FIIO FA1 Single Balanced Armature In-Ear Monitors - Red/Blue

Had these a couple of weeks now and I'm extremely happy with them. 1st listen was awful, you need to get a good seal with the tips. These are the first ear/headphones Ive owned that make you completely forget you're wearing them. So comfortable. The sound isolation is extremely good, I never need alter the volume when on bus for example.The sound. All new earphones need time for your brain to make sense of the frequency response. Especially if you're coming from another earphone with a different sound.The sound is flat as a pancake. Kind of hd600 flat with a little added grit around 2-4 khz. I can see many wanting to warm the sound up slightly. I have with phone eq.The separation is excellent, better than my previous top if the line Senns. The soundstage is one ample sized bubble, as opposed to being wider than tall. Voices sound superb. Bass is controlled, but the lowest frequencies can sometimes struggle, again, similar to hd600. But the sound has an eloquence you wouldn't expect at this price range.Well done Fiio yet again. For the price these are amazing. Don't hesitate.(Been a head-fier for ten years and owned many top end headphones)

Small base...but big authentic sound.

Fantastically comfortable fit, deep insertion, low profile.Great build quality but the suoplied cable leaves a lot to be desired.Sound is excellent, fantastic timbre and texture to vocals and instruments. Bass and sub bass is there but benefits from a 'warm' amp to make their presence known.Not ideal for all music or cold/analytical amplifiers but a very nice set of IEM's indeed!

These fiio fa1 are beautifully built and great value for money. They have a lovely tone and actually decent bass for a single balanced armature iem. There's definitely something addictive about their tuning as I keep picking these up over many of my expensive iems, very coherent.

Like, how? this performance for only 100 bucks? with this beautiful tunning? $160 cheaper than my FH5, and they outperform my FH5?Let's GO! first of all, I will say this is my "best audio purchase I've ever made, for now". I currently have equipment like the mentioned Fiio FH5 which is one of the Fiios's flagship, the mighty Sennheiser HD600, Momentum 2.0 over ear, a Sony and Beyer headphones which models I do not remember.Let's compare the FA1 vs my +250 hours FH5.Comfort:naaa, FA1 are quite superior in comfort, weight, seal, and isolation. The FA1 look and feel ike custom a IEM. The problem with the FH5 is the short nozzle, despite considering them quite comfortable, still.. FA1 is superior in every way.Sound:Mids & high: No fair here, I think the FA1 are better than FH5 in details retrieval {micro details}, clarity, vocals, separation, treble extension.The FA1 has a balanced sound signature while the FH5 has a V-shaped or W-shaped kind of signature. This can qualify as "just own personal taste". Personally, I find the balanced sound of the FA1 way more satisfying to listen to.About the vocals, happens that the vocals of the FH5 are clearly too forward and they can turn very fatiguing after a certain amount of listening, especially females vocals. In that regard, the FA1 vocals are less forward and they really sound very nice, totally non-fatiguing.Bass: This is where I could say the FH5 might be better than the FA1, though I would say the bass between these two are bit different and it could suit to your specific preferences. For example, FH5 bass is punchier, more extended, and it goes deeper; while the FA1 bass is lighter but faster and tighter.I ended up choosing bass preferences depending on which genres you listen to. To me, I would rather choose FA1 bass for Jazz, blues, classical, rock {classical rock rocks with these}. While, FH5 for Hip-hop, electronic music; the FA1 do not perform badly on these genres though.Soundstage: FA1 is noticeably wider to me and has more depth, but I would say they have slightly less height compared to the FH5.Sources: very source dependent too, especially with the low frequency. paired with my OPPO HA2 SE,The bass sounds satisfying on any genre, to the point where i'm not missing the bass response of my FH5. The bass, can also be increased to good satisfying level via EQ.Overall, I consider the FA1 to be a more engaging listening experience, more of an audiophile. The FH5 is not bad either, but now that I have these FA1, I will use FH5 just for work-out.Also, another important thing. Change that default cable, it does not sound as good as the cable that came with the FH5 and less good than my 16 core silver plate cord.To Fiio, my friends, start tunning from this point, building your foundation and future IEMS around this tunning, with some improvement here and there.Pictures coming soon.

Très bonne article

Product description state FH5 but received a FiiO FA1

tl;dr version: Damn good IEMs, great replacement for in ear headphones, and worth the money.I've been upgrading some of my audio setup. That means re-ripping CDs as FLAC to replace MP3s, playing with DACs, things like that. Of course, there's little point in paying $300 for a lossless audio player and listening to it on a $15 pair of headphones, so it was time to upgrade the headphones.I'm not interested in spending $700 on over the ear headphones (yet), so IEMs seemed the way to go. I read reviews, and watched Youtube comparisons, and it came down to the Sennheiser IE40, the Tin Hifi T3, and the Fiios FA1. All three were highly regarded, but comparison reviews tended to favour the FA1s over the other two, if only slightly, so I figured I'd give them a shot.I'm not an audiophile, so I don't know about armature drivers, or many of the technical aspects. So this is just my personal experience as a non-audiophile.One of the most common statements I hear in reviews is "I heard instruments I never knew were there before". That sounded suspicious, especially since I heard it in at least three reviews. But sure enough, in the fourth piece I played (a Dominik Hauser instrumental arrangement), I heard a piccolo (or similar instrument) counterpoint during the opening that I'd never heard before. It was very soft, and was only discernable when the brass and drums were quiet. I'd listened to this particular piece at least a dozen times in the past week, I had never heard that before.I thought I'd imagined it, so I replayed it, and sure enough it was there, clear as a bell. I replayed the piece using my Anker earbuds, and now that I knew it was there, if I listened specifically for it, I could make it out, but I would never have noticed it if I wasn't listening specifically for it.So, that suspicious claim has been personally confirmed.The sound on these is extremely good, probably as good if not better than my old 1990s Sony headphones that cost a hell of a lot more. I was suspicious as to whether or not $140 IEMs would really sound that much better than $50 headphones, and so far, the answer has been a very definite yes. The sound is much clearer, and well balanced. I don't know the audiophile terms, but the clarity is excellent, there's no hiss, no echo, or any other distortion effect.Playing with my phone's equalizer and setting it to a concert hall setting, it really did sound as if I was in a hall.Of course, they're only as good as the source material going through them. On a 128kb MP3, I'm not hearing much difference. On 320kb MP3s, I do, and on FLAC, there's a very noticeable improvement on quite a number of tracks I've listened to.Are these better than the Sennhauser or Tin Hifi? I've no idea. But they are excellent on their own.Pros:- clear- loud (I did a test for distortion, with them out of my ears, and maximum volume was still clear)- well balanced- comfortable- good for both bass and trebleCons:- none I can think of, honestlyI would definitely recommend these.

Desgraciadamente los tuve que regresar debido a que no se acomodaban a mi oreja terminando lastandome después de minutos de uso, aunque debo admitir que es muy bueno el sonido, los altos son excelentes, medios no tan adelantados pero tampoco se pierden, si tienes oído sensible si te pueden llegar a lastimar pero con ecualizador se arregla,los bajos no se notan al principio si vienes de audífonos con más énfasis en frecuencias bajas, esto no es tanto problema pues te acostumbraras y sentirás los bajos de manera justa. Si recomiendo comprarlos pero debes tener en cuenta que no te pueden ajustar al oído de manera muy cómoda, eso dependerá de la fisionomía auditiva, de ahí en fuera son muy buena opción de IEM.