[voxie]

Just my personal thoughts and hearing, of course subjective.. love the E400's, just one driver in a perfect shell and swap out cables. Its just perfect for me. Just plug in and go. A no fuss IEM.

 

[PopZeus]

Audio is subjective. At least from my point of view.

Truth is, the conversations are more pleasant too. The only time I feel like I’m getting talked down to in this hobby is when it’s an objectivist telling me why my gear is inferior and how I should trust their specs over my own ears. But I love music, not numbers on a graph.

I know it’s off topic but I am glad a thread like this exists where we can say audio is subjective and that’s really okay! I’ll get off my tiny soapbox now...

 

[zilkhaw]

Audio is subjective. At least from my point of view.

Truth is, the conversations are more pleasant too. The only time I feel like I’m getting talked down to in this hobby is when it’s an objectivist telling me why my gear is inferior and how I should trust their specs over my own ears. But I love music, not numbers on a graph.

I know it’s off topic but I am glad a thread like this exists where we can say audio is subjective and that’s really okay! I’ll get off my tiny soapbox now...

Heheh, just personal point of view though. As an engineer myself, almost everything has to be explained with numbers. Because that is our science attempt in the current era.
When things cant be explained in numbers, people start to think that it is superstitious, it is illogical, it is not science.

But science has a limit, at least for now. However a lot of professional, after working too much with numbers, and of course a lot of their experience proven them true, it is not difficult for them to be bound to the single way of belief.
Bew science theory is discovered every day and some great discovery sometimes proves that the conventional theory is wrong. Therefore when something cannot be proven, I believe that it is NOT WRONG, it is just yet to be discovered a way to explain it. If colors can be seen differently by different people, why sound should work the other way? But unfortunately some professionals have their own pride (especially the famous one), when they cannot explain a thing with their knowledge, they say it is B*llsh*t and their followers simply being brainwashed due to their reputation in the field. But c'mon, no matter how great a person is, dont tell me that he knows the truth of the whole world.

A very simple example, some people claim that burn-in does not exist. Or some people who believe that burn-in does exist, claim that burn-in only occur for dynamic driver, BA driver does not.
But my personal experience tells me differently, I owned FI-BA-SS (single BA) and I have been using them for like 6 years continuously and one day I broken the left side connection and I sent it back to Final for repair.
Eventually they sent me a new one and the moment I listened to it, the sounds just so different with what I have known. So I let it burn in for like a day and the sound start to change back to what I have familiar with.

So, what? Should I follow those minority of professional and think that something is wrong with my brain? Hell NO, that is my hearing, that is so real, that is what my experience told me. As a human, if we cant even believe our own feelings, but we have to follow what being told, c'mon, especially this is our interest, our source of fun, do we really want to let our fun to be controlled as well?

You know what? What makes me love final so much because as a Japanese company, they work totally in a really non-Japanese way. In Japanese culture, if you are the minority then you are left out. Final picked the difficult way and trying to show the world the beauty of sound in their own very special way. And at the same time, if you have ever talked with Final staff, their suggestion always come with, "Don't believe in what I say, you try it and you believe your own feeling." That, is the freedom that we should have in something that makes us happy.

 

[zilkhaw]

I was looking around in AliExpress and I was so shocked to find Lab2 at USD300.
Looking at the photo, it looks quite real, but for a person who has seen the original can find out that it is fake easily.

FAKE item ↓　(How dare those Chinese even add a watermark onto this fake item photo)

 

[alpha421]

Sad but true, the Piano Forte line are notorious for fakes. I bought one years ago, and didn't know it because the packaging looked genuine, but the hard case gave it away along with the sound (owned it before). Basically, never buy any FAD Piano Forte from any Chinese site, period. One has got to pay the piper and pony up the msrp price to get a genuine FAD Piano Forte product.

 

[thisismyname]

yes, you can find a lot of cheap pf at those chinese sites. IMO the only expensive model among the pf is pf x, the other 2 is not so expensive.

Don't buy from those chinese site if you respect and appreciate the development from final

 

[PopZeus]

Heheh, just personal point of view though. As an engineer myself, almost everything has to be explained with numbers. Because that is our science attempt in the current era.
When things cant be explained in numbers, people start to think that it is superstitious, it is illogical, it is not science.

But science has a limit, at least for now. However a lot of professional, after working too much with numbers, and of course a lot of their experience proven them true, it is not difficult for them to be bound to the single way of belief.
Bew science theory is discovered every day and some great discovery sometimes proves that the conventional theory is wrong. Therefore when something cannot be proven, I believe that it is NOT WRONG, it is just yet to be discovered a way to explain it. If colors can be seen differently by different people, why sound should work the other way? But unfortunately some professionals have their own pride (especially the famous one), when they cannot explain a thing with their knowledge, they say it is B*llsh*t and their followers simply being brainwashed due to their reputation in the field. But c'mon, no matter how great a person is, dont tell me that he knows the truth of the whole world.

A very simple example, some people claim that burn-in does not exist. Or some people who believe that burn-in does exist, claim that burn-in only occur for dynamic driver, BA driver does not.
But my personal experience tells me differently, I owned FI-BA-SS (single BA) and I have been using them for like 6 years continuously and one day I broken the left side connection and I sent it back to Final for repair.
Eventually they sent me a new one and the moment I listened to it, the sounds just so different with what I have known. So I let it burn in for like a day and the sound start to change back to what I have familiar with.

