[amature101]

Any new woodie series IEM?

 

[BlinkST]

Any new woodie series IEM?

Besides the FW10000? None.

 

[el-jorge]

I’m biased between the fx750 / fx1100 and the fw01.

I like bass, and my main preference of music is soundtracks (Hans Zimmer) / EDM & trance and hip hop. I’m going to use it unamped, mainly with my iPhone XR. Stereophonics is a no go, because I want to use it during my commute to work on my bike. Which of the three would be the best daily driver?

 

[lantian]

Un-amped the fw01 is a definite no. It needs a lot of power to sound any good(they sound the best plugged into my liquid spark or THDA-200T), no phone will ever do them justice. Have not heard any other jvc woodie.

 

[BlinkST]

I’m biased between the fx750 / fx1100 and the fw01.

I like bass, and my main preference of music is soundtracks (Hans Zimmer) / EDM & trance and hip hop. I’m going to use it unamped, mainly with my iPhone XR. Stereophonics is a no go, because I want to use it during my commute to work on my bike. Which of the three would be the best daily driver?

Possibly the FX1100, which is known for the bass. The FW01’s bass will not satisfy you if you plan to run it out of just your phone.

 

[jwbrent]

Possibly the FX1100, which is known for the bass. The FW01’s bass will not satisfy you if you plan to run it out of just your phone.

Agreed. If one wants big bass performance, the FX1100/1200 is the way to go.

 

[el-jorge]

I like bass, but it is not all about the bass. The IEM should cover the most of my preferred music taste, and especially soundtrack music and trance. They should also be comfortable, and have little stereophonics, And it should be easy to drive. So from what I’ve read the FX1100 should cover the latter, but the FW01 is maybe more versatile? But I’m worried that my phone is not good enough to drive the FW01?

FYI I now have the Turbine Gold, which are great for EDM.

 

[jwbrent]

I like bass, but it is not all about the bass. The IEM should cover the most of my preferred music taste, and especially soundtrack music and trance. They should also be comfortable, and have little stereophonics, And it should be easy to drive. So from what I’ve read the FX1100 should cover the latter, but the FW01 is maybe more versatile? But I’m worried that my phone is not good enough to drive the FW01?

FYI I know have the Turbine Gold, which are great for EDM.

Please read the first post of this thread where I compare the FW01 to the FX1100. You may find it helpful ...

 

[endlesswaves]

I have both. After 6 months with FW01, I can't go back to my FX1200. FX1200's bass is not as good as FW01's bass in terms of clarity and layering. With a good seal, FW01's bass is not lacking. FW01 is better at all other areas like instrument separations, clarity and soundstage goes higher if not wider.
I am using FW01 with Effect Thor II, KZ Starline ear tips and WM1A. Good enough to enjoy complex songs like Hans Zimmer without the congestions I get with FX1200.

 

[BlinkST]

I like bass, but it is not all about the bass. The IEM should cover the most of my preferred music taste, and especially soundtrack music and trance. They should also be comfortable, and have little stereophonics, And it should be easy to drive. So from what I’ve read the FX1100 should cover the latter, but the FW01 is maybe more versatile? But I’m worried that my phone is not good enough to drive the FW01?

FYI I now have the Turbine Gold, which are great for EDM.

The FW01 is better than the FX1100, and it makes sense to want the latest and greatest (although the FW01 is now the previous flagship, after the FW10000). But the FW01 is designed to work in tandem with the SU-AX01’s L/R-balanced connection. Furthermore, the SU-AX01 features an AC-powered “high-intensity mode” that adds a touch of clarity, realism, and low-end that gives it a thunderous bass that comes close to the FXZ200.

When driven from my iPhone X, the FW01 sounded thin and the bass was lacking. After I installed the cable and started running them via the SU-AX01, I’ve never looked back. You’re not going to get the most out of them with only the smartphone. You might even regret buying them.

 

[el-jorge]

WoW, that is na expensive piece of equipment. After reading what I could find, I think I would prefer the FW01. But I understand that I shouldn’t drive them from my iPhone. But I don’t want to carry 3 pieces of equipment (dap, amp, phone) during my daily commute.
I’m not into dap and amp, because I never had any, but come these two in one piece? And for a reasonable price? I was looking into a Fiio M6, but that is not a amp, right?

The FW01 is better than the FX1100, and it makes sense to want the latest and greatest (although the FW01 is now the previous flagship, after the FW10000). But the FW01 is designed to work in tandem with the SU-AX01’s L/R-balanced connection. Furthermore, the SU-AX01 features an AC-powered “high-intensity mode” that adds a touch of clarity, realism, and low-end that gives it a thunderous bass that comes close to the FXZ200.

When driven from my iPhone X, the FW01 sounded thin and the bass was lacking. After I installed the cable and started running them via the SU-AX01, I’ve never looked back. You’re not going to get the most out of them with only the smartphone. You might even regret buying them.

