[Vitaly2017]

Today being a day 2 with my amazing collection of iems now hehi.

I have settle for m4 for today, I stopped doing tests and just have sit to enjoy music, M4 is really appealing and has the good stuff from trio and the m5. I feel like m4 is the all a rounder king. It offers really good open sound perception and has that treble sparkle that resembles the trio. M5 has different sparkle from a estat I seem to prefer m4 in that region, because of edm music...

M4 is warm and bassy, it reminds me of tia trio and cayin n8 combination in bass but something more in between. Not to slow or fast, nor to loose or tight. Really like in between somewhere there...
M4 bass is very pleasant I dont feel any discomfort, the way its tuned is fun alive wavy and really entertaining. M5 lacks on what m4 can do with bass but m4 lacks on what m5 can do with treble dangy lol I wish both signatures where 1.


What I really love about m4 is its really powerful and life like, it can make you feel the music with big authority and naturalness, this exactly what the tubeless are doing, they bring the sound of a open back headphone! Whats interesting is that I really dont have ear fatigue with m4, they are really well balanced in comfort and perfectly tuned to not go beyond particular frequencies limits to not get painful, they are never sharp on notes. I have to admit the gold plated silver here does help in smoothing it even more....

I'd say I could listen to m4 all day long none stop and not being uncomfortable with its sound tuning.

I find m5 to be more natural in sound presentation but I dont find it performs as good as m4 in edm, m5 dont have that bass of m4's which make thing really groovy in edm styles.. also the treble of m4 is more suited for edm to. The sparkle of m4 is more appealing for that typo of music. M5 is so natural that it doesnt have that special zing of m4 in edm. ( slightly metallic sparkly )
But when you listen to real audiophile music my goodness m5 is the best ! the estat treble is so so real life like, its unbeatable!

 

[Vitaly2017]

LoL I am now in my on the move to do things around town. And got my Bose speakers in my car. Ummm yea while I hear them playing my brain retranslates the music into the m4 sound flavor and sounds almost like fun yeaa lol.

I think I got the m4 bite

 

[John2e]

Vitaly

So far your description seems to align with mine. M4's are getting a lot of head time at the moment . Using M5's on the treadmill with heavy metal and for walks after work.

What are you driving these with?

You can really tell the difference with well recorded music at higher encoded levels. My DSD rock collection has been in heavy rotation on my N8. I guess its the tubeless design. Going back and fourth between a few TOL'er a few months ago and I noticed they sounded almost "distorted" particularly in the male vocal region compared to the M5. The M5 had a life like quality. It could be the tubeless or it might be the added detail of the Estats too ... IDK . The Additional power of the 4.4 gives the bass a more tactile feel.

 

[soLicitous]

A little birdie just dropped a note into my inbox: my IEMs will be showing up tomorrow!

Apart from the fantastic IEMs, the service is something I won't forget when it inevitably comes time to purchase a new pair of monitors.

 

[aaf evo]

FiR's CS is top notch.

 

[Vitaly2017]

Vitaly

So far your description seems to align with mine. M4's are getting a lot of head time at the moment . Using M5's on the treadmill with heavy metal and for walks after work.

What are you driving these with?

You can really tell the difference with well recorded music at higher encoded levels. My DSD rock collection has been in heavy rotation on my N8. I guess its the tubeless design. Going back and fourth between a few TOL'er a few months ago and I noticed they sounded almost "distorted" particularly in the male vocal region compared to the M5. The M5 had a life like quality. It could be the tubeless or it might be the added detail of the Estats too ... IDK . The Additional power of the 4.4 gives the bass a more tactile feel.

Hi

I am using sony wm1z as it won my dap battle against the cayin n8 )

I also use spotify streamed via Ldac from s9.

As cable I use plussound gold plated silver.

Atm I find m5 to have the most beautiful and life like vocals and m4 follow that pathe but with a slightly different treble presentation.
I also find m5 to have same attributes to the estat headphone I heard from sennheiser the He-1 ( the 55 000 setup! ) it has exactly same treble caracter! Super airy natural and detailed.
Also with m5 when I listen I can feel and see how each instrument are producing the sound waves, its like you can feel the thickness depth and texture of the sound produced from each instrument. Its really amazing. A real game of sounds hehe touching and interacting with all of them virtually kinda of....


