Ohmage To The FiiO FT13
Disclaimer: Fiio supplied this pair of FT13 so I could write this review. I paid nothingFiiO FT13. Thank you Fiio. The FT13 goes for 329$ USD. You can find it below:
FiiO FT13.
Spec and basics:
Headphone tyFiiO FT13pe: Closed-back dynamic headphones
Frequency response: 7Hz-40kHz
Driver: 60mm
Dynamic Impedance: 32 ohm
Sensitivity: 98dB/mW @1kHz | 113dB/Vrms @1kHz
Weight: About 356g (excluding cable)
Earcup pressure: 4.2N±0.3N
Cable material: Secondary refined Furukawa monocrystalline copper + silver-plated oxygen-free copper
Cable length: About 1.5 m
Cable headphone connector: Dual 3.5mm (TS)
Audio plug: 3.5mm/4.4mm + 6.3mm/XLR-4 adapters
Earcup material: Purpleheart wood
Earcup colours: Natural wood/Black
At the heart of FiiO’s FT13 is a massive 60mm wool-reinforced birch diaphragm. That grainy bit of fuzz is a capable of spitting truly heavy hitting bass tones rounded out by warm - and powerful - lows, a kinetic midrange, and highs that extrude all the detail you need- and more. Providing you get a good seal (a feat which is easier said than done), it will keep your ears as warm as isolates your music.
Haptics and build: ohmage and porridge
My daughter in fuzzy pyjamas and her grandma in cranky-teacher glasses are beating up some kanji homework. They are laughing and chatting at girl levels of loud- not that I’d know: my boy and wife have had to slap my shoulder to grab my attention away from Tycho’s 2014 album, Awake. While a caveat exists, when I get a good fit, I barely hear anything outside of my music. There may not be another HiFi headphone that does as much to pull me out of my surroundings as the FT13 does.
The caveat is that in order to get isolation on par with your favourite construction site hearing protectors, you need to also have a Somalian head. I don’t. But I’ve found a work-around: if I rest a pencil between the headband and my skull, to the FT13 at least, I sure can pretend to have one. There is plenty of room on the yokes to cinch the headphones closer. That’s the one revision I suggest FiiO look into.
The FT13 weighs around 350g, which is 80 grams more more than a DT770. For a headphone with a massive driver buried in hard, beautiful purpleheart, that is impressive. I’ve managed to sit down and relax to an entire Wagner opera without discomfort- a thing I can do with very few headphones.
The FT13’s pads feel good on the ear, and as I described above, isolate like the dickens. They come in skin and suede varieties. I prefer the skin sound and the suede fit. Both pads look and work great and make the headphones feel like something higher market. The cups swivel gently left to right over a good 20-30º and tilt by by the same. Of course, no manner of swivel or tilt gets them to sit securely on my head. But if the headband tangs had a few more detents, the FT13 surely would be one of if not the most comfortable headphone I own.
Accessories: ohmage and porridge
The FT13 is great, but some of its messages are mixed. Its large footprint, nerdy cable, highly varnished cups, and plethora of adapters make it great for at-home listening. But, that same nerdy cable is too short to comfortably use plugged into into your favourite HiFi whilst leaning back in your favourite comfy chair. And while I’m loathe to take the shiny FT13 out in the polleny spring weather, it begs me to. Prime to this purpose is its supple cable that basically dekes out all touch noise.
The biggest thing that comes with the FT13 is its large, woven exterior carrying case. The smallest thing that comes with it is a threaded 3,5mm stereo adapter. Three other adapters: a step-up 4,4mm to 4-pin XLR adapter, a screw-in four-pole 4,4mm adapter, and a 3,5mm to 6,3mm step up adapter, are included. The adapters screw in slowly and surely over 1400º. The end result is a secure fit that reliably protects both male and female pins.
The lot can be ported to and from work in same woven carry case with room to spare. Room for what you might ask? Room enough for the best-sounding MD recorder to ever exist: Sharp’s balanced-ouput MD-DR77 and a FiiO BTR DAC. Too bad that the FT13’s 3,5mm adapter is TRS rather the DR77-friendly than TRRS.
Good effort, FiiO. By the way, that effort goes all the way, in every direction you want to take the FT13 except one.
The FT13’s ear pads swap about as smoothly as the lugs from a Maisto’s die-cast are ripped from its chassis by a three year old. Its pads are beautiful and cost a penny. But swapping them is pure violence and you can be sure that their holding cleats will wear out when enthusiastically swapped. Rotation locks, magnetic fasteners, or even fatter pressure pylons would have been better than the fragile cleats FiiO hooked into the pads. To this problem, the cleats and surrounding fastening show glue marks and other imperfections redolent of a garage rather than mass-market project.
Kitsch: ohmage and porridge
From its carrying case to the feel of its lugs and head band - and especially its cable - the FT13 hits marks both high and fine in fit and finish. Its parts are well machined, labelled, and stuck together. The FT13 is a pretty headphone, that at first glance looks far upscale its asking price. Everything follows through from there except for the garage daze mentioned above.
