Fidue is a young player in the headphone market, but, as is often the case, it is headed by an experienced engineer who has been dealing with personal sound for many years. Therefore, the company's first headphones, such as the A63 and A81, turned out to be worthy of attention. Without becoming relaxed for a long time, Fidue released several more interesting products, and in this review I will tell you about their dynamic model A71, which uses simultaneously two emitters for each ear.
Benny Tan, who has been heading the company for many years, has been developing headphones for other companies, so it was clear that his own brand, Fidue, would not stop at simple single-driver models. And so it happened: the company is looking for its approach to multi-driver models, and the A71 became the first trial balloon.
Why do we need two emitters in each headset, is it possible to do with one? The fact is that dynamic emitters with a large diameter of the diffuser play better low frequencies, where you need to “shake” a larger volume of air, but medium and high frequencies are better for smaller speakers, since the small size and weight of the membrane allows you to avoid problems associated with inertia diffuser. In speaker systems, such multiband solutions have been used for a long time, but in headphones, such schemes were used only a few years ago, and mostly in intra-channel models.
The A71 uses a large 10 mm transmitter for bass reproduction and a 6.8 mm titanium diaphragm speaker for the rest of the range. The speakers are arranged coaxially, that is, one behind the other on the same axis, and the smaller emitter is located in a special shape of the chamber, which helps the sound waves from the larger speaker to dissipate less, this is a unique solution that has not been used before.
By the way, despite the complexity of the design, You can get from the company's official representative in Russia for only 5600 rubles.
Specifications
- Emitters: 10 mm LF and 6.8 mm MF / HF with titanium diaphragm
- Frequency range: 12 Hz - 25000 Hz
- Impedance: 19Ω ± 10%
- Sensitivity: 103 ± 3 dB
- Distortion: ≤ 1%
- Maximum input power : 20 mW
- Plug: 3.5 mm, TRS
- Cable: balanced, 1.2 m, 7N oxygen-free copper
Package and Delivery
For a price of $ 100, the box is very good. Printing is made at a high level, the combination of black and green is very attractive. Inside there is a cradle on which the headphones and a case with accessories rest.
In the delivery set you will receive: three pairs of single-lobe nozzles of different sizes (medium ones are traditionally already put on the headphones themselves), two pairs of two-petal nozzles of different sizes, a pair of Comply foam nozzles and a cover on a snake of unusual elongated shape.
In general, there are no special excesses, but there is everything that is necessary, and even moreover something was added, so on this point, the headphones are fine.
Design and wearing comfort
The shape of the plastic case Fidue A71 is very interesting. The part of the earpiece that is inserted into the ear is an ordinary plastic cylinder with a sound guide, the same as in thousands of other models, but the reverse side is beveled, smoothly moving into the cable retainer. The cable itself has a section with a memory effect around the earphone for forming the ears. Since the headphone case is quite voluminous, owners of small ears may have problems with landing, but elongated tips will save the situation. Also on Head-Fi, I saw a mention of the fact that a section with a memory effect can be “fixed” by cutting off the outer layer, and then the A71 will turn to be worn down like an ordinary in-ear headset.
I sat down in the ears of the A71 perfectly, it only took to change the nozzles to the largest single-petal of the kit. The earbuds from the cable hold the headphones securely in place, so even long wearing does not cause the slightest discomfort. Thanks to these very ears, the landing is shallow, so the sound insulation is rather average, for very noisy environments the A71 is not very suitable.
The cable of this product Fidue is not removable, which is not surprising considering the price, nevertheless it is of very good quality, in silicone insulation, it does not harden much in the cold, it is not likely to become entangled. Since the headphones are worn behind the ear, the microphone effect is completely absent. The splitter unit and plug are very good with metal plates.
The overall build quality is very good, there are no complaints about this.
Sound
The following equipment was used for listening:
- Yulong DA8 as a DAC and Amplifier
- Resonessence Labs Concero HP as a DAC and Amplifier
- Apple MacBook Pro Retina 2013 as a source
- Fidelia as a player
- Fiio X5 and Shanling M3 as portable players
- VSonic Gr01 and HiFiMan Re600 as headphones for comparison
- High-resolution recordings in Lossless-formats (Dr. Chesky The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc and others)
Before listening to the headphones were heated for 48 hours.
Headphone sound is darkish, with a pronounced focus on the low frequencies, but the middle and upper frequencies are also well developed.
The A71 has a lot of bass, it is deep enough and is well controlled for its price. It could be considered ideal if there were not a problem with the speed of its decay, it is sometimes not enough, and therefore the bass is a little crawling to the mid-frequency range. This is not manifested in all compositions (mostly electronic music with bass drops suffers), in most cases the headphones sound just darker than neutral. Taking into account the price, it is impossible to call this a problem; to my ear, even rock-metal-style driving recordings succeed A71 quite well.
The mids are very good. Emotionality and detail - this is the strong point of the A71, revealing them to the fullest. If you like calm music with live instruments and vocals, this brainchild of Fidue in combination with a high-quality source will delight you. Because of the emphasis on the low bands, the imaginary scene is not the deepest, but very wide, the separation of instruments at a very decent level.
The upper frequencies are soft and non-stressing. In Fidue, they did not reduce their number in order to provide a completely dark sound, but simply softened their flow, providing a pleasant musicality and not tedious sound. There are practically no sibilancers, and this is very pleasing.
Compatibility
Headphones quite decent work with unpretentious sources, because of the taste supply, they are able to draw out a pleasant sound even from smartphones and tablets. I tested them with the iPhone 6 Plus, Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip and iPad Air, they sound good, keeping their character. Slightly more demanding they are for the quality of the recording, so it’s worth to take care of the tracks with good mixing and mastering.
conclusions
An interesting model from Fidue, combining unusual sound with an affordable price and good build quality. Headphones are well suited to lovers of taste of the musical material, as they combine juicy bass with musical medium and high frequencies.
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment