FA7, the first Quad drivers IEM from FiiO , all Knowles BAs and 3D printed technical , MMCX design
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mhoopes
100+ Head-Fier
Nozzle diameter 5.15-5.65 mm. For Comply, I’d go 600-series M, or 500-series S.
Included M Bass tips are working for me.
Do the included M foam tips fit you?
CP100 will fit snugly and the CP145 will fit comfortably.
I see. Okay. Thank you. I will try cp100.
I haven't try that. I will try all those first before I buy spinfit.
dhruvmeena96
Headphoneus Supremus
Sony IER M7 is better tuned, FA7 is better spec wise.
Sony IER M7 is pure full range Sony driver. It has better mids and treble is touch more smoother and resolving, never sibilant. The mids tuning make it expansive. FA7 is faster, much faster detailed and bass extended. This makes them better at transient response. One of the fastest attacking bass(rank second to 64audio u18t). I think they crossed CI lower than many brands, making it focus more on lower side of bass and then getting the ED to do mid bass and mids, thus making ED do less 2kHz overall. And then passing SWFK for pure treble purpose.
CI does somewhat better job on faster bass on pure woofer design.
I mean, it is league above in speed compared to FH5 in bass department.
Sony M7 is more coherent(fiio is also, but sony has a different charm here). Sony gives better image to grand piano and the ambience. Fiio does air and the room acoustics better. Sony midrange and treble let you monitor in studio in mixing. Fiio is for music producers to detect faults.
Sony-mixing
Fiio-finding faults.
Both should be given FLAC as mp3 dont do justice.
FH5 for mp3
CP145 gotta be the most bloomy tips there is, not sure if they're a good choice here.
Too bad they don't sell cp145 in my nearby shop. They only sell cp100.
Thanks for your impressions, although having heard both FA7 and FH5 I don’t at all agree with your findings. I find the FH5 bass far superior to the flat and rather boomy FA7 bass, which tends to be more mid-bass focused with less rumble and weight. Guess it’s a matter of preference, and the type of music you listen to, but in almost all cases I prefer the FH5 to the FA7.
dhruvmeena96
Headphoneus Supremus
I meant to say, fiio fh5 do justice with poor recording compared to FA7.
FA7 bass is fast. I know that it do mid bass more, but that is nature of BA(I am into building hearing aids for pretty decent period of time).
FH5 bass overall is superior, I even agree on that.
But you can ask fiio for burst decay(it is different from CSD).
And you will get to know what I am talking that.
And when you low pass a CI at 80Hz with a simple RC capacitor, it rolls by 3dB into mids till it go zero.
Dynamic driver too do that, but the decay presence is more in sub bass compared to linear burst of BA.
So when BA is crossed, the sub Bass and mid bass decay is pretty sharp which makes its focus on mid bass as we are more sensitive to mids and the bass nearby to mids is mid bass. Plus ED does the mid bass too.
Dynamic decay is all which makes our focus toward the subbass and extension
But the mids are way more better done on FA7. I mean leagues better(even fiio says that FH5 is different tuning and feel, I disagree as mids are way superior)
Treble is somewhat same but the peak on harmonics (somewhat near 2 or 3kHz) of FH5 makes the treble smoother in feel compared to aggressive FA7. That is also because energy distribution too.
FH5 female vocal is bearable on low bit rate quality but can go slightly shouty while going DSD/FLAC.
FA7 ditch that for lower distortion since the peak was damped.
This also makes the brain focus on lower range of mids, which comes to mid bass again. I mean if you damp the 2kHz by eq, you will feel you can hear the mid bass
The only best bass was Sony IER z1r and Sony XBA z5(even though it was over done in Z5)
Fiio FH5 doesn't comes near on the quality of above mentioned in bass department.
But FA7 came near Sony IER M9 and Z1R on beautiful treble.
But if they have used a extremely damped vent open HODVTEC instead of CI, the bass could had destroyed the FH5, Sony Z5 though
Well HODVTEC is nasty to tune compared to CI. So that was a safe and proper play from Fiio on FA7
Well FA7 is way better done compared to any Dunu and astrotec. Well it blew my Rose BR5, which is itself a great feat.
Well I would want the CI to be more damped though, I mean slightly so the focus goes to subbass.
SeeD
Head-Fier
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After having listened to the FA7 more with my initial tweaks from the ES-100, I like it more and more. For my settings, I wanted the same stock bass, but a bit more emphasis on the higher end of the spectrum to lift the vocal veiling. This is more of a fun EQ and less technical/ reference.
