High-end audio experts FiiO have unveiled a new set of flagship balanced armature in-ear monitors (IEMs) with a seriously impressive specification that would rival a lot of the best wireless earbuds if it weren’t for the faintly frightening price tag. The new FiiO FA19s are serious IEMs for serious music people.
The FA19 boast a massive 10 balanced armature drivers per ear, consisting of four Custom Knowles bass balanced armature drivers, two Knowles ED mid balanced armature drivers and four Knowles SWFK treble balanced armature drivers. Those custom bass drivers are the result of “hundreds of hours of listening and careful tuning of the IEMs’ frequency response curve” and have been designed to improve airflow to deliver a very detailed and deep low-end experience.
FiiO FA19: key features and specifications
As if all those balanced armature drivers weren’t impressive enough, FiiO has more to show off. The IEMs’ shells have been made with exceptionally precise DLP-3D printing tech to lower resonant frequency in the rear cavity of each shell in what FiiO calls “a unique negative feedback bass enhancement system”. In plain English that means very powerful and deep bass of a kind you don’t typically find in IEMs in this class. FiiO says that another benefit of the shell design is that it’s more comfortable too by reducing the pressure in the front cavity.
The mid-range balanced armature drivers have their own notch filter to weaken the higher frequencies in order to remove unwanted sibilance, a known issue with these particular drivers, and it also improves the separation between the mid and high frequency drivers to prevent interference. And FiiO says that where typical crossover resistors have an error tolerance of around 1%, the ones in the FA19s have tolerances of just 0.1%. The use of film capacitors rather than ceramic is designed to improve high frequency resolution “without sacrificing finesse”.
Other key features include swappable plugs on a high purity silver cable, enabling you to connect to devices with 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced sockets; switchable modes (monitor and hi-fi, with the former delivering clean audio and the latter enhancing the bass and mid-range); and FiiO’s S.Turbo design, which helps guide low frequencies from the bass drivers.
The new FiiO FA19s will go on sale this month for $999 in the US, £999 in the UK and €1,099 in Europe (roughly AU$1,540).