 

[BlinkST]

WoW, that is na expensive piece of equipment. After reading what I could find, I think I would prefer the FW01. But I understand that I shouldn’t drive them from my iPhone. But I don’t want to carry 3 pieces of equipment (dap, amp, phone) during my daily commute.
I’m not into dap and amp, because I never had any, but come these two in one piece? And for a reasonable price? I was looking into a Fiio M6, but that is not a amp, right?

Just in case, here's what I had to say about the FW01 back in late November I only had the iPhone X to power it:

The bass on these is rather modest compared to the FXZ200 and the XBA-N3. Both of them outperform the FW01 when driven from a phone, tablet, or laptop. If the woodie line is famous for bass, I sure don’t hear any; the bass is the weakest part of the FW01’s sound. It’s puzzling, because the specs:

FW01
6Hz ～ 50,000Hz
16Ω

XBA-N3
3Hz-40,000Hz
16Ω (at 1kHz)

FXZ200
5Hz ～ 26,000Hz
16Ω

Would suggest a similar bass response, but nope. I suspect that they need an amplifier, and I have a particular one in my sights. Otherwise, the other two earphones are better purchases if you don’t use amps. They rumble like nobody’s business. The FW01 sounds anemic by comparison.

Like you, I had hoped that I could enjoy the FW01 with just my iPhone.
Luckily for me, I had always intended to run them balanced through the SU-AX01, so it wasn't really a big deal that the sound was disappointing in some ways. But I would have regretted buying them if I never wanted to buy the amp and the cable, because there are earphones which do sound better if you only want to use your phone.

The product literature said:

Remember that the FW01 was designed as an in-ear version of the 2015 SW01 headphones, which were also designed with bigger driving power in mind.

The FW01 isn't really a $350 earphone like the price would suggest, and they're not really commute earphones. Factoring in the price of the amp (I paid $617 for mine from Amazon Japan) and the balanced cable ($180 via Fujiya-Avic) it's over a $1,000 of electronics. The SU-AX01 is especially big and not pocketable unless you have big jacket pockets.

 

[el-jorge]

Thanks. This is great information. Because I am mainly going to use them for commute.
I don’t mind to have one extra device in my pocket, but it shouldn’t be to big.

BecauseI’m a newbie with amps, you only use a balanced cable, when you have an amp?

Maybe I should look for a different iem, than JVC woody.

 

[BlinkST]

Thanks. This is great information. Because I am mainly going to use them for commute.
I don’t mind to have one extra device in my pocket, but it shouldn’t be to big.

BecauseI’m a newbie with amps, you only use a balanced cable, when you have an amp?

Maybe I should look for a different iem, than JVC woody.

That might be okay when it’s cold, but when summertime rolls around, all that stuff isn’t going to really fit inside your jeans when it’s too hot to wear your jacket.The wiring will be a mess.

It depends on the amp, but yes, typically you’d use a balanced cable only if you had an amp that supported it. Balanced comes in many forms. Sometimes as a single-ended 2.5mm jack, other times as dual-3.5mm jacks. I also remember RHA’s Dacamp L1 which had a mini-xlr port.https://www.rha-audio.com/us/products/accessories/dacamp-l1

The balanced cable in JVC’s case is the CN-HM01MB which uses two 3.5mm jacks, one for each ear piece to drive each channel independently. This config was also used by Sony’s PHA-3 back in 2014 (I think) when the XBA-Z5 and MDR Z7 were their flagships.https://www.sony.com/electronics/headphone-amplifiers/pha-3

I can recommend the XBA-N3 for commuting.

 

[el-jorge]

That might be okay when it’s cold, but when summertime rolls around, all that stuff isn’t going to really fit inside your jeans when it’s too hot to wear your jacket.The wiring will be a mess.

It depends on the amp, but yes, typically you’d use a balanced cable only if you had an amp that supported it. Balanced comes in many forms. Sometimes as a single-ended 2.5mm jack, other times as dual-3.5mm jacks. I also remember RHA’s Dacamp L1 which had a mini-xlr port.https://www.rha-audio.com/us/products/accessories/dacamp-l1

The balanced cable in JVC’s case is the CN-HM01MB which uses two 3.5mm jacks, one for each ear piece to drive each channel independently. This config was also used by Sony’s PHA-3 back in 2014 (I think) when the XBA-Z5 and MDR Z7 were their flagships.https://www.sony.com/electronics/headphone-amplifiers/pha-3

I can recommend the XBA-N3 for commuting.

Thanks. I already made a shortlist of possible iem's, I already narrowed it down, because there is a lot of choice. The Sony was part of that.

Sony XBA-N3AP
Fiio FH5
Westone W30
Dunu dn-2000

But I need to do some reading which are good for commuting. Behind the two JVC's (FX1100 & FW01), my main interest goes out to the Fiio. But I need to do some more reading about the Sony.