drftr
Headphoneus Supremus
I read about them yesterday and my first thought was that I would never be able to drive them with a phone because of its incredibly low sensitivity. Think it was 90 dB or even lower? Thoughts?
drftr
FiiO FA9 - 6 Knowles BA IEM w/3 sound adjustment switche
drftr
edb
100+ Head-Fier
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I never tried it with a phone, my phone does not have a 3.5mm port. I pair it with a FIIO M11, which has a recommended headphone impedance 16~150Ω; while the T800 has 9.2Ω. It still works pretty well.
Imho what limits the FA9 most is the lack of inclusion of good foam earpieces.
The foam pieces included, unrelated to that they are only 1 size, are really really bad.
I tried several foam with the FA9 and all of them make it shine and sound excellent but the included foam, really not good.
And with all the silicone eartips that are includied, i get air pressure issues.
I really hope that @FiiO is addressing the lack of good foam in an successor. They are needed for best isolation + air pressure free sound.
The foam pieces included, unrelated to that they are only 1 size, are really really bad.
I tried several foam with the FA9 and all of them make it shine and sound excellent but the included foam, really not good.
And with all the silicone eartips that are includied, i get air pressure issues.
I really hope that @FiiO is addressing the lack of good foam in an successor. They are needed for best isolation + air pressure free sound.
So I went and bought an FA9 anyway. Here’s why I bought it and what I think.
The FA9 is the third FIIO IEM I’ve owned, the previous two being the FH3 and FH7. The FH3 impressed me enough to buy the FH7, which I liked as well. Some other IEMs I’ve owned include several Westones in the $200-$500 range, a bunch of Etymotics, the last being the EVO, an Audeze LCD- i3, a Hifiman RE800 and quite a few others I can’t remember off the top of my head. Sound quality ranged from excellent to ok, but my experience with most of them was they’re too uncomfortable for more than an hour or two of use.
FIIOs fit me very comfortably though and I’m a fan of large numbers of tips allowing me to find a good fit and sonic balance. While I wouldn’t call FIIOs top offerings screaming bargains, they’re definitely price competitive with other earphones I’ve heard in their price range. By the way, my cost limit for iems is less than $800 - too easy for me to lose to justify spending more.
I chose the FA9 because I wanted isolation in a comfortable IEM. I use them on the move in noisy environments so being able to block out background noise is important in order to actually appreciate the sound.
What do I think of the FA9? Excellent iem for my use case. It’s not as isolating as my etys were, but still pretty isolating and MUCH more comfortable with better dynamics and bass. It took me playing around with the tips for a while to figure out the balanced medium tips were the best combination of seal, isolation, comfort and timbre for me, but now that I’m there I’m really enjoying listening to the FA9.
Sound wise it’s not very sparkly and the upper bass is a touch elevated, but still pretty neutral overall with a very easy going tonality. Detail and imaging are excellent. Their technical performance is high enough to justify a really good sound source. I could easily hear the difference clarity between between my different sources. The best mobile source I tried is the RU7, which adds a lot of PRAT, Superb imaging a little warmth and a little more sparkle than my desktop system or my M11 Pro when set to DSD 256.
The FA9 is the third FIIO IEM I’ve owned, the previous two being the FH3 and FH7. The FH3 impressed me enough to buy the FH7, which I liked as well. Some other IEMs I’ve owned include several Westones in the $200-$500 range, a bunch of Etymotics, the last being the EVO, an Audeze LCD- i3, a Hifiman RE800 and quite a few others I can’t remember off the top of my head. Sound quality ranged from excellent to ok, but my experience with most of them was they’re too uncomfortable for more than an hour or two of use.
FIIOs fit me very comfortably though and I’m a fan of large numbers of tips allowing me to find a good fit and sonic balance. While I wouldn’t call FIIOs top offerings screaming bargains, they’re definitely price competitive with other earphones I’ve heard in their price range. By the way, my cost limit for iems is less than $800 - too easy for me to lose to justify spending more.
I chose the FA9 because I wanted isolation in a comfortable IEM. I use them on the move in noisy environments so being able to block out background noise is important in order to actually appreciate the sound.
What do I think of the FA9? Excellent iem for my use case. It’s not as isolating as my etys were, but still pretty isolating and MUCH more comfortable with better dynamics and bass. It took me playing around with the tips for a while to figure out the balanced medium tips were the best combination of seal, isolation, comfort and timbre for me, but now that I’m there I’m really enjoying listening to the FA9.
Sound wise it’s not very sparkly and the upper bass is a touch elevated, but still pretty neutral overall with a very easy going tonality. Detail and imaging are excellent. Their technical performance is high enough to justify a really good sound source. I could easily hear the difference clarity between between my different sources. The best mobile source I tried is the RU7, which adds a lot of PRAT, Superb imaging a little warmth and a little more sparkle than my desktop system or my M11 Pro when set to DSD 256.
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