hi, do you plan on writing a head-fi review or is it in the process of making?
I dont wanna be rude, I would just like to read about it from you…
Yes, this is what makes some people and even reviewers mistake the tonality for the timbre.
and yes, some iems do boost the treble to increase perceived details. Its what some people call “fake details”.
YES, EMBRACE THE DARK SIDE! 
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RW-2000 will be reviewed when I got time. I will review the FH5S first and then the Moondrop Chaconne, then the RW-2000. (not fixed order yet, but the FH5S is definitely first.)
Oh, I see…
all of those are interesting and it is of course up to you
THX for info
Yeah, both the RW-2000 and the Chaconne are great.
FH5S is first in line because its a review unit though. The other 2 buds are normal units bought at regular prices. (I did get my regular discount for the Chaconne since I bought it from Hifigo though, but not a review unit.)
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That last video is very good. It also brings up a point few people discuss. Material timbre. In my memory it feels like people talked about it more before, but it has sort of drifted out of discussions. Around when the Denon D2000-5000-7000 line was the shit and people were ordering custom cups from the likes of Lawton Audio.
Granted it’s been about 10 years since, but I’m not sure what caused the drift. It’s gotten a bit of a resurgence as of late, mostly in talks with IEM’s. Maybe it’s just selective memory on my end or being at the wrong forum at the wrong time, hah. But it’s nice that it’s come up for discussion again as I feel it’s quite an important topic (if not the most) when it comes to enjoying a headphone, IEM or speakers. Although for the latter it’s more about room accoustics, but it still plays a part.
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To try to help those with what timbre is and how to understand what good or bad timbre is…
You need to start with a reference.
I don’t believe anyone can have a perfect reference for the perfect timbre but you should have a few good sources for what you believe have good timbre.
The best reference would probably be being at a live concert and hearing the music live and knowing what everything should sound like with your own ears. This really shouldn’t be a cranked up smoky bar with everything miced up and cranked to 10. Preferably a live acoustic performance.
Then if you had a recording of that live performance, you would then listen to that recording critically on everything you could find and compare the recording to how you remember it sounding live. Whatever can re-create the sound most accurately for all the different instruments should have the most realistic timbre.
It’s not something that’s easily explained. It’s something that comes from experience listening to the same source on lots of different gear and understanding the differences in how the music is portrayed. Different drivers produce music differently. All the different technologies have advantages and disadvantages and will always effect timbre in some way, for better or worse.
Personally, I have pro studio gear with multiple pro JBL studio monitors (I’m a JBL fanboi) which I trust for accuracy, so I feel I have a pretty good grasp of how timbre should sound on my favorite recordings. A cheaper point of access is a Sennheiser 6XX. It’s a headphone that doesn’t have the greatest extension but has exceptional timbre and is not that expensive.
To understand and be able to judge timbre qualities, you need to first understand what your music should sound like. If all you know is your music on a source with poor timbre, you’ll never be able to recognize what good or poor timbre is. Hope this is helpful.
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Very well formulated. It is as you said, it takes experience and a good reference to tell bad from good timbre.
Although I would say that even using live concert as the reference is not really ideal. Since our auditory memory lasts a very short duration and it isnt reliable to look back and remember something that happened a long time ago (same reason why comparing a new iem to something you had in the past isnt reliable).
I would say that the best reference is to simply play the instrument yourself or have someone close to you do it.
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To this day, I feel that the HD600 are still some of the best headphones ever because of their timbre. I’ve listened to them on and off for the past 20 years and they’re still as good as when I first heard them. Sometimes I just wonder if I’m looking for a new headphone to just be like the HD600 when I first heard them. Maybe I should get a pair once more, it’s a hassle borrowing them from my brother every time, hah.
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hmmm, it isnt looking very good for the FH5S lol.
Small teaser: IMO FH3 > FH5S 
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I agree. But even recordings and the mixing and mastering process usually alters the original instruments sound considerably.
Mics have completely different characteristics as IEMs do. A mic’ed guitar will sound completely different with two different mics. Heck, there’s a whole artform to capturing guitar tone just with mic placement.
It doesn’t stop there either, to cram all the instruments into a mix in today’s music, mixing and mastering engineers are forced to going into recordings and cut out large chunks of instruments to make room for everything to sit properly together. You can’t make a good judgement call on the sound and timbre of an electric guitar when everything below 200 hz is cut out to make room in the mix for the bass guitar to sit. Then you have to side chain the kick drum into the bass guitar to allow the transient in since the bass and kick are sharing the same frequencies. UGH.
In the end, many recordings are a highly altered representation of the original recording.
In a perfect world, I’d have a live instrument playing in a perfect room that I could hear directly with my own ears. Have a recording of that instrument that is as accurate as possible to what I heard live. Listen to that recording over and over again on all different equipment until you were able to find something to accurately represent it as closely as possible, and then compare all other playback devices to that. Critically listening of course.
Too add… This is why most people don’t care about any of this shit. This is far down the audiophile rabbit hole to describe why something might sound a little strange/different when listening to the same music on a DD driver headphone vs a planar driver, or a hybrid IEM vs a single DD.
Had a feeling. As soon as I saw that BA in the nozzle. Oh no! 
The issue is that the Treble (BA) has BA timbre and isnt as coherent as others in this price range (250-350 usd). Dont think the BA being in the nozzle is the culprit for that, but that they might have used a particularly bad model for it.
And the bass, while it isnt offending me in anyway way, it doesnt stand out either. Too much of a “meh” experience I guess…
My FH5s should have already been delivered. I ordered from Linsoul. I’m seriously thinking about returning it without even opening the box. I think you can get a full refund if not opened. I’ve never returned an IEM yet.
What say you @Rikudou_Goku ?
You 200% have iems that are better than it and it would be super redundant and a waste of money/space to keep it so I would actually return it. If you can try it and still get a full refund I would do that but if not then just return it lol.
If I try it, I’ll have to pay a 30% restock fee.
How is the soundstage? You did say it was quite large. About the same as the FD5? And how much does the sound change with the switch settings?
The FD5 is bigger and noticeably so.
Havent tried the switches yet, but in my experience they really dont change much of the tuning. And my issue with it doesnt really have much to do with the tuning that switches theoretically changes…
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What a disappointment.
It is, for something at this price and for a brand like Fiio.
It probably is around A- (same as the KZ DQ6 lol).
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Usually people are pretty happy with an A- grade lol. So I guess my FiiO options are: get the FD5 or save €300 at this point 
.
Too bad all the good Sony’s are no longer available for purchase it seems. The only other option that might be interesting is the Ikko OH10. What really speaks to me about the FD5 is the cable and the half open design, however the OH10 is warm and costs €80 less…
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