on metal sound that has no grate or gravel to it, just the perfect glide…
The iems themselves have a beautiful soft blue translucent colour, a colour that is used seamlessly across all aspects from the cable to the plug. I think it is beautiful and almost has a glow from the inside (which it doesn’t, just my gushy language) and I personally really like the aesthetic of the plug. It is all vaguely reminiscent to me of my old UE900 package reinterpreted, even the cable reminds me of it, although not so positively.
The cable I found to be a little springy and scratchy. It didn’t hold a nice shape and wasn’t soft and supple which to me a great cable should be. It also managed to transmit more microphonics than I thought was possible for an over ear configuration… However I personally found the earguide area fine and the whole thing in the end disappeared when I turned on the music.
Listening - tuning
This thing is HARD to characterise with its multiple tuning options and so I thought I would just give an overall character based on my fav configuration, the red sub bass, the grey midbass and gold screw in nozzles with notes about a few of the other arrangements I had time to try.
I personally found that the overall soundstage and imaging were pretty consistent regardless of the tuning with key areas of the spectrum moving forward and back rather than the whole character changing. I thought that was a really nice touch!
Bass – The bass on these can be powerful! In the red/grey config they have a great punchiness to them without getting into the fuzzy zone. The fact that they retain a razor image makes me feel that they have a great balance even though they are capable of hitting hard. Adding in the high midbass filters changed the character a little toward the wooly side of things though never too much that it became a mess.
Mids – With the gold nozzle the mids came a fraction forward in the mix which is my preference. They seem to be solid, a nice middleground. I never found the mids to be super seductive but I also never found them to be too dry either. They were just there, crystal clear, detailed to the full and well imaged so that you could place each instrument in its space with a clarity between them.
Treble – Lovely, just lovely. Nice, crisp and quite extended with nary a pain. I could listen to these all day without getting sick of it!
Sound stage – I found the sound stage to be quite well defined. It is a large room with good height and width. I found that the impactful bass gives a slightly smaller room feel than the rockets, although rockets seem more up front. To be honest, it lays the whole sound out with space and I could listen and mentally travel around the space because it is combined with that razor imaging
Imaging – razor, everything has a space and doesn’t reverb/clash. Need I say more?
Conclusion
Please don’t make me send these on…
They are great. They are a beautiful set of in ears that I would gladly purchase should I not fear the quality of my home life if I were to do so
For the price you get so much and have the opportunity to really listen to the detail of the music that you miss in other in ears.
My only minor complaint and minor indeed it is, would be that some more coloured sets can really feature a sound, like for example vocals whispered to your very soul tingling the spine or other such pronounced detail. These don’t do that, despite the tunability I found that everything was still there, in its balance just pronounced a bit more. Unflappable these are!
To me the major accomplishment of these is that you never feel like you have to analyse the music. The detail is there, the ability is there, but it still feels like music and in the end you can zoom in on detail or just sit there and enjoy the tunes.
Where to start on these little guys… Firstly, thanks to Forrest at FLC Technology and @DJScope for putting together this tour. It is always a privilege to be a part of a head-fi tour and this one was no exception.
Me and My Bias
I do acknowledge that I have a couple of inherent biases. Many talk about the obligation to the review and their inherent sound bias, I will own the second but the first I find myself not conforming to very well. I have noticed that I appear to have the opposite. I love my own gear due to the need not to spend more money and the research and investment that I have made. This means that I have found it easier in the past to not see quite the same value in the brief flings with review units. I work to counter that bias and will note it later in the review.
On the sound sig bias, I grew up as a bass head who swiftly turned into a treble head coming to head-fi and working through oldest to newest:
Hippo-VB->shure 425->UE900->ety er4s->dunu titan 1
Also along the way journeying in the world of over ear and on-ear:
AKG Q701, UE6000 (a real outlier) and now the Grado 325e’s
But to temper that treble tilt sound bias I thought I had better inform you of my latest passion, the Aurisonics Rockets. These have a receding treble but they are non-fatiguing and have such a beauty, delicacy and shimmer to the treble that I can forgive it (and turn it right up).
So all that to say, think as you will of me and my bias and take a moment to understand it before you read my thoughts on a product that you may invest your hard earned on J
Package
To me this package is sublime. Initially you are greeted with a relatively plain cardboard box which has a nice heft to it and not too much give. From there you lift, turn and twist to open out this origami masterpiece into segments revealing parts of the impressive kit in their glory. You get the tuning kit, lots of tips (the large dark silicone fit me better than any of my alternative tips), the iems themselves (nicely presented and packed), tweezers (which are practically useless) and a screw top case.
I think the case while a little bulkier and heavier than most is absolutely stunning. I love the finish and I love the sound it makes as you unscrew it. It has that slick metal on metal sound that has no grate or gravel to it, just the perfect glide…
The iems themselves have a beautiful soft blue translucent colour, a colour that is used seamlessly across all aspects from the cable to the plug. I think it is beautiful and almost has a glow from the inside (which it doesn’t, just my gushy language) and I personally really like the aesthetic of the plug. It is all vaguely reminiscent to me of my old UE900 package reinterpreted, even the cable reminds me of it, although not so positively.
The cable I found to be a little springy and scratchy. It didn’t hold a nice shape and wasn’t soft and supple which to me a great cable should be. It also managed to transmit more microphonics than I thought was possible for an over ear configuration… However I personally found the earguide area fine and the whole thing in the end disappeared when I turned on the music.
Listening - tuning
This thing is HARD to characterise with its multiple tuning options and so I thought I would just give an overall character based on my fav configuration, the red sub bass, the grey midbass and gold screw in nozzles with notes about a few of the other arrangements I had time to try.
I personally found that the overall soundstage and imaging were pretty consistent regardless of the tuning with key areas of the spectrum moving forward and back rather than the whole character changing. I thought that was a really nice touch!
Bass – The bass on these can be powerful! In the red/grey config they have a great punchiness to them without getting into the fuzzy zone. The fact that they retain a razor image makes me feel that they have a great balance even though they are capable of hitting hard. Adding in the high midbass filters changed the character a little toward the wooly side of things though never too much that it became a mess.
Mids – With the gold nozzle the mids came a fraction forward in the mix which is my preference. They seem to be solid, a nice middleground. I never found the mids to be super seductive but I also never found them to be too dry either. They were just there, crystal clear, detailed to the full and well imaged so that you could place each instrument in its space with a clarity between them.
Treble – Lovely, just lovely. Nice, crisp and quite extended with nary a pain. I could listen to these all day without getting sick of it!
Sound stage – I found the sound stage to be quite well defined. It is a large room with good height and width. I found that the impactful bass gives a slightly smaller room feel than the rockets, although rockets seem more up front. To be honest, it lays the whole sound out with space and I could listen and mentally travel around the space because it is combined with that razor imaging
Imaging – razor, everything has a space and doesn’t reverb/clash. Need I say more?
Conclusion
Please don’t make me send these on…
They are great. They are a beautiful set of in ears that I would gladly purchase should I not fear the quality of my home life if I were to do so
For the price you get so much and have the opportunity to really listen to the detail of the music that you miss in other in ears.
My only minor complaint and minor indeed it is, would be that some more coloured sets can really feature a sound, like for example vocals whispered to your very soul tingling the spine or other such pronounced detail. These don’t do that, despite the tunability I found that everything was still there, in its balance just pronounced a bit more. Unflappable these are!
To me the major accomplishment of these is that you never feel like you have to analyse the music. The detail is there, the ability is there, but it still feels like music and in the end you can zoom in on detail or just sit there and enjoy the tunes.
