Drivers Touched by Midas – FiiO FT7 Open-Back Planar Headphones

Drivers Touched by Midas – FiiO FT7 Open-Back Planar Headphones

FiiO FT7 is a $699 USD pair of over-the-ear Open-Back Gold Diaphragm Planar Magnetic Headphones, with a large 106mm large planar magnetic driver at the core, Patented Gold + Silver Multi Layer Coating, 1um thin specialized diaphragm and Dual Sided Magnetic push-pull magnetic circuit system. Today we will review the FT7 and also compare it with other headphones including Sendy Audio AIVA 2 (599 USD), Noble Fokus Apollo (649 USD), and MIRPH-1 (749 USD).

Introduction

FiiO is more courageous and more daring day by day, this time making waves in the high-end audiophile sea of products. FiiO is the kind of company that nowadays covers most audiophile products, both traditional and also more niche products, having under their umbrella corporation both DAPs, DAC AMPs, IEMs, Headphones, and many of those being in the flagship class. FiiO products have some of the best warranty, and are some of the most available in the whole world, at times being easier to purchase a FiiO product than anything else, so today we study just how their flagship planar headphones sounds like. 

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Product Link

Amazon – https://amzn.to/4m6DXFr

Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_olIVnrU

Build Quality / Design

FiiO FT 7 is built around a few key selling points, the biggest of them being the FiiO 106mm large planar magnetic driver. This driver has both gold and silver multi-layer coil plating to create the most dynamic, most revealing driver to date. As this is a self developed driver, it will not be found in any other headphones, and FiiO uses high-performance PET as the diaphragm substrate and selectively applies 24K gold and silver plating to create coating layers on the driver. 

Despite the gold and silver playing, FiiO  managed to keep the driver thickness down to 1um. The whole driver is processed at 28 nm for the node, which is the size of the lithography that AMD Radeon 7970 GPU was processed at. FiiO has tested FT7 for an entire year of playing before launching it on the market to make sure that it is long-lasting. 

Earcups are made of actual zebra wood, sourced from West Africa, and from trees that typically grow at an altitude of 1600 meters. The grain you see in the photos resembles the patterns on a zebra, and should deliver a nice touch for a pair of high-end headphones. 

Subjective Usage

FiiO FT7 feels super high-end, they feel well put together, and at times they make other flagships feel like toys, having more space, more adjustment, and a more solid build than most headphones. This being said, they are very open with almost no passive noise isolation, in the same style like HIFIMAN susvara Unveiled, FT7 really does not have any dB of passive noise isolation, and wearing them feels as if I am not wearing anything. In fact, I don’t think I have other headphones that are as open besides Susvara Unveiled, and this is great because it means that the earcups will not reflect sound, but at the same time it makes FT7 very sensitive to room acoustics, noise in the room, and you really cannot cover the earcups with your hand, or else the sound will change greatly. 

Comfort is superb, earcups are large, more than enough for my ears, adjustment allows me to find the perfect spot on my head, headband is soft and there is no hotspot at the top of my head, while tightness and clamping force is just right for comfort. Cable is very rigid and springy, but does not conduct microphonic noise, cable is also really long, but has a noticeably better sonic quality compared to most cables on the market, especially if we’re talking about stock cables. 

FiiO FT7 has a superb overall build and comfort, transport case is also high-end, and FiiO has designed a shorter cable for those who don’t need it to be this long. If you’re into geeky detailed info, FiiO has published a frequency response graph on their website to highlight how FT7 responds, which I find to be highly accurate in representing their signature. Weight is heavy at 427 grams, but FiiO implements a smart headband to distribute the weight, together with the hard earpads, so you rarely feel this weight. 

FiiO FT7 comes with one high-end cable, but two adapters to XLR and 6.35mm, considering that the default cable is 4.4mm balanced in design. Together with the lambskin earpads, and suede earpads you can fine tune the sound of FT7 if you want a different sound. Impedance is very low at 25 OHMs, while SPL is low at 94 dB /mW which in theory makes FT7 eat a lot of power and also sensitive to source quality. At the headphone side we have 3.5mm headphone jacks for the cable, which makes it easy to use aftermarket cables, although FiiO FTR7 has mono jacks at the headphone side. 

Sound Quality

Pairings – I decided to pair FiiO FT7 with a selection of favorite sources, most of them from the mighty flagship class, including FiiO K17, Burson PlayMate 2, JDS Labs Element III, Singxer Sa-1 V2 driven by a Musician Pegasus II R2R DAC, Rose Technics RT-5000, and Dethonray Clarinet. For the vocal centric FT7, you will want a source that has a beautiful midrange, and which is revealing, which is engaging and FT7 is quite transparent, allowing you to enjoy the quality of your source, so get the best one you can. 

