Not sure if this thread is still alive, but I just got my Fiio FT1 today and love them. They were pretty good at the office plugged into a Schiit Modi/Magni stack, but Sylvan Esso curled my toes when I got them home and plugged into my Elekit TU-8200R fed by a Denafrips Ares 2. Now I need to upgrade my office setup and get some tubes in there. Anybody have a recommended budget tube headphone amp pairing for the Fiio FT1? (Up to a few hundred, not a few thousand…)
3 Likes
Hello, @Gabe. Welcome to the forum!
Suggestion: If you haven’t already done so, bring your Modi/Magni stack home and see where the “magic” lies. Try the Modi feeding your Elekit amp, and try the Denafrips DAC feeding the Magni.
The sound you’re after might be due to the tubes, but it might also be due to the more expensive R-2R DAC vs the Delta-Sigma Modi.
Only you can tell, but I could see a Schiit Modi Multibit + Vali 3 playing a pretty decent “poor man’s” version of the Elekit + Denafrips combo.
3 Likes
Just got these yesterday. Here are my initial impressions.
Sound (stock)
- First impression is dark and muddy with some shoutiness in the ear gain. There’s also some spikiness in the treble.
- Some pop music can be a bit too bright
- Overall lacking in detail and background isn’t as black as I would like. There’s a real sense that a lot if information is simply missing.
- Some sibilance is apparent on female vocals
- When doing tone sweeps I can definitely hear the peaks/valleys that Oratory measured on his rig. The 5k peak is especially noticeable.
- I could not use these at all without EQ. They’re simply too muddy and shouty.
Sound (Post-EQ)
- Oratory’s EQ is pretty bang on for this one, IMO. Reduces shoutiness and improves overall clarity.
- Soundstage is similar to other closed backs. Nothing particularly impressive.
- Bass has a nice rumble, but lacks texture and detail.
- Treble detail and extension isn’t very good. It has a bit of that graininess that seems to plague most cheaper closed-back headphones, though it certainly isn’t bad at all. EQ can’t fix it, unfortunately, though it can alleviate the issue somewhat. If you try to push the treble more, it gets even more grainy and nasty. There’s a weird line where if you push it too far it won’t like it.
- Guitars in metal lack a lot of the bite you expect to hear and can sound a bit dull.You can attempt to correct this with EQ, but again it gets into grainy/nasty territory pretty fast.
- Even with the EQ, vocal timbre is not quite right
- Male voices while speaking sound off. I would describe them maybe as a bit “boxy” or whatever it’s called.
Other stuff
- They feel lighter on the head than the specs imply. I thought they’d be noticeably heavier than my HD650s, but they feel pretty similar.
- Earpad holes are smaller than I’d like
- Cable is slightly microphonic. Would definitely want to go for an OpenHeart cable to help with this.
- I hear a bit better out of my left ear than right, and these emphasize that disparity more than most other headphones.
- Easy to power. I can switch to low gain on my Midgard without issue.
Overall, I’m not very impressed, especially without EQ.
3 Likes
Sorry in advance for the “Dear diary” looking post.
I purchased the FT1 recently, it’s very interesting. I thought I would like it much more than I do.
No real complaints about build and comfort, build seems pretty good for the price, and the comfort is fine. The ear pads could be a bit bigger, and the headphone likes to slide around a bit on my head.
Sound: Keep in mind that what I experience will not be the same for anyone else necessarily. This headphone has some odd HpTF features for me.
-
Bass is really, really good. Resolve said it nicely how it balances that sense of impact and “texture” in a good way. It doesn’t really bleed into the mids very much either. No complaints.
-
The midrange is generally fine until the upper midrange/ear gain, I find it to be a bit of a mess. 2kHz is excessively forward on my head, which makes midrange overtones sound shouty, honky and nasally. And then 3kHz is a bit recessed, which somewhat reduces clarity.
-
Both of these combined features make different tones in the mix sound subjectively “Mushed together” likely because my mind is so focused on the shouty upper mids, but then there isn’t enough clarity either.
-
Not many measurements I could find online highlight that 2kHz feature I experience, except for the measurement done by Joe at GadgetryTech. If you place the FT1 and his 6XX together on his squiglink, that difference around 1.9kHz is pretty accurate to what I am hearing.
-
The treble, mainly the mid treble is on the darker side for me, but is also uneven. Also, there is some forwardness around 4.5kHz which makes percussive hits sound a bit “Pinched”
-
The elevation around 6kHz in relation to the frequencies around it is not sibilant, since overall amplitude is low, which is nice! But that unevenness, combined with excess 10kHz makes treble harmonics sound a bit splashy and shimmery on my head.
-
Also, 7.5-8kHz is a bit too dark, but 9/10 headphones are too dark in that region for me.
-
Of course, once EQ’ed, the headphone is pretty stellar for the price. The only required filter is reducing 2kHz, because the stock forwardness in that region makes it borderline unlistenable for me.
-
I am okay with the forwardness in the upper mids of Harman, and I love headphones such as the HD 600, so it really seems like a weird and unfortunate HpTF feature of the FT1 on my head.
