FiiO

FT5 Planar Magnetic Headphones

£429

Guangzhou's FiiO Electronics Technology Company Ltd has made some missteps since its inception in 2007, yet in broad terms, the company's trajectory has been upward. Its credibility as a purveyor of portable music players, headphone amplifiers, DACs and associated technologies – especially where desktop audio is concerned – is absolutely unarguable.

Lately, FiiO has been making determined moves in the headphone market, and this land-grab doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. With last year's FT3 open-backed, hard-wired, over-ear model, the company once again demonstrated both its value-for-money dependability and its willingness to tackle areas of the market that can be charitably described as 'unfashionable'.

Now FiiO is back, this time with the FT5. It is also hard-wired, open-backed and over-ear but represents the brand's first foray into the world of planar magnetic driver technology. However, it's not the only company attempting to bring this esoteric engineering approach down to a real-world price point. For example, Audeze – recently acquired by Sony – and HiFiMan are high-profile planar magnetic evangelists. Yet it would be a brave individual who bet against FiiO being the company that manages to truly democratise it.

UP CLOSE

Magnesium aluminium alloy, I am reliably informed, is just two-thirds as dense as plain old aluminium alloy – which is why FiiO uses it for the FT5. And even then, it weighs a not-inconsiderable 456g without cables. There's no arguing with the fact that it looks and feels considerably more upmarket than the plastic-framed alternatives from rival brands. Also, the careful headband/hanger arrangement – which uses a slim, adjustable protein leather band inside a metal frame – means that this pair of headphones remains comfortable even over extended listens.

Comfort is further aided by a choice of earpads. Two types are supplied with the FT5: one pair in protein leather and the other in suede. In my experience, the former resists handing back body heat for longer than the suede pair, and the two have sonic differences. These are not as dramatic as the remarkably flowery language on the FiiO website suggests; according to FiiO, the type of sound achievable via the suede earpads is “magnificently vigorous”, no less.

This pair of headphones doesn't fold flat, which goes some way to explaining the relative bulk of the supplied tan leather carrying case. The earcups do move in three axes, though, which means a comfy fit is easily achievable. Or at least it is if you're not too petite-headed, as the headband adjusts far more readily for the big-headed among us than it does the small.

Each earcup has a 3.5mm wired connection for the 1.5m braided silver-plated monocrystalline copper cable, which clicks into place securely and stays fixed in all but the most extreme circumstances. The other end of the cable can feature either a 3.5mm, 4.4mm, 6.3mm or 4-pin XLR connection, and swapping between terminations is a swift and easy process.

The earcups themselves are designed to work in tandem with the rear of the driver housing. This acts as a baffle to isolate sound waves at both the front and the rear, while the elaborate grille on the rear of the earcups is intended to control and accelerate the airflow created when the driver itself is moving. Both treble resolution and the scale of the overall sound are the claimed beneficiaries, according to FiiO.

It is the driver itself that's the real story here, of course. The planar magnetic transducer in each earcup is a hefty 90mm in diameter, a trifling 6µm thick, and printed with aluminium/silver alloy coils. Each has eleven neodymium magnets positioned on the inside of the driver and nine on the outside; they are parallel to the driver coils to ensure maximum driving force. It's an arrangement that FiiO reckons is good for a frequency response of 7Hz to 40kHz and goes some way to explaining the relatively high kerb weight of the FT5. It also results in a headphone with an extremely easy-to-drive 96dB/mW @1kHz sensitivity figure.

THE LISTENING

Passive headphones live or die by the quality of the music source they're driven by. In turn, this is in thrall to the quality of the recording itself. It seems unlikely that anyone is ready to spend FiiO FT5 money in order to plug them straight into the noise-ridden headphone socket of a laptop computer and listen to heavily compressed MP3 files. Yet this is a scenario that cannot be completely discounted, so I did precisely this as part of my listening sessions. The FT5 was hooked up to an Apple MacBook Pro, as well as into the headphone socket of a Naim stereo amplifier, plus one of iFi's loftier headphone amplifiers. Everything from so-so-sounding 320kbps MP3s to 24-bit/192kHz FLAC files were played.

As you might expect, the FT5 sounds best when given the finest material to work with. When handling the 2017 remaster of David Bowie's Sound and Vision as a 24bit/192kHz FLAC file via a pricey headphone amp using a 4.4mm balanced connection, the FiiO sounds far more expensive than you'd expect. In virtually every respect, it's an informative, engaging and convincing listen.

Tonally slightly on the warm side of neutral, there is still plenty of bite and crunch to the top end, even if it's fractionally thicker than is ideal. Bass notes aren't so overheated that they outstay their welcome and drag their feet. And although the midrange is just a little overstated, it's never shrill. That's good news because there's so much going on in the presence region, which is stuffed full of detail, both broad and fine.

The soundstage itself is expansive. For example, even during the more abandoned moments of Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, there's plenty of room for each individual element of the recording to express itself without being impacted by any other. Turn up the volume, and these headphones simply get louder, with none of the crowding or sudden-onset two-dimensionality that less accomplished designs can fall victim to. The recording stays organised and coherent, easy to follow, and confidently described.

Indeed, no matter what volume you're listening at, this pair of headphones is able to cope with the dynamic peaks and troughs of PJ Harvey's 50ft Queenie with ease. Changes in intensity and attack are tracked faithfully and effortlessly. Likewise, the more subtle harmonic variations apparent in Ólafur Arnalds' Ljósið are identified, contextualised and delivered with similar proficiency. The attack and decay of individual notes are managed with complete positivity, which is particularly welcome where low-frequency information is concerned. Even the gimpy rhythm of Eyelids by Fridge is given convincing expression, with bass sounds controlled with straight-edged determination.

Inevitably, there's a drop-off where detail levels are concerned; with a switch to a 320kbps MP3 of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel – the soundstage becomes rather vague. Yet this isn't the most judgemental pair of headphones around – whereas some designs all too willingly expose the shortcomings of compressed audio files, the FiiO happily makes the best of things.

VERDICT

FiiO's FT5 is a very good headphone in an attractively old-school way. Granted, this sort of money can buy you many more fancy features- such as wireless connectivity, noise cancelling, folding frames for better portability, etc. – yet try finding something that actually sounds as good. In that respect, you'll be hard-pressed to find a design that's more engaging and enjoyable to listen to, at the price, than this – or, for that matter, as well built or finished.

Visit FiiO for more information