Excellent review as always. How responsive is FT3 to EQ? Thank you.

I didn't do much in the way of EQing but I did boost the bass end quite a bit on some bass heavy tracks to see if the driver could handle it. 3-5dbs of extra mid bass to sub bass. It took the boost like a champ with no distortion whatsoever and sounds fantastic doing it. N52 magnets are very close to tesla magnets hence it has a strong driving force in conjunction with using a large 60mm DLC driver. It should handle EQing just fine. If the bass is any indicator on that. It should be no problems at all.

Wow, excellent review. Thank you for this. The FT3 deserves praise IMO.

I think so. I think headfiers might be turned off by their looks but really for the bucks these are tuned extremely well. Its balanced tonality brings true versatility and overally its technicalities stand out. I can't even beging to tell you guys just how much I am enjoying Fiios first Open can. I hope they develope a closed one as well.

Beyer has a typical warm sound signature? You lost me there, sadly. They are treble cannons as far as anyone i know that has ever used them, has stated. Except their 3rd gen T1 and T3.

Amirons and DT1990 pros both have boosted mid bass and lower mids with a dip at the upper mids which causes a tonal shift for slight warmth for mids at least for the Amirons and to a lesser degree the DT1990 pros. With the pros having more in the way of trebles vs the Amirons. The treble tunings on the other hand utlize spikes for treble which brings brightness to counter the slight warmth to the mid bands. DT1990 pros, while being more neutral vs the Amiron homes its got more treble boost on the other end as well. The treble can at times pretty much highlights the tonal character for these cans but the lack of upper mids--Western/ Euro type tuning makes the mids sound a bit distant imo. The newer Beyers takes these tunings to a greater extreme for an overly warm tuning from how I understand their sound character. If you lined up all 3 graphs from these cans I mentined, you can clearly see Beyers preference for tuning on all 3.

I would be interested if the cups were not round. Still I'm glad they have produced a very good over ear headphone.

I'm a few months late on this one, but I'm currently looking for a good open back with relatively high impedance for my studio, and this one's one the list.
Am I actually correct in assuming that the cable it comes with isn't balanced, since the plugs that go into the headphones themselves have only 2 poles ?

Its fully balanced. Modular 3 meter cable includes 4.4mm and XLR adaptors. Or in single ended. Balanced will determin if you end up using the 4.4mm pentaconn and or the XLR adaptors. Then the FT3 will be fully balanced out of a balanced source. Sounds great balanced and these should do well within a studio environement.