FinalA3000 Single-Driver IEM Earphones, High-Fidelity Sound, Detachable Cable, Lightweight In-Ear Monitors, Premium Audio Quality, Comfortable Fit, Durable Design, Ideal for Audiophiles

Crystal clear, but lack depth

I have never heard another pair of iems so spacious before, I own Hifiman Sundaras and these are about as close as you can get in iem form when it comes to soundstage. Fantastic tuning as well, nice deep bass and incredible clean and crisp mids. Some people may not like the treble however, these are pretty sparkly up top. They aren't sibilant but they are definitely not too far off on occasion. I would say the highs remind me of something like the koss ksc75. For me these are tuned about perfectly for what I like. They feel a little cheap and plasticy, however the comfort is off the charts! I was not a fan of the ear hooks they came with so I replaced with a balanced 4.4 cable from triptowin, although these are easy to drive so they don't need the extra power at all. I highly recommend these and doubt you can find anything this well rounded near this in price, these are the best iems I have ever used by far.

As a total package, these are very much worth the money. However, I've decided to return my pair as they don't meet my needs. I'll explain why after first going through what I like about them.PROS:- Great build. The materials are light, yet feel durable and fit together coherently. The included case is one of the best IEM cases ever made IMO, and the earhooks are a huge improvement over the thinner, less helpful E series hooks (though I didn't find myself using them as the cable sits over the back of my ear well enough without them). I don't typically factor build quality into my opinions unless it's particularly bad or impractical, but all the design choices here come together to make an IEM I that is easy to carry around, that you don't have to worry about treating particularly kindly, and that looks sleek to boot.- PERFECT fit. Obviously, this is highly subjective, but these are possibly THE best fitting IEMs I've worn, and I've worn a lot. The lightness is a big plus here, as the shell doesn't pull down on the nozzle while it's in your ear like many "premium" feeling, metal-shelled IEMs do, nor does the cable apply any weight. I believe the main two reasons these fit so well, though, are the shell shape and short nozzle. Like Sennheiser's IE lineup, these primarily sit against the bottom of your concha, and the eartips don't protrude far enough to contend with the contours of the ear canal. I think people who have issues with the fit of other IEMs will find relief with these!- Above average tuning. While I'll get to my gripes with the sound in a second, it definitely isn't bad. It's pretty balanced and avoids the large pinna gain hump in the upper mids that most people have accepted as part of a “neutral” or “accurate” tuning, and I think this makes for a safer, more relaxed listen for people that are sensitive to upper-mid “bite” or “shout.” The treble is inoffensive yet clear enough. They have ample mid-bass. The mids are smooth and fairly detailed. Unless you’re looking for something that feels more textured for music like metal or that has greater sub-bass impact for bass-heavy genres like EDM, these are good all-rounders for anything you throw at them, which isn’t a quality IEMs earn easily. If you’re coming from an average set of earbuds, these will definitely be an improvement in terms of detail and tonality regardless of what you listen to.- Soundstage! The reason anyone gets these. Their imaging is very circular, placing instruments around your head with plenty of room. I didn’t find the actual size of the “stage” it creates in your head to be particularly wide, largely due to poor dynamics hampering the illusion, but I don’t expect other people will feel the same way. Voices in particular feel stretched out in a pleasant way.CONS:- Dynamics - I think these perform poorly in every sense of this vague audiophile term. The dynamic range is bad in that there isn’t a very good sense of contrast between quiet and loud sounds, which COULD be a positive for me (it can make listening at low volumes easier) if these weren’t also so smeary (again, I’ll get to this in a second). The bass and treble are tuned in a way that eliminates any sense of impact, and while they’re more detailed than the average earbud, the microdetails simply aren’t there. They just sound a little flat.- Bass - to go into more detail, the bass is a little weird. Not overemphasized, but proportionally out of whack. The mid-bass bleeds into the mids not in a way that obscures detail but in a way that makes both sections less satisfying to listen to. The sub-bass is very weak, and when paired with this humpy mid-bass makes for a sensation more like being slapped with a towel than being punched when kick drums hit. In this context, I prefer getting punched.- Smeariness/Smogginess? Not looking to invent new vague audiophile terms, but this feels most appropriate. Just a little dirty and unclear compared to others in the price range. The ends of sounds smear into one another, and the beginnings lack speed or excitement. To me, it’s the audio equivalent of peering at a city skyline through a thin layer of smog. You can make things out, and the obstruction might not be as hard to see through as a thick cloud of fog, but it’s dirtier, pollutes the colors, makes things kind of blurry and less detailed and not so fun to look at. Together, these qualities make for an earphone that lets me hear my music pretty well but never feel like I’m “in” it.Perhaps the best thing about these is that they’re very safe. If someone gifted these to me, or if they were my first pair of good IEMs, or if I didn’t have a bit more flexibility with my budget and had to settle on a *single* sub-$100 IEM to fit all my use cases, I definitely wouldn’t be unhappy with these–they check all the right boxes for the money. They just aren’t what I’m looking for. They don’t deliver the satisfying sub-bass rumble or more controlled mid-bass punch that I like, they’re smeary, they’re not as detailed as some cheaper offerings like Tin Hifi or Moondrop’s products, etc. I’m in a weird spot where they’re easy to recommend and difficult to keep.