M4 is different its a closer sibling to the tia trio family sound caracter but with the sound presentation being between m5 and tia trio.

M4 has its wins and loses against trio. Overall I think m4 is a beast of a canon and its probably the best all a rounder to. Vocals on m4 are also much better vs trio, they resemble to m5. Where trio really wins is in edm music but again once you start to have vocals in the song bang m4 go up and does it so much better. Trio cant compete on vocals at all vs m4.
Also trio is very v shaped vs m4.

There is something I am testing right now its the tubeless effect vs the trio semi tubeless.
I find tubeless to present the sound differently, it plays all the frequencies in the same chamber and it creates the effect of the sound and all its different frequencies to be mixed together and everything is protruded at you at same time. While this is a good feel of the sound being like an open back headphone it has a completely different presentation on trio!

In trio it actually feels like every frequency is separated and when there are different sound transitions, being a semi tubeless it creates like split in sound thats effect is perceived with a blacker background. Like everything disappears and suddenly new notes and sound reappears....
Those creates an perception for nuances and sound musical transitions very differently!


For example I had track it was edm music. In trio it was very apparent and in your face super easy to feel it. Like the transitions of the music where waving from left to right and with volumes up and down, it felt like I was lifted and drifted by the musics waves into different stretchy transitions with elongated effect on far left and then far right. I could feel those moment when the music switched from different notes with some pauses or spaces in between and like black background in thin air when it played with fade in and fade out effects.

In comparison on the m4 that effect was also present but much less apparent and in your face...
It more like everything was open with all frequency and there where no restrictions all notes and nuances where all straight out at you. Yes it sounded bigger more roomy and open.
But that fine fine pleasant fade in and fade nuancy effect was not so well presented by m4.
I believe this is the differences between tubeless and semi tubed.


It is also a question of preference you may find that m4 did it perfectly and maybe those nuances I just explained are less realistic and not much of importance.

But I think they are sometimes a game changer....

 

[hybridnut]

Any recommendation for upgraded cable for M5? Understand that the stock cable is done very well.

 

[jrbgarcia]

Any recommendation for upgraded cable for M5? Understand that the stock cable is done very well.

Get a PWaudio 1960s 2/4 wire and be done with it. Last cable you'll ever need I swear.

 

[MrLocoLuciano]

Get a PWaudio 1960s 2/4 wire and be done with it. Last cable you'll ever need I swear.

to start with 2 and 4 wires don't sound the same. And as always synergy is so important.
There is a review on this thread, I know the guy, where it's told that synergy with stock cable is better than with 1960 4 wires...
As always, depending on each one espectations.

 

[tim0chan]

Just a head's up, fir audio build times are getting pretty long, last I've heard is around 8-10weeks

 

[jrbgarcia]

to start with 2 and 4 wires don't sound the same. And as always synergy is so important.
There is a review on this thread, I know the guy, where it's told that synergy with stock cable is better than with 1960 4 wires...
As always, depending on each one espectations.

I know, I have both, which is why I suggested the two of em. Im sure if one doesn't pair well, the other definitely will.

 

[quodjo105]

Just a head's up, fir audio build times are getting pretty long, last I've heard is around 8-10weeks

Wow I was told 3 weeks when I ordered my M5 last week. Hope that hasn’t changed

 

[aaf evo]

Wow I was told 3 weeks when I ordered my M5 last week. Hope that hasn’t changed

It was almost three weeks on the dot for me to get mine, that was back in December too where there were breaks for Christmas and NYE.

 

[soLicitous]

I wanted to drop off a few unboxing photos since at least portions of the packaging are new from what I gather:



I knew I'd enjoy them after I spent the week demoing, but it's really great to know I don't have to send these ones back.

 

[chickenmcnug]

I wanted to drop off a few unboxing photos since at least portions of the packaging are new from what I gather:



I knew I'd enjoy them after I spent the week demoing, but it's really great to know I don't have to send these ones back.

All I got was that aluminium case same as the demo case and a white cardboard box lmao.

Glad FiR decided to step up their packaging.