Sound: ohmage and porridge
The FT13 is both warm and bright. It bangs out deep lows whilst keeping pressure in the upper bass high- and tight. This ensures compatibility for a wide range of music styles. Its low frequencies render instruments distinctly, splaying them in a wide, if not ginormous gulf. I chalk part of this up to its powerful 60mm driver, but what I consider cooler is FiiO’s choice of wood. Purpleheart isn’t your run of the mill oak, ash, or beech. It is doubly hard, and deflects sound waves with more energy, and therefore brightness than more pedestrian wood species. If space exists in music, purple heart won’t swallow or dull it; it will amplify it. And when preserved well, it is beautiful whether finished or rough pared with a good set of chisels.
But let’s talk wood another time.
With a perfect seal, the suede pads forward low pressure a good way past 100Hz, and to my ears, way below that. Irrespective the pad, low frequencies are replete with both positional and textural detail. But near the same frequency band, the lows flirt just a tad too energetically. The opening seconds to Markus Schulz’s Mainstage yawn with deep, precise footings, and good to great textural detail.
Low-frequency pressure drops suddenly it hits the low midrange. The mids from there are wide, clear, and semi-wet. As they climb, they brighten further. The resonance band between upper mids and highs sometimes splashes. Despite this, highs neither overpower nor impede the low or mid ranges.
Trance fans beware: extensive low-frequency pressure around 100Hz hits harder and hangs on longer than optimal, but newer, softer trance medleys fit the FT13 like a glove. And, while medium sized in comparison to top-tier closed headphones, the FT13’s stage is wide, with good spreads and positional details along its X and Z axes. Volumetrically, the FT13 renders good spatial details in the mids despite riding an overall mild u-cum-m-shaped sound signature. This makes for good atmospheric listening. Its interesting U-shaped feel-first sound signature absolutely mogs the bland (if wide) presentation from my favourite DT880 600Ω.
To these ears, its suede pads put lows and highs in the best balance as long as you haven’t got a good seal. The good news for me is that getting a good seal isn’t easy. Whether the FT13 was designed specifically for meat heads, or its machinist forgot to add a couple detents, I’ll never know. What I do know is that the FT13 slips down my skull until my ears fold down. I have to place something - a pencil will do - between my skull and the head band to ensure optimal seal.
Having done that, I prefer the milder-sounding lambskin pads to their bassier suede counterparts. Either way, the FT13’s extremes won’t ever overpower your favourite music. I’ve been an Ultrasone and Beyer fan since 2004; what I really want from a headphone is smooth transitions from bass to lower mids. Second to that, I want detailed, bright, highs, with space and positional feel in all sound bands.
At times, raucous stage performances, low budget metal (Burzum and the like) can get shrill because of the headphones high-range peaks. At the same time, it rolls off after that nicely. FiiO chose the right wood to pair with what appears to be an incredible driver. The wood keeps energetic resonances going forward, meting out positional detail whilst cleanly paring cymbal shimmer from the bye-bye edges of fading bass lines. That this headphone almost completely dekes out biff-and-bonk anomalies below 100Hz despite its massive sound pressure is impressive.
Overall, I like pairing it with synth, vapor, and fash wave genres over classical and trance, but it does those two nearly as well. Naturally, folk, folk-rock, singer song writer music, follow suit. In fact, cueing up John Denver back-to-back with the FT13, the DT880 600Ω seems stretched and thin in comparison.
Medium-high sound pressure up top easily balances the FT13’s powerful bass regions. And while lows lack the feel of absolute speed, medium-high pressure shelves up top open up and mask minor bass splash in return.
Drivability
As for load, most modern home sources shouldn’t struggle driving the FT13’s 32Ω, and only few sources will struggle keeping channels balanced at low volumes. I bring this up because I’m an MD and CD player guy. Many of my favourites use analogue attenuators that show at least some channel imbalance in the most comfortable listening ranges. For this reason, I’d rather FiiO targeted the easy-driving range between 60 and 90Ω. No matter how weak, just about any source will output enough volume into the FT13 to rock your skull.
The FT13 causes no problems with regular off-the-shelf sources. It sounds full from the weak outputs of a Sony MZR-50, and despite its sensitivity, doesn’t hiss. The only potential mismatch you’ll have is with old MP3 players such as HiSound’s AMP3 and AMP3Pro that couldn’t even drive their own pack-in earphones. Older stereo systems that favour 120Ω loads would likely also do better with a higher Ω headphone. A benefit to improper driving is that the FT13 loses low-band sound pressure, which is one area that some may find too much.,
As such, there ins’t a bad system to pair the FT13 with.
End words
The FT13 is handsome, sounds good, and with the exception of its afterthought mounting cleats, exudes luxury. Its accessory set is keen, well organised, and well finished. The fact that you can pack into its carrying a late-model MD recorder along with a FiiO wireless DAC opens up so many possibilities. While its highs can be a bit scratchy, in general I have nothing but good to say about its sound.
The only thing that needs to really change is its headband lugs, which stop down to Somalian at minimum, and open up to absolute meathead at maximum. Yes, it leaves plenty of room for helmet-wearers and ogres. Good on them.
Apart from that, it is a good headphone that looks great and nods pretty far upmarket at an affordable mid-range price.
ohmage: 4
porridge: 2