Introduction

FiiO has established itself as a strong contender in the personal audio space over the 15 years since the brand was launched. Indeed, I’ve noticed how FiiO product reviews tend to get a lot more traffic and shares compared to most other brands, simply because of the brand presence the Guangzhou, China-based company enjoys. This includes the recently covered trio of the excellent K5 Pro ESS and K9 Pro ESS desktop DAC/amplifier units, as well as the all-BA driver FA7s IEMs.. The K9 Pro ESS in particular has found a place in my source rotation for headphones testing too—it’s that good in my opinion! The very first FiiO review from my end here was that was of the FH5s hybrid driver IEMs over an year ago, with an interesting semi-open design that also was notorious in the IEM community for its stance on burn-in that seemingly improved the sound signature further over time. I still have mixed thoughts about it—especially seeing as in the months since then, pretty much nothing has changed my stance on burn in—but I was still curious as to what the next step from FiiO would be.

Today we take a look at the all-new FiiO FH7S that builds upon the base set by the FH5s, using a more common 1 DD, 4 BA configuration as opposed to the 2 DD, 2 BA set in the FH5s. FiiO also claims many additional improvements here including the “sci-fi armor” design language, a 2nd generation semi-open design, user-replaceable tuning filters instead of integrated switches, and an interesting notch filter that might well solve the higher frequency issues I had with the FH5s, which came with BA drivers located directly in the nozzle and shouting into the ears. FiiO is also debuting its own branded ear tips with the FH7S, so there is a lot to cover today in our review which begins with a look at the product specifications in the table below. Thanks again to FiiO for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp!

Specifications