[chickenmoon]

it's not a linear scale,
the half way / average is 3.5,
3 is below average,
4 is above average.

5.0 - Perfect
4.5 - Excellent
4.0 - Very Good
3.5 - Good
3.0 - Above Average
2.5 - Average
2.0 - Below Average
1.5 - Bad
1.0 - Very Bad
0.5 - Garbage
0.0 - Utter Garbage

 

[GearMe]

I am a cable enthusiast
I enjoy more than 30 different cables.
My message is about the evidence, thinking and common sense.

I am not a cable enthusiast but occasionally find myself falling into this trap regarding 'helping others' with evidence, thinking and common sense...

Over time, I've come to realize if a person feels a cable (or any other purchase) improves their listening experience, then why should I bother to try to educate/persuade them otherwise?

Instead, I'm happy for them finding additional joy from their cable purchase whether it's $20 or $200 or $2000. If they receive value (however they determine that) for their purchase, good on them!

 

[illumidata]

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.

This is an interesting (i.e. very plausible to me) take and reflects my limited experience (with Chi-fi and nozzle BAs) and what I've learnt here about "musical poison" (courtesy of @baskingshark ).

I'm wondering whether the AAW A3H+, which has a nozzle BA marketed in the same way as the FH5s, but none of the treble boosting that Chi-fi sets exhibit (luckily for me), was tuned that way for the Singaporean reviewer community (given that's AAWs local market), or one reviewer in particular .

On a huge tangent now, the Xelentos have spicy treble as well (that I have to eq down a couple of dB), and always struck me as having a chi-fi esque signature, though I know that tuning is kind of a Beyerdynamic motif (luckily the Xelentos don't take it to the same extremes as some of their headphones appear to)!

 

[Dsnuts]

To be honest I hate the headfi 5 star rating it should be 10. 5 is too vague imo.

 

[Ace Bee]

To be honest I hate the headfi 5 star rating it should be 10. 5 is too vague imo.

Well, you can give half star also, so effectively it's 10.

 

[cappuchino]

To be honest I hate the headfi 5 star rating it should be 10. 5 is too vague imo.

+1111111

1-5 (including .5) is just too short a range. It's hard to accurately represent the score with it.

 

[Ace Bee]

This is an interesting (i.e. very plausible to me) take and reflects my limited experience (with Chi-fi and nozzle BAs) and what I've learnt here about "musical poison" (courtesy of @baskingshark ).

I'm wondering whether the AAW A3H+, which has a nozzle BA marketed in the same way as the FH5s, but none of the treble boosting that Chi-fi sets exhibit (luckily for me), was tuned that way for the Singaporean reviewer community (given that's AAWs local market), or one reviewer in particular .

On a huge tangent now, the Xelentos have spicy treble as well (that I have to eq down a couple of dB), and always struck me as having a chi-fi esque signature, though I know that tuning is kind of a Beyerdynamic motif (luckily the Xelentos don't take it to the same extremes as some of their headphones appear to)!

Yo, how is your A3H+ sounding? I'm in love with my unit.

 

[illumidata]

Yo, how is your A3H+ sounding? I'm in love with my unit.

They're sounding exquisite
They've been on pretty much since I got them, apart from A/B comparisons (I may have to write an actual review for once).
Did some tip rolling (I find them very tip sensitive) and settled on Xelastecs as offering the best balance between bass and treble. Almost missed this combo as they're not normally a tip I'm particularly fond of, but they're working perfectly on the A3H+.

Edit: switched tips to Flare Audio https://www.flareaudio.com/collecti...day-replacement-earfoams?variant=194636447770 , which have an almost identical sound to Xelastecs but don't turn into crinkled up furballs after a couple of sessions

 

[chinmie]

the only information that a rating on the review tells me is how much that particular person like a certain set at the time of writing.. not an absolute score that would apply for everyone, and definitely could change over time.

what i usually read from a review is the comparison section, because that one would at least gives me some sort of benchmark on how it would sound.

 

[RikudouGoku]

the only information that a rating on the review tells me is how much that particular person like a certain set at the time of writing.. not an absolute score that would apply for everyone, and definitely could change over time.

what i usually read from a review is the comparison section, because that one would at least gives me some sort of benchmark on how it would sound.

Then you find reviews without any comparison or references to tracks.

 

[H T T]

the only information that a rating on the review tells me is how much that particular person like a certain set at the time of writing.. not an absolute score that would apply for everyone, and definitely could change over time.

what i usually read from a review is the comparison section, because that one would at least gives me some sort of benchmark on how it would sound.

I find the comparison section of reviews very helpful also. I then have points of reference that I can relate too. Over time, I have come to understand how some reviewers "hear". I can draw conclusions much easier from those reviewers articles.

 

[davidcotton]

What hifi has a multitude of sins going for it these days. One thing they do point out is to not get hung up on the rating by itself, but to judge it in the system or context it will be used with. An item might only get 4* but be a perfect match, whereas 3 items could all get 5* ratings but be a poor match together.

 

[morndewey]

They're sounding exquisite
They've been on pretty much since I got them, apart from A/B comparisons (I may have to write an actual review for once).
Did some tip rolling (I find them very tip sensitive) and settled on Xelastecs as offering the best balance between bass and treble. Almost missed this combo as they're not normally a tip I'm particularly fond of, but they're working perfectly on the A3H+.

Is it ‘just’ the two drivers? How do the mids present? Thanks

 

[illumidata]

Is it ‘just’ the two drivers? How do the mids present? Thanks

They're a triple driver design according to the design spec, mids are noticeably smooth (in comparison to dk2001 and Oxygens), and very slightly stepped back though easily boosted with wide bore tips (Azla Shorts do a great job of boosting clarity with some bass tradeoff). Excellent sibilance control as well. As a mids sensitive person I really appreciate how these have been tuned...very decent upper treble as well, I can go loud with them no problem at all.

I've tried to detail a bit more in the dedicated thread https://www.head-fi.org/threads/aaw...nitor-cheapest-aaw-offering-1-dd-2-ba.957410/ , but it's still a work in progress, will add more and do some detailed comparisons when I can.

 

[jmwant]

Cayin released it's first R2R module for N6ii along with a Titanium version of the dap.