I ordered these based on a couple of YouTube reviews, none of which brought up a frequency response graph. I wanted a taste of what good soundstage sounds like from an IEM without spending big money, so I got them.They immediately sounded like they had a V-shaped signature, and while I don't typically aim for that sound signature, I had no problem with these.Treble:I liked these much more than my OH10s because while the frequency response graphs show a huge hump in the upper mids/treble for the A4000s, the OH10s sound much sharper. The A4000s certainly don't lack detail, but they come across as much smoother. If I had looked at the frequency response of the treble before buying these, I would not have bought them.Mids:They exist, just a little thin.Bass:This was the most surprising aspect of the sound for me. I wasn't expecting much coming from solid metal IEMs like the OH10s, Arias, and Tin T2s, but the bass is punchy, smooth, and round (in a pleasing way). It doesn't sound particularly fast, but it has great tonality. The sub-bass is slightly forward, but the mid-bass tapers well into the mids.Soundstage/imagingJust like everybody else says, very good. I don't have much else to say other than that it feels like the A4000s push everything away. It rarely feels intimate, even when it feels like it should. I've heard their more expensive model can do both intimacy and width, whereas it feels like these focus purely on width.Something to note is that I like to bring these to the gym because of 1, the comfort and fit; and 2, they scale extremely well with volume; they never sound crowded, the bass hits hard, and the treble never becomes too sharp. That being said, the filter on my right bud got soiled from what I am assuming was sweat, but after a couple days of drying, it appears that the filter is back to normal.I really began to appreciate this product after looking at the frequency response graph on Crinacle's website. While the mids are most definitely recessed, the graph tracks extremely well with the target between 500-2k after which the hump begins. The treble hump encroaches a little bit on the upper mids which leads to the mids sounding a little thin in general, but they avoided making any mistakes in the gain region and so vocals still generally sound natural enough. The treble is emphasized, but even, and returns back to the target after 10k which prevents them from sounding too sharp.I don't know why they don't sound sharp, but it's pretty cool. If I ever go into kilobuck range, the A8000 is definitely one of the options I'm looking at.

This brief review is of the A5000, Final's latest IEM.I'm a big fan of Final's Japanese, minimalist aesthetic, these look lovely, are very light and disappear in the ear. They are made of a tough plastic which I prefer over metal, they are less likely to swing about like wrecking balls and crack my phone screen when they inevitably collide with it. The cable is excellent, braided, soft, handles well and has minimal effect when rubbed on clothing. The included eartips are Final's excellent Type E, the nozzle of the IEMs is a standard size and will fit most of the easily obtainable and popular tips like Spinfit, JVC Spiral Dots, Comply, Azla etc.The A5000 is easily powered by my Sony phone's headphone socket, I listen at a level a little louder than is recommended and find 60% vol on my phone to be loud, I mean a fun loud too. Some people describe them as hard to drive, they are not, 100 dB/mw sensitivity is lower than many IEMs but an iPod, Walkman, a decent phone or an inexpensive dongle is more than sufficient, unless you're hard of hearing of course. I use an IFI Go Blu and sometimes a THX Onyx with mine, power wise they're overkill for IEMs but they sound great.I love how these sound, you could describe the sound as in the realm of neutral with full bodied and impactful bass. You could also describe it as a mild V shaped signature, broadly speaking this means that the bass and treble are emphasized with the midrange slightly recessed. This produces a lively and engaging sound that works well with a very wide range of music. Like most people I have eclectic taste in music, the A5000 sounds great with everything in my library, I listen to a lot of electronic music like Autrechre and Clark as well as trad Japanese, Gamelan, whatever genre Joanna Newsom and Sarah Davachi are in, rock like Daughters and Sunn O))) as well as modern classical, ambient and some jazz.If you've tried the A4000 and liked it, you'll probably like the A5000, I found the A4000 a little sharp and thin sounding with some music, I use an IFI Go Blu and always turned the bass boost on with the A4000, I don't need that with the A5000, it would be excessive. The A5000 has a warmer, smoother sound than the A4000. I think its a substantial upgrade from the A4000 and consider it good value for money.I'm very pleased with the A5000, since I bought it I've been having fun listening to well loved tracks and discovering details I hadn't noticed before. It's also very comfortable to wear all day.