Thanks for the suggestions on the last page re cheap headphones whilst my FA's were in for repair. I ended up using some crappy buds that came with my phone for a few days, which was more painful than I'd have imagined but also made the return of the FA's even sweeter.
I got them back from Thomann who did a great job with their free extended warranty service (didn't even pay a penny for postage to Germany from the UK).
The repair description was in German but what I gather from Google Translate suggests that the removable headphone cable socket on one of the earpieces was defective. Both earpieces came back looking slightly different and the FA symbol now appears to be glazed onto the shells somehow whereas they were just stickers before that fell off after a few days of use. The cable was also replaced and new foam eartips were pre-installed. More importantly they sound brilliant as ever!
The repair notes made me realise that I tend to pull the earpieces out of my ear by pushing the earpiece cable connector backwards / outwards with my index finger to break the seal and pop the earpiece out of my ear canal. This might be putting too much stress on the connector over time. Now I've adopted the practice of gently lifting the earpiece out of my ear with a finger or thumb under the shell from behind.
I often listen to sub-bassy music. I came from UE TF10's which had very apparent sub-bass but found it fatiguing after a while. The FA's have just as much bass extension but less prominence which is also better controlled than the TF10's. Although easy to drive, the FA's sub-bass response is one area which sounds better to my ears with a headphone amp.
A couple of examples of sub-bassy tracks I find the FA's handle very well:
Gantz - Spry Sinister
V.I.V.E.K - Asteroids
I got them back from Thomann who did a great job with their free extended warranty service (didn't even pay a penny for postage to Germany from the UK).
The repair description was in German but what I gather from Google Translate suggests that the removable headphone cable socket on one of the earpieces was defective. Both earpieces came back looking slightly different and the FA symbol now appears to be glazed onto the shells somehow whereas they were just stickers before that fell off after a few days of use. The cable was also replaced and new foam eartips were pre-installed. More importantly they sound brilliant as ever!
The repair notes made me realise that I tend to pull the earpieces out of my ear by pushing the earpiece cable connector backwards / outwards with my index finger to break the seal and pop the earpiece out of my ear canal. This might be putting too much stress on the connector over time. Now I've adopted the practice of gently lifting the earpiece out of my ear with a finger or thumb under the shell from behind.
I often listen to sub-bassy music. I came from UE TF10's which had very apparent sub-bass but found it fatiguing after a while. The FA's have just as much bass extension but less prominence which is also better controlled than the TF10's. Although easy to drive, the FA's sub-bass response is one area which sounds better to my ears with a headphone amp.
A couple of examples of sub-bassy tracks I find the FA's handle very well:
Gantz - Spry Sinister
V.I.V.E.K - Asteroids