Mhoopes- I have a favor to ask. If I give you my ES-100 EQ settings, can you run a graph using your FA7 and my settings? I am just curious to see how my settings look on the spectrum and provide a baseline. I understand if you don’t want to. Thanks!!
mhoopes
100+ Head-Fier
Do the HODVTEC go that low? That said, I wonder how the FH7 (with a DD handling the low end) is fairing in FiiO's alpha testing? It seems that one hasn't surfaced for public eval quite yet, even though they've been talking about a March domestic release.
My experience with the FA7 is telling with respect to the mastering techniques of the recorded material. I'm not finding a lack of sub-bass in more modern jazz recordings, for instance, with the FA7. If I'm interpreting your statements correctly, you're saying that the slower decay of a DD passes noticeably more sub-bass energy than the BA, and that's a major factor. I'm also thinking that perhaps a lot of older recordings literally contain less sub-bass energy, but were mastered with "slower" studio monitor drivers closer to their contemporary mainstream reproduction chains.
In your experience, are DD bass harmonic distortion products (that can produce the "missing fundamental" perceptual effect) also a factor in sub-bass perception, as compared to BA, or is BA harmonic distortion equivalent to DD in that range?
mhoopes
100+ Head-Fier
Sure! I'm just cropping an EarStudio app screen shot on my iPhone. Please share.
Just raising the levels above the mid-bass isn't too different from just lowering the mid-bass. It's about their relative levels. I also found that a little extra emphasis in the pinna-gain range for DF (2-3K) helped with the balance. I found that the Headphone Collector had the same basic impressions.
I agree with the findings that the FA7 bass can be overpowering - but only with the wrong tips. This highlights the importance of finding the right tips for your ear shape and personal sonic preferences. I would also personally sacrifice some of the "depth" that you get with the FH5 for the more mid-bass focused FA7 (which is very clean, nuanced, and textured once you find the right tip) given the resolution, refinement, and smoothness in the mids and highs. I could not listen to the FH5 for longer than 15 minutes before I had to take a break - too forward / shouty and fatiguing. Admittedly that may also be a factor of the tip as I only tried one, but as it stands it just wasn't my cup of tea.
SeeD
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Sure! I'm just cropping an EarStudio app screen shot on my iPhone. Please share.
Just raising the levels above the mid-bass isn't too different from just lowering the mid-bass. It's about their relative levels. I also found that a little extra emphasis in the pinna-gain range for DF (2-3K) helped with the balance. I found that the Headphone Collector had the same basic impressions.
Thank you!! These are my initial settings and so far I am happy with the results. Just these little tweaks helps balance the bass and vocals- for me at least. I need to plug in your settings and see how they compare.
Many thanks!!
dhruvmeena96
Headphoneus Supremus
Yup you are right
and yes you are also right on distortion
but it is to do with the shape of distortion rather than distortion itself and DD does distort in a good way compared to sharp distortion fall in BA
and decay is a different thing. Decay lingers the DD on specific freq. In FH5, it has more subbass decay, which lead to a presence lingering to a specific nano to millisecond, but the mid bass handled by ED is tight, leading to more subbass presence even though bass output is less.
FA7 is tight and focused and we are simple sensitive between 92.3Hz to 1.21kHz. and the focus fades away after that. so midbass feel more pronounced
OK
knowles bass level from single driver point
CI<TEC<BK<FED=ED
TEC was made to be smaller subbbass driver compared to CI, but its taller. I think it has more voice coil power inside and higher excursion
Then knowles blew DIY and company guys with freaking DTEC. thats stand for Dual TEC. But those crazy engineer didnt stop there.
THEY WENT FOR FREAKING HODVTEC
That stands for something creepy
High Output Dual Vented TEC.
the output is somewhat 10dB over CI and the vented driver go crazy. Plus it do flat down to 1.8kHz flat. and if you remove the vent cover and use it as stock, it blows all the dynamics you have ever heard in subbass. Plus that is the BA which decay.
It is also the biggest Knowles driver and craziest driver as it gets chaotic if we apply simple tuning. Heavy L pad attenuation and Low crossover has to be done
Other crazy driver is Sonion 33Aj xxxx series dual subwoofer. It is tame HODVTEC to tune though but is slightly lower in output
Remember Shure SE846 legendary bass. That comes from sonion unit
and if you want the real bass, go for symbio tips for these IEM. These can also do a heart rumbling bass
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