[Sasaki]

Japan Victor is going to launch the world first wooden IEM, HP-FX500 on the next February. It will sell around 15000 JPY.

(Japanese article)
Phileweb news page

Japan Victor HP-FX500 press release

Japan Victor HP-FX500 Product page

Today, Japan Victor announced their new "wooden IEM", HP-FX500.
HP-FX500 employs birch wood for both of diaphragm and housing. The diaphragm is extremely thin and fabricated in a dome shape. They call it as a wooden dome diaphragm. According to the news release, the transient speed of the wooden dome diaphragm is very fast and it eliminates unnecessary resonance and keep the proper amount of resonance. At the same time it reproduces silky highs and rich bass.
Back of the housing is made of brass so the housing is actually a hybrid of wood and brass-ring. The brass absorbs an energy loss for its heavy weight.
With the wooden housing and the wooden diaphragm, HP-FX500 provides a natural resonance of wood and wider sound stage.

* 8Hz - 25,000Hz
* 100dB/1mW
* Weight without cable: 7.5g
* 0.8m cable with 0.7m extension cord.

 

[shigzeo]

ive been reading your music to go page for some time now mate, it is nice that you have stepped into the headfi blog realm as your reviews are quite good cheers.

about the phone: i am excited. it has the same safe construction around the cable that the kenwood c711 has (which is a favourite of mine) and the whole driver encloser looks to be wonderful. my favs, the atrio m5 are great, but the plastic housing gets in the way of truly stellar sound. the denon c700 do a little better in some areas, but wood... these are the canal darths!

i am destined to buy these, but if you buy them before me, then i will hope you release a review. i am not interested in armature drivers at all, so this is welcome and where dynammics change so much is housing - how happy am i. your reviews are better than i could ever hope to produce... if i get them first, perhaps i should send them to you for review!

it looks as if the driver units are housed in an angled nozzle. i like the idea, but for the elimination of cable noise, i prefer to use them over the ear, this design will yield them as hazards sticking out of the ear more than straight phones. however, with an angle, it might make them more able to stay in the ear.

 

[Sasaki]

Hi shigzeo san, thank you for the comment.
I am fairly interested in this one as well. It's chic and neat. Could be good sounding IEM.
I have Atrio M8 too and I agree with your opinion. Dynamic drivers could have more potential.

And thank you for the offer but don't mind about that, I will definitely get this one too, probably I will be the first

If I get a chance to audition with a demo, I will post here or on the forum.

 

[shigzeo]

well, i just might be able to do a demo as well. it certainly looks interesting.

i am also interested in the lower sensitivity of these: less hiss with amps and portables. for a canalphone of 15-20ohms, 100db is a great spot i think.

cheers: the race is on!