FS1 High Definition Earphones
reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Future Sonics Incorporated P.O. Box 187 Pineville, Pennsylvania 18946-0187 USA 877-FSI-EARS +01 (215) 598.8828 Product site: http://www.xtrememac.com/audio/fs1.shtml Distributor: XtremeMac. Released: November, 2005. $150 USD Contains: 1 pair of FS1 High Definition Earphones; 1 set of flanged comfort sleeves; 2 sets of pliable foam comfort sleeves (Small & Large); 3 sets of bullet-style comfort sleeves (Small, Medium & Large); Earwax removal tool; Zippered travel/carrying case; Instruction manual; One year limited warranty. Strengths: Wider hearing range than competition, using less energy to get there.
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Friends, countrymen and women, lend me your earbuds! You need a replacement that will protect your hearing. But should you go with foam or plastic? Anyone with a discerning ear is going to go for foam, because it fills the ear and keeps the outside noise down to a minimum. But are these FS1 High Definition ear-canal phones worth $150 USD? The older Future Sonic Ears EM3 are $99 USD now. Are you an audiophile that would plunk down $99 for a pair of in-your-ear headphones? Or another $50 USD just to get at the low bass sound? Well, apparently there are a lot of folks who are and are seeking the holy grail of audio input to get at the sounds they are missing while listening to iPods or CD players. Do you think Apple would include a pair of these with every iPod? Why not? It would only add another couple–hundred dollars to the total cost of this fashionable fad.
If you drive a wonderfully engineered car, wouldn’t you get the best wheels available for a great ride instead of using spindly tires from a 1920’s Model T Ford? Well, in the ear-canal earphone environment there are a few choices to be made, such as equally or even more spendy Shure E-series, Etymotic Research ER-series, or Ultimate Ears super.fi series for that kind of comfortable ride. The FS1’s are the latest in wonderful breakthrough-technologies that compete nicely against the other canal-phones.
All strongly suggest having the volume turned way down so as not to cause sound-pressure damage to the inner ears with in-ear designs. If you look at the ilounge.com review listed at the end of this article you will see the earphone structure where the business end of the earphone is a tube. There are various coverings with either flanged, bullet or foam coverings (sleeves) that also have a plastic tube that fits over the “inner-tube” and protects the walls of the ear.
My wife gravitated towards the foam, while our daughters went for the bullet style (seemed like sticking olives in your ears). Neither liked the flange. Having used foam ear protectors for years in the construction industry, I figured the foam was a better deal. I guess I’m not alone. The foam units have an noise isolation rating of +/-25dB not found with the other styles. The earphones have a sensitivity rating of +/-112dB @ 30Hz per milliWatt and impedance of 32 Ohms and a frequency response from a full hearing range of 20Hz to 20KHz.
So what sets this unit apart from the competition? The miniature 10 millimeter dynamic transducer that responds better to low frequencies (Bass) and crisper highs, while using less power to do so. The transducer is dynamic and not an armature transducer giving it a wider hearing range than armature transducers can handle. My research indicates that the reason these units are so expensive is because they are using neodymium magnets instead of ferrite. By the way, these FS1’s do not have a color-coded “right-ear, left-ear” designation either, like others do.
My wife noticed immediately upon using the FS1’s, that she could hear a full orchestra at a very, very low volume from her CD players (Philips and JVC). She said that by having the volume turned nearly off, that the battery life would be increased. Even our daughters noticed immediately that the Shuffle volume “was too high” when using the FS1’s and had to adjust accordingly. Ergo, better sound all around while having the volume cranked way down. So maybe you could justify the price of these as a way of saving your hearing, since we have been hearing lately that misuse of iPods is deafening the rising generation.
Besides the cute zippered well-designed case, the size and surprising heft of a compact (women still carry those around don’t they?) for the parts and pieces or earphone accessories, one thing I thought was a great ideas was the earwax removal tool. It was designed not for the human ear, but for the ear-canal tube’s inner circle. It is a plastic handle with a wire loop, not too unlike the looped end of a hairpin, but as a wire, takes up considerably less space and is small enough to reach inside the tube without going all the way in and possibly damaging the FS1’s transducer “eardrum”. And one more piece of neat design work? That little cinch that pulls up the two sides of the earbuds ride the wires like they should be there.
Some folks may suffer from eardrum damage or have other issues that would perhaps not permit a good experience with canal-phone types of earbuds. If you can handle foam earplugs designed to protect ears from damage, than perhaps you can handle canal-phones too. Personally, I find certain earbuds fall off, fall out or the pressure on my outer ear after a while just hurts me and I have difficulty using them. Maybe these will work for you and than again, maybe not. Both my eardrums were split when I was younger due to accidents and tend to be somewhat sensitive. To get formfitting “sleeves”, a trip to an audiologist might be in order or getting a PodFitKit, perhaps http://www.podfitkit.com/ might do the trick.
Before you use these canal-phones, I would strongly suggest that you clean out your ears. You don’t want to pack earwax against your eardrum. Perhaps a quick trip to the pharmacy to get a Murine earwax removal system might be in order. Than try these on for size. You might just find out that the price isn’t so bad after all.
Digging Deeper
Earbud Tips
http://www.amptone.com/audio/earbud.htm
In-Ear and Isolation Earphones
http://earplugstore.com/inearfaq.htm
Headphones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones
Other Reviews:
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/index/fs1_earphones_offer_good_sound_aural_protection
http://ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/comments/xtrememac-fs1-high-definition-earphones-ipod/
Older earphone discussions: http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/01/30/shure_e2c_the_best_headphones_ive_ever_used.html