FiiO FT7 is rather hard to drive and needs quite a bit of power to sound just right, to shine and to bloom, but they are comparable to hard to drive IEMs and portable headphones, not to very hard to drive headphones like HIFIMAN Arya Organic and HE1000SE. FT7 is sensitive to the source quality and source signature, they change considerably with the source and will sound different with different setups. They are even sensitive to changes in cables, quite sensitive to position on the head too. A high-end source is best, but one of my favorite signatures for FT7 is when they’re driven by FiiO K17, they really come alive with FiiO’s own DAC AMP. 

Overall Signature – While I started with taking impressions before knowing what FiiO was trying to do with FT7, I can say they sound rich, musically cohesive and impressive, they have a really organic, rich, warm, but transparent signature. They bear a highly vocal signature, with present voices and a softer attack, non-harsh, non-aggressive tuning that’s laid back and relaxed. Compared to most other headphones, they sound lush, smooth, but rich in the midrange, it is a uniquely mature, refined and clean tuning that makes a stand for sounding revealing in the mids, but avoids being brash in the treble. FT7 is also remarkably wide, holographic, has a strong instrument separation, and a superb layering. It is impressive, engaging and dynamic but still refined and relaxed. 

Bass – Starting from the bottom-end, FiiO FT7 has a bass that extends as low as about 35 Hz with full force, rolling off softly below this level. There’s a bit of hump between 45 Hz and 75 Hz, where most of the bass presence and strength is, above which the quantity and presence rolls off softly again, only for the sound to recover a bit of presence higher in the upper bass, to give music a tiny bit of bloom and extra warmth. Bass is fast, bumpy, rounded and warm. It gives backbone to music, and with the right music FT7 can truly sound thunderous, but with most music they stay transparent and true-to-life. Bass guitars are audible and groovy in rock music, but FT7 does not have a specific thump to drums, it tries to stay as transparent as possible, rendering exactly what is in the song instead of having a specific resonance point. 

Midrange – In the mids is where the magic happens with FT7, this is one of the very few headphones with a highly vocal sound that I actually like and enjoy. It sounds open, dynamic, engaging and incredibly rich. Bias is tuned equally towards male and female voices, with a beat of peaking around 3 kHz, which gives music a bit of extra presence for female voices and solo guitars, thinner male voices having a bit of extra oomph and presence compared to deeper and lower-pitched male voices. Music in general sounds transparent though, and you will most likely not notice this kind of coloration, as it is minimal. What you will notice is that usually thinner voices, both male and female, will play much closer to the listener, while deeper instruments and voices take a second step in the soundstage and layering. There’s quite a bit of energy, and FT7 has a highly dynamic sound, but it is not fatiguing even with technical death metal. 

Treble – Vocal headphones usually have a slightly smoother treble, but the top-end extension and presence of FT7 goes as high as 10 kHz with full force, above which the sound rolls off continuously and gently. This is ideal for rock, metal, and EDM / Pop, as it makes sure hard edges are not easily audible, and music in general comes through as smoother and more relaxed, even when listening to aggressive bands. I like how FT7 handles even bands like Utsu-P and Metallica, they can render treble energy, without making it dry and fatiguing. 

PRaT / Textures / Dynamics – And a big part of why FT7 can be consistently refined, mature and high-end in the sound is that they have a uniquely splashy texture, long decay and fast, but not forced attack. This creates the kind of sound that is never hard or brash, it creates a slightly smoother, more relaxed tuning. Dynamic range is excellent, FT7 renders full dynamics, it sounds engaging, powerful and punchy, colorful and vivid, but also has an incredibly realistic full dynamic range, most rock sounds less compressed compared to how compressy headphones render it. Classical is right at home with FT 7. 

Loudness Saturation Gradient – FiiO FT7 really comes alive louder, with a more dynamic and engaging, live sound. This being said, they do not have added distortion louder, and sound just as detailed, vivid and holographic quieter, but I just prefer how they handle loud music, no aliasing, no over-the-top textures, just pure honey regardless of the volume. 

Soundstage – One of the most defining characteristics of FT7 is their wide, highly holographic sound. Although it does not have a very deep sound, due to a more neutral bass approach, FT7 can totally render distance between the singer and the listener, but it has a slight bias of making thinner sounding instruments and voices play much closer to the listener. 

