Fiio FT1 Headphone Review

[FTB]

I thought the muddy presentation in the bass and lower midrange was the most disappointing aspect of the FT1. If my band sounded like this on stage I'd have words with the FoH engineer afterwards.

That and the comfort. These are an instant hotspot generator on my head. I saw the Capra Strap recommended but wasn't gonna drop 30 bucks on a piece of plastic for headphones I could maybe salvage with EQ.

Oh yes, very muddy the FT1 are.

 

[worker24x7]

. If I tone it down to a comfortable level, there's no detail left there.

I have the same experience as @Lukalumen. Very dissapointed with reddit reviews, youtube influencers, FiiO in general. I feel cheated. These Fiio FT1 are untunable. I will try different pads, but will not pay 70 bucks for Dekoni.

 

[solderdude]

 

[Sebby]

I tried a bunch of stuff. I kept pushing down all the frequencies that sounded grating to me. But it seems like that grating sound is all there is. If I tone it down to a comfortable level, there's no detail left there.
And turning up the bass doesn't make it more physical, it just makes it feed those low frequencies into my brain more, without the response I normally get when hearing a subwoofer or other headphones. Which is to vibe and want to move to the music.
This is what I ended up with, but I'm not saying I was happy with it. For example, this was too much bass, but not enough rumble and slap. If that makes sense...
I'm also 42, so increasing the highs over 11k is just to replace the Samsung's built in age adjusted EQ.

View attachment 513342
View attachment 513343

I’ll give you a tip. I noticed your Gain on the left is set positive after boosting the other values. If you run a tone sweep, you’ll realize how much you’re degrading the sound.

The Gain, meaning the leftmost slider, should actually be brought down to at least -11db.
If you want to make things easier in the future, take the highest boost you applied and subtract it from the Gain, otherwise you’ll get tons of distortion and clipping. The downside is that the volume will drop, but there’s no way around it.
Even without changing anything else, a positive Gain almost always leads to audible distortion and clipping.

Technically, it would be advisable to keep Gain at -3 regardless, even without EQ, but that’s another story

 

[FTB]

We could say high gain is a loss...

 

[confucius_zero]

Watched a movie on the FT1 and BTR17 yesterday. It was amazing! Really enjoying how detailed they sound with lovely bass articulation. Super comfortable with the custom headband too. Not sure about the muddiness but they are about as detailed as Sundara which is more than I can say about HD600/6xx/660s2 from a subjective point of view.