-
Otherwise, 10kHz is kind of annoying. And then everything else is more of a nitpick.
4 Likes
Interesting as I too am a bit disappointed in the FT1 sound, but I could never put my finger on the problem. A general “mushiness” is a pretty accurate description so maybe I also need to experiment with reducing 2khz a bit and see if that clears it up.
1 Like
Yeah reducing that region by about 3-4dB makes it more “Normal” sounding for me, and I can actually focus on other aspects of the content.
Reducing the strange “Pinched” or “Compressed” nature of the lower treble also helps to subjectively “Open up” the sound to make it less “Congested”
1 Like
Also, I forgot to originally mention that positional variation is very apparent here as it is with any closed back.
Shifting the FT1 backwards on my head pretty far does end up reducing the unwanted 2kHz feature, as well as 10kHz. If I had to guess by ear, they are probably reduced around 2dB.
Hello.
Interesting to hear that you used to have a Denon AH-D2000. I still have my old D2000—it’s my only decent pair of headphones—but the pads are worn out and the hardware is starting to look pretty tired. I’ve EQ’d it, and it still sounds quite good.
That said, I’m wondering: would there be a noticeable difference in sound (with EQ applied) compared to a Sennheiser HD550 or HD600? Do you think it’s worth investing in new pads for such an old Denon, or would it make more sense to put that money toward an HD550? It might also be worth mentioning that I mainly listen to jazz and acoustic music.
Thank you for your time and experience.
Greetings
John
Dear Mr. Resolve,
I am an audiophile from overseas and a loyal fan of your channel. I couldn’t agree more with your latest review of the FT13. Its frequency response is very V-shaped; the lower-midrange vocals are too warm and muddy, while the treble is bright and harsh.
However, I am very satisfied with this headphone’s resolution, soundstage, and dynamics, and I feel it surpasses the FT1 in these aspects. Unfortunately, I don’t have professional measurement equipment and am inexperienced with EQ.
Therefore, I would be very grateful if you could share your EQ settings with me. I hope this EQ can, to some extent, solve the problem of the mids being too warm and muddy and the treble being too harsh.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I suggest asking in the EQ request thread for this. I’m currently in the process of moving house so I don’t have my setup running for this.
Thank you very much for your reply! It seems that no one on the forum has purchased or received the FT13 yet, so no one has replied. I’m very hopeful that you can find some time to do the EQ and testing when you’re less busy, to make the FT13 sound less warm, muddy, and harsh. Thank you again
If you purchased FT13 and find them too muddy and harsh, I’d suggest you just get rid of them ASAP. I don’t know if they are worth it trying to fix them with EQ, which won’t be easy at all.
Hello Resolve!
I’ve put together my own EQ preset for the FT13 (specifically for the sheepskin earpads) by referencing its frequency response curve. It’s a very simple EQ with only three filter adjustments, but I’ve found that it works surprisingly well to solve the problems of muddy mids and harsh treble.
Crucially, it also preserves the excellent performance of the FT13’s low-mids. In my opinion, with this adjustment, the FT13 becomes a better closed-back headphone than the FT1.
I was hoping you might be able to take a brief moment to test this EQ and share your thoughts on it. Thank you so much for your time!
Here are the settings:
Filter 1: Low-Shelf at 80 Hz, Gain: +3.0 dB, Q: 3.0
Filter 2: Peak at 4050 Hz, Gain: +7.6 dB, Q: 6.0
Filter 3: Peak at 10350 Hz, Gain: -8.0 dB, Q: 8.0
I imagine you’ll want to mess with the region between 6-12khz, maybe take a stab at it based on the measurements we’ve posted. I actually no longer have the headphone.
Okay. That’s a bit unfortunate.
Interestingly, after numerous EQ adjustments, I discovered that the muddiness in the vocals of this headphone primarily stems from a significant dip at 4kHz. The high-frequency harshness issue is entirely due to a peak of up to 10dB at 10kHz, and it has little to do with other areas between 6kHz and 12kHz. Once this peak is corrected, the headphone becomes completely non-harsh.
As shown in the diagram, the dashed line represents the target curve, the blue line is before EQ, and the green line is after EQ.
Regarding the small high-frequency peaks at 5kHz and 6kHz, after manually EQing them, I found that they don’t significantly alter the sound signature. Their presence doesn’t make the headphone harsh either, and forcing corrections on them would complicate the EQ process, so I chose not to adjust them.
For the excessive mid-low frequencies, I opted for a low-shelf filter with a larger Q value. This helps reduce some of the mid-low muddiness while satisfying my personal preference for bass below 80Hz.
If you get another chance to try this headphone at a trade show or through a friend, I recommend giving this EQ method a shot. In my opinion, after this simple EQ, it improves dramatically and reaches a level that’s highly recommendable. I hope you can try it and provide your feedback. If you like it, perhaps share it in some way—I don’t want people to miss out on this headphone, which becomes a great buy after EQ.
1 Like