Reasonably priced?! Just for a cable?!
That costs more than any single audio purchase I've ever made!
I bought them on Ali, so don't know about availability elsewhere. They are open, really open, so isolation is really minimal, compared to proper iems
I really liked them with some of the music I have listened to. They are really tuned differently.
Just arrived
I am writing for cable enthusiasts, not you.Oh boy, enthusiasm can be expensive...
Today I put a pretty blue ribbon around my cable. The sound transformed magnificiently - the stage enhancement, more authorative punchy bass, shimmering ethereal highs, the mids are more upfront and more tangible, and those vocals are just... just totally something, you know!
In case, you may start to wonder what this blue ribbon could possibly do to a cable - great, then do the next step, try to ask for any measurement of the other "great cable" that is claimed to sound so definitely better.
Until such evidence is clearly demonstrated, my claim is equally reasonable, as supported by the evidence
Oh, man! There's a lot in the next months or so! Though the only IEMs I know of are sub-200 USD ones:
(was asked about this. Not yet sure if they'll push the product through, but they did ask for my suggestions for a new product as well. I said they should release an all-BA using Knowles, planar, EST, or exotic driver IEM 
)
I am a cable enthusiastI am writing for cable enthusiasts, not you.
I really really love the fact that giving this iem an 3.5/5 seems to make it the worst thing out there. Sure, maybe for head-fi and with all the reviewers out there giving scores that are always over 4/5 and NEVER goes below it unless it is utterly crap. Would make my review on it be the same way.
This was a surprise. Didn't think these would end up being polarizing for the headfi crew but polarizing they are. I think a bit of understanding needs to happen here for better context about the FH5s. First off I can clearly see what the other reviewers are talking about. These have BAs in the nozzles. Some are not a fan of that design including myself. Marketing propaganda says this was done to lessen resonances and such in the treble ranges for cleaner clearer treble ect ect.
All that is marketing and I get the idea there but at the same time I own much higher end and even lesser IEMS that don't do the nozzle treble thing and those sound fantastic so I really don't get the need to do it unless we are talking about space limitations in a housing. But to be real it comes down to how a phone is tuned. How Fiio achieved their end goal for these earphones.
You guys are looking at earphones that was made for the Asian market. These are doing very well in China right now so I was told. The Chinese prefer that treble sparkle and treble to be up front. If you think about it who do you guys think these are really made for? Whos gonna buy a lot of these the western world, Euros or folks in Asia. You do the math. It is a business move. You need to move units in order to produce more stuff and pay the staff at the same time which also pays for that marvelous marketing for your shiny new earphones.
I remember Audio Technica when they were way popular here on Headfi when I joined up had a house sound that would RAPE your ears. I kid you not. The upper mid and treble extension was beyond human hearing but they tuned those that way due to what the Japanese enthusiasts wanted at the time.
ATH-AD700 anyone?
The idea of the switches there dont hide the fact that these use BAs in the nozzles and emit BA timbre and sparkly treble front and center. You get a fairly smooth balanced sounding mids and some decent bass out of these with an airy stage and then you get that BA treble on top of it. This isn't anything new and while you guys can imagine poorly tuned screetchy Chi fi BGVP, TRN, KZ, to name a few. BAs in the nozzle designs as some would like to describe the sound of these.
These are not as bad as you would think. You gotta remember these aren't really catering to us and I mean you and me that is reading about these. Marketing might tell you differently but just know for every enthusiast that are headfi members outside of China,, there are 10s of thousands more in China. If you think Fiio does not know how to tune their earphones. You are wrong. They know exactly what they are doing. Much more than you would imagine. These might not get the nod from a lot of reviewers outside of China but who cares as long as they sell out everywhere in China. This was also the reason why there was ample treble presence on the FD5 as well. But the newer FH5s is even more catering to the Chinese market. Dragon scales anyone?
So this is the reason why these are tuned and sound like they do but to be honest they dont sound like a complete fail to me. My advice about these. Try to read in the middle of things. Folks that go overboard one way vs the other. The truth lies somewhere in between. Crazy as that sounds.
I will be writing about these but just know initial reviews aren't wrong but there is much more to the FH5s than you would imagine. There are reasons behind such design choices.
it's not a linear scale,
Point is, people are overreacting like its the end of the world. It isnt, Fiio simply made an iem that is too meh to stand out amongst the highly competitive iem world.