Comparisons 

FiiO FT7 vs MIRPH-1 (699 USD vs 749 USD) – MIRPH-1 has a DIY charm to it, it is not as final of a headphone compared to FT7, package of FT7 is much better, so is the default cable, and although FT7 has a higher clamping force and more solid earpads, they are similar in comfort. This comes when I called Miprh-1 one of the most comfortable headphones out there. FT7 is far easier to drive, makes choosing a source with enough power easier, but FT7 is far more sensitive to source quality. Sonically, they might feel similar at first, but Miprh 1 is a smoother, more vague pair of headphones with far less impact, lower treble amount, lower bass amount and even more mid centric focus. In stark comparison, FT 7 has a more impactful sound, it has more bass, more treble, more edge, a more dynamic sound, and a much higher resolution / revealing ability. In general, Morph-1 is a headphone with almost no bite, while FT7 is balanced in how much bite it has, it is laid-back and vocal, but has enough to render a live concert as if you were there, it just has a smoother treble, it is not a vague headphone, instead having a holographic sound with strong layering and instrument separation. 

FiiO FT7 vs Noble Fokus Apollo (699 USD vs 649 USD) – Fokus Apollo is a basshead Bluetooth pair of headphones, so the whole package costs much less, since you just need the headphones, no DAC and No extra AMP, while for FT7 you need a source, and not just any source, but a high-quality one to really take advantage of their sound. FT7 is much more comfortable, less tight, and offers no passive noise isolation, while Apollo offers excellent passive noise isolation, but it is tight, clampy and has much smaller earpads. FT7 sounds highly vocal, mid centric and vivid, while Apollo is all about the bass, with everything else coming in second. Both have a high resolution, but FT7 renders far more detail, especially in the midrange, but every single beat and drop that FT7 misses, Apollo renders twice, or even 5 times more, if you enjoy bass and want a basshead experience, go for Apollo, it will not disappoint. If you want a lively sound that’s real, similar to Arya Organic but with no hard edges, FT7 will surely scratch that itch. 

FiiO FT7 vs Sendy Audio AIVA 2 (699 USD vs 599 USD) – Building both headphones on the idea of creating a highly vocal and pleasing sound, FiiO and Sivga seem to be competing in a similar space with Aiva 2 and FT7, but they each achieve a different result. FT7 is large, heavier, comfortable still, but you will feel the weight. Aiva 2 is much lighter, more clampy, offers some passive noise isolation, it is far less sensitive to room acoustics, room noise, source quality and things that FT7 is sensitive to. Both come with a hard transport case and high-quality cables. Sonically, FT7 is more aggressive, more edgy, has more bite, they have a very similar resolution and revealing ability, but Aiva 2 has a warmer, thicker, more thunderous bass, a smoother treble, it is more laid back and relaxed in the treble, while FT7 sounds more vocal-linear-neutral, Aiva 2 sounds more vocal-warm-smooth. Both headphones are excellent choices, Aiva 2 would likely sound better if you listen to a lot of music with deeper male voices and want a deeper, more serious sound, while FT7 sounds better if you want a brighter sound with more upper midrange presence and more female voices. 

Value and Conclusion

Although this is the first time I am reviewing a FiiO flagship product, I have to admit that they far outdid themselves. They literally created not just an excellent pair of headphones, but actually FT7 has value better than most of the competition, not just the build quality, but also the package and the sonic quality making it stand out in the vast sea of audio products we’ve reviewed for the past year. 

Award – Before the end of today’s review, I want to add FiiO FT7 to the Audiophile-Heaven Hall Of Fame, overall resolution reaches other flagships easily, including Arya Organic, but with a more solid bass, and a smoother sound, yet FT7 does not replace the Arya Organic, they have a very different tuning, Arya is more neutral, while FT7 is more vocal, mid centric, and smoother, more relaxed, it fits in well for a different market. 

At the end of the day, FiiO knows how to package and deliver an excellent pair of headphones, and FT7 is what I consider to be a best choice for anyone loving voices, music, rock, metal, jazz, classical, even EDM at times. It is literally one of the best you can grab, a bit smoother and laid-back, but still bearing enough impact and strength to be interesting, vivid and engaging. It is in all truth a headphone you have to try and one of the most recommended choices with this vocal type of signature this year. 

PROs

• Comfortable big earcups with a high degree of adjustment for head size
• Comfortable headband, and no hotspots, natural tightness / clamping force 
• Excellent cable 
• Mid centric, vocal signature that is highly transparent 
• Outstanding price / performance ratio 
• Resolution and revealing ability that competes with flagships twice the price, literally 
• Uniquely wide and holographic sound 

Cons

• Very sensitive to source quality and tuning 
• Transparent, no passive noise isolation, incredibly sensitive to room acoustics and background noise in your room 

Product Link

Amazon – https://amzn.to/4m6DXFr

Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_olIVnrU

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Full Playlist used for this review

We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature.  I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5

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