So, what? Should I follow those minority of professional and think that something is wrong with my brain? Hell NO, that is my hearing, that is so real, that is what my experience told me. As a human, if we cant even believe our own feelings, but we have to follow what being told, c'mon, especially this is our interest, our source of fun, do we really want to let our fun to be controlled as well?

You know what? What makes me love final so much because as a Japanese company, they work totally in a really non-Japanese way. In Japanese culture, if you are the minority then you are left out. Final picked the difficult way and trying to show the world the beauty of sound in their own very special way. And at the same time, if you have ever talked with Final staff, their suggestion always come with, "Don't believe in what I say, you try it and you believe your own feeling." That, is the freedom that we should have in something that makes us happy.

Yes! Thank you for articulating what I was feeling but could never say aloud because I'm not an audio engineer, nor am I particularly well-informed in this field. The issue is that some people think that because they have some of the facts, that they act as if they have all of the authority. Whereas I know there are things I can hear that science has an explanation for, and some things where there is no explanation yet, but I try not to let those things cloud my judgment. And I certainly would never presume to tell someone that I know better than their ears. Sure, I'm getting older and cannot hear much in the upper treble region. Too much playing loud music with my old band. But maybe my guitar tube amp obsession from a younger age prepared me to think differently about audio than others who don't have that background. And so I have learned to trust my ears and believe what I'm feeling.

 

[zilkhaw]

Yes! Thank you for articulating what I was feeling but could never say aloud because I'm not an audio engineer, nor am I particularly well-informed in this field.

Err, glad that you agree v how i think. But i hav to clarify that I am an engineer but unfortunately I am not a sound engineer. I wish I am though.

 

[Wyville]

Heheh, just personal point of view though. As an engineer myself, almost everything has to be explained with numbers. Because that is our science attempt in the current era.
When things cant be explained in numbers, people start to think that it is superstitious, it is illogical, it is not science.

Thanks for the insightful post! But trust me, the numbers-thing, that's mostly engineers talking (with the greatest respect, btw). When it comes to biology numbers become inadequate and things can be a lot less abstract, which is what my earlier post alluded to. I won't steer the thread completely off topic, but a lot of what you say is actually more scientific than you give it credit for.

 

[zilkhaw]

actually you know what? If everything can finally be done with science and mathematic, c'mon where is the fun then? Music should be an art which is so holy that sooth our soul. So when art taking part, a fixed perfect way make things boring and there is no fun already.

Its just like declaring a particular food is the best and so everyone should love and stay with it because it is perfect, no way. Life should be colorful right? Human beings are unpredictable, so what we like should be unpredictable as well.

Enough theory and science, LETS ENJOY YOUSELVE EMERGING INTO THE REALM OF MUSIC! Yay!

Sharing opinion like this is fun. Thank you everyone for voicing your opinion

 

[ttt123]

Sad but true, the Piano Forte line are notorious for fakes. I bought one years ago, and didn't know it because the packaging looked genuine, but the hard case gave it away along with the sound (owned it before). Basically, never buy any FAD Piano Forte from any Chinese site, period. One has got to pay the piper and pony up the msrp price to get a genuine FAD Piano Forte product.

I was looking around in AliExpress and I was so shocked to find Lab2 at USD300.
Looking at the photo, it looks quite real, but for a person who has seen the original can find out that it is fake easily.

FAKE item ↓　(How dare those Chinese even add a watermark onto this fake item photo)

The finishing on the Lab II is different, if you compare to the real thing.
LunaShops sells DIY parts, including shells for various IEMs, including the Final PF VIII, SS, etc. They did not have the Lab II before. Lunashops does not sell copies, but people who buy their shells and misrepresent them are a danger on the 2nd hand market. However, to be fair, you would not realistically expect a Lab II for USD$300 to be real. Like a $250 Rolex. It's strange, but I have seen people pay HK$250 for a Rolex at a street market, and then ask me if it is real. I don't know what to say...

 

[alpha421]

^beautiful.

 

[zilkhaw]

The finishing on the Lab II is different, if you compare to the real thing

Nice photo! This is real piece of beauty. The genuine one is titanium 3D printed and then had the surface mirror polished and therefore the internal of holes are not shiny and if not mistaken there are quite a lot of holes to hav better air movements.

The fake one on the other hand, i wonder what the material is. It is painted (does not even looked like coated) with silver color and therefore the paint can go into all holes which form the shiny surface even at the depth of holes.

P/s: if one day you decide to throw it away, I can provide you my home address XD

 

[PopZeus]

Err, glad that you agree v how i think. But i hav to clarify that I am an engineer but unfortunately I am not a sound engineer. I wish I am though.

Haha. Oh well, at least the scientific method carries over from engineering type to type. My key takeaway is, sometimes professionals are the most keenly aware of what they don't know in their field, over armchair amateurs.

 

[ttt123]

The finishing on the Lab II is different, if you compare to the real thing.
LunaShops sells DIY parts, including shells for various IEMs, including the Final PF VIII, SS, etc. They did not have the Lab II before. Lunashops does not sell copies, but people who buy their shells and misrepresent them are a danger on the 2nd hand market. However, to be fair, you would not realistically expect a Lab II for USD$300 to be real. Like a $250 Rolex. It's strange, but I have seen people pay HK$250 for a Rolex at a street market, and then ask me if it is real. I don't know what to say...

And here is the other member of the family, the Lab I