just thought Iād add some input hereā¦ I am long time audio guy(37yo), but mostly been on closed ear audio technica or sennheisers, never made a big IEM purchase til recently. I had bought some BGVP DMG a couple years ago and I was blown away at the time. Havenāt used them much lately, but wanted to get into the IEMs again and started using them til one of the sides crapped out. I did a lot of research and decided on the Moondrop s8 from headphones.com for my next set. I was wanting them for the two day shipping cause I had a job coming up where I would be needing them, and I had done all my research up til the last minute. Well, they were out of stock and so they said they had the Dunu Zen model in stock they could send out next day. Well, they screwed that one up too and I noticed the tracking info they sent was 2 day and wouldnt get there til Monday after the weekend. so I hopped on amazon and I did some quick searches for next day IEM and found the FH3. I used the FH3s for a day and they were cool, didnāt think much of it cause I was more into the work and thought of them as temporary.
The Dunu Zens came in after the weekend along with a dragonfly red and it was the first time Iād bought expensive IEMs. They do sound pretty amazing, the separation, sound itself, etc., but I was curious what the FH3 with the dragonfly sounded like. So Iām here at my computer doing back to back comparisons - using the same exact ear tips changing back n forth between sets - listening to the same songs with each pair.
Man, so sad. I put my return request in at headphones.com because these $130 set of Fiio FH3 sound better in almost every single way than the Dunu Zenās. The only thing the Zen beats them out on is build quality and finishā¦ but, thatās aesthetics. I thought about getting the FH7 next so I did some searching and this thread pretty much concludes Iāll just be saving myself some money and be a happy camper with the sound signature I have out of the FH3.
I fkcn love the Faaeal cable man thanks! the sound is the same as the stock fiio cable BUT without the annoying microphonics,And i like the feel of the cable and they never got tangled too
I found that tripowin 16 core cables sound brighter for some reason I might be wrong but thats what i hear, which is perfect for blon03 since they are kinda warm sounding iem
Is anyone running these balanced of the BTR5? When I do so, I have my phone at 50% volume and the BTR5 at 25/60, so pretty low. As I understand it, itās not good in terms of SQ to have the amp at very low, could it be better to run these SE?
I might be wrong (calling @M0N to verify), but I believe that you should have the phone volume at 100% so you avoid software volume control. And use the hardware amp volume control in the btr5.
Yes for digital volume either max it or almost max it but you want to control your volume through the amp or analog side of things rather than from your digital side or source
I found on the Shanling UP2 that it sounded better if I had the phone lower and the amp turned up higher, at least with headphones, because it seemed to lack power otherwise, but that couldāve been placebo I guess.
Iāll admit that I donāt find the balanced out much of an upgrade, probably wonāt bother with balanced cable for future IEMs.
I mean itās about finding a balance, avoiding digital volume is more a rule of thumb rather than a strict guideline lol, so in some cases like most likely what you were experiencing on the up2, pushing the amp harder and lowering the signal levelās benefit outweighed the downsides of digital volume
Iāll split the difference and put it at 75% lol. I kinda assumed that this wasnāt the case with Bluetooth since the signal doesnāt physically carry a volume over Bluetooth, but good to know!
Hmmmmmm if you are using bluetooth that is a different story, I would keep it at more around 50%, as volume is factored into the bluetooth signal (pretty sure it just amplifies the digital signal more), and some phones will start to distort that bluetooth signal if you go into too high of volume range so keeping it lower when using bluetooth is something worth doing, I was thinking you were using usb out of the phone to the dac/amps
for the btr5, yes if you set the volume too low (<20) it doesnāt have enough power,
for example in bass heavy song, the vocal will sound quieter when the bass hit,
if you set the volume too high (>40) it will increase the distortion, crackling sound,
so the sweet spot is just leave it at 30, and then adjust with your phone,
Anyone been taking the FH3 to the gym? I just had a fantastic workout with these, the bass and sound quality in general really pump you up. Using the stock cable + red/black silicone stock tips they stayed sealed the whole time and I didnāt hear any of the loud rap music that the gym is playing. I do mainly weightlifting so I donāt sweat a lot (given that that may damage the IEMs) and I am mostly stationary (no running) but they stay perfectly sealed even with some basic calisthenic movements like push-ups/pullups and so on.
And this is while having them on on top of my face mask that slightly tends to bend my ears over time.
I have them paired with a qudelix 5K (bluetooth dac/amp) so I completely forget about the IEMs/cable - perfect combination.
I worked out before with Bose Wired Soundsports with ear hooks, which had a great fit but were all bass. Also tried the Blon BL03 but couldnāt get it to stay fit with different cables / tips.
In general I quite like the stock cable, one of the rare ones that fit my ears. This is how my iems fit with the typical Chinese cables
I love them for the gym. Iām using them with the bluetooth hooks and itās far and away the best iem/headphone experience I have had for working out, both in comfort and sound quality.
For those who have gone with balanced cable (either 2.5 mm or 4.4 mm Pentacon), have you noticed any change in sound? I do use my FH3 with either phone (Apple Lightning dongle), Fiio E10K and Zen DAC and I can barely tell the difference all of them driving FH3 easily. Should I expect a sound change by going balanced (of course, balanced for testing Zen Dacās balanced output) instead of single ended? The stock cable is good, but kind of stiff boi.
I really wouldnāt expect one. I have had the Zen dac and still have the E10K and I couldnāt hear much difference (not using the FH3 at the time). Now I have the FH3 and I run it single ended of the BTR5. I tried balanced but it didnāt get better for me (it actually got worse, though that may have other reasons like the cable I used).
However Iām one of those people who canāt hear the difference between 320kbps and FLAC so your mileage may vary.
Just ordering some cables from aliexpress is a good way to test. However, I would recommend against swapping cables too often. So pick balanced or SE and stick with it, donāt swap cables continuously determined by what your source is, because MMCX is a stupid connector that should be burned and buried and it will die on you at some point.
Adding: Changing the cable on the FH3 gave me flashbacks to the first time I was disconnecting and connecting a 24-pin on a motherboard. Sweaty hands and the horrific thoughts that you surely broke something and thereās no way it still lives.
Thank you for your response. I too find myself not making too much of a difference between 320kbps (Spotify) vs a FLAC or MQA (Tidal) even if Iām critically listening. Regarding MMCX, I feel your pain. Iāve tried only one time to remove the cable from FH3 and felt like that connectors were trying breaking my fingers. So yeah, I think itās not really recommended removing the cable too often.
