🔷 FiiO FT1

[CO_Canuck]

I have been doing a bit of pad rolling the past couple of days after buying the Zeos Eris ear pads. I have been using Brainwavz PU/Velour hybrid memory foam pads the past few weeks. Between the stock, Brainwavz, and Eris pads, the Eris pads sound the best to me (with a minor mod).

A/B’ing the stock and Eris pads reveals a large mid/mid-bass hump, and about 2 to 3dB of ear gain with the stock pads. That hump muddies things up a lot in that range.

Going to the Eris pads provides a more neutral-ish sound (without being thin) which reveals instruments, providing much better clarity, instrument separation, and more natural timbre. There is also a slight increase in soundstage. There is still bass/sub-bass when called upon, but it is reduced a couple of dB. The mids are better defined and natural sounding after being pulled back. Treble is clearer and has a slight perceived ear gain, but is not overwhelming to me.

A/B’ing the Brainwavz and Eris pads reveals a much smaller, but still present, mid/mid-bass hump, and about 1dB of ear gain with the Brainwavz compared to stock. That hump is not aggressive, but enough to still color the mid-range.

Going to the Eris pads from the Brainwavz is more or less the same experience as stock, just to a lesser degree.

The solid leather inner/outer walls and velour-ish top of the stock pad makes them quite shouty to me, and muddy in the mids. The PU leather fenestrated inner and solid outer walls, and velour top of the Brainwavz helps negate a lot of the shoutiness of the stock, along with much of the mid hump. The vegan-leather fenestrated inner wall and micro-suede outer wall/top of the Eris do a great job of providing a more neutral sound.

Granted, while the pulling back of the mids is great, I was missing the bass/sub-bass of the Brainwavz. This is where the mod I mentioned comes in.

I took some 3M transpore perforated medical tape left over from my T50 modding days, cut the width of a 13.5” piece of tape in half, and wrapped one half all around the outside of each pad from the cup lip to half way up the pad wall. This provides a nice hybrid between the Brainwavz and the Eris pads.

Adding the tape helps bring back the 1 or 2dB of bass/sub-bass I was missing from the Brainwavz, while keeping the mid/mid-bass at their more tamed levels. The perceived increase in treble was also less.

Overall, the modded Eris pads provide a much more balanced sound a touch warmer than neutral, while still providing great instrument separation and timbre.

p.s. The Capra Audio strap is a must for comfort.

[CO_Canuck]

I contacted Fiio support 10 days ago about the screw issue and to get the next screw/clip replacement kit.

I just received the kit, and they included a screwdriver. Not a bad turnaround.

[Oumuamua]

Did ya try a little EQ before making all these physical changes?

[CO_Canuck]

I did, to give me an idea of the sound profile I wanted to achieve. However, I avoid using EQ for regular listening.

Trying to manage different EQ profiles for my different equipment on different devices would be a pain in the ass (and I don’t have anywhere near as much as others do).

If I can achieve my target sound profile through minor tweaks, I’m all for it.

[Oumuamua]

Excellent, I was hoping you didn’t say you tried but they didn’t EQ well. I’m still waiting on a set but it looks like they’re on the boat now and should have them in a couple more days…or 10.

[CO_Canuck]

It’s been a while since I have done any serious listening with the FT1’s and going from my IEMs to the FT1’s was a huge difference in bass.

I saw a post on Head-Fi showing measurements after removing the cups, and the increase in bass was quite substantial.

I removed the cups today and covered one of the driver vent holes as mentioned in the post, and I am very happy with the increase in bass across the board. Mids and highs still sound great, and there is a slight increase in airiness and soundstage.

Granted, I now have a pair of open back headphones, but If I have to buy another pair for $150 for travel, etc I’m not going to sweat it.

[Naturallymorbid]

Now im wondering is there a way to modify to back for better results
But good to know about the Eris pads / PU brainwaves, ill give it a try maybe tryout some other pads see if i can find another winner.

I gotta say brainwaves are one of the first pads i try out when pad swapping particularly the angled hybrid they are my favorite brainwaves by country mile, they work on so many headphones (like the Thieaudio Ghost & Meze 99), almost always improving the sound with very few downsides, though they arent always the right choice

[CO_Canuck]

On HF a few people have mentioned that the Mod House Xenon Suede pads have worked really well. I have not tried them myself as I was waiting to see what the results of the cup removal were, and I think I am happy with where things stand right now.

Granted, I can never sit still with this kind of stuff, so I may buy some later on out of curiosity.

There is a guy that has been 3D printing parts for an open back driver cover. I asked him that if he has time, maybe he can try making a replacement cup, but with tunable holes (like we used to use for T50RP mods) to see if there is a way to change/improve bass will retaining the closed back use case.

[CO_Canuck]

I guess I lasted longer than I thought I would, but I finally broke down and bought the Mod House Xenon suede pads to try out. Now I am kicking myself for waiting as long as I did.

Compared to the Eris pads I was using, the Xenons bring back ALL of the bass/mid-bass I found lacking in the Eris pads, and then some. There was so much bass/mid-bass that it was a bit overpowering and covering up instruments in congested mixes. The Xenons also had about 2-3dB of overall gain over the Eris pads that I needed to compensate for. Given the huge increase in size, the Xenons are super comfortable and fit my huge ears perfectly. The soundstage is also increased a bit, but not as much as I thought it would be.

I went back and listened to the stock pads and that notorious mid/upper mid-bass hump I have written about previously was thoroughly on display. However, I was surprised by the amount of bass/lower mid-bass the stock pads had that I had forgotten about. If that mid hump was gone I think the stock and Xenon pads would be very close overall.

I was able to tune the bass/mid-bass on the Xenon pads with some tape and 8-10 hours of OCD tape placement trial and error. I tried different size pieces of tape in a huge variety of orientations (small changes made surprising differences) until I finally came up with something that brought those instruments back in congested mixes while maintaining a great balance across all frequencies.

If you have pads that are close, but not quite there for what you are hoping for, tape is cheap and easy to try. You might be surprised by the results.