If you’re looking for a new set of over-ear headphones that stand out from the crowd, the en vogue audio brand FiiO has announced the FT13 over-ear headphones with a wood-heavy construction bound to turn heads.
The Chinese company offers the FT13 with purpleheart wood ear cups. If you hadn’t heard of that before, neither had I, but it’s from South America and is used to create high-end guitars. And that colour you see is actually occurring naturally with oxidation. FiiO says in the announcement that “its colour will gradually darken and eventually stabilise at a deep purple.”
Beyond the curation of the wood – aged for 90 days, precision cut, repeated sanding, polishing, getting rid of final imperfections – the material offers can contribute to minimising the resonance, leading to “faster and cleaner sound” overall. It’s not all about the wood though. The FT13 comes with a 60mm dynamic driver with a W-shaped diaphragm the company promises will assist with resounding bass and detailed high notes.
There’s no ANC tech on board, but there’s a U-shaped dampening tube along with a noise-reduction chamber and cotton that can absorb sound. All of that leads to a 26 dB reduction in the ambient noise. The ear pads are lambskin/suede which is exceptionally off-putting, but putting aside the undue use of animal products, there’s a lot of use of naturally-occurring materials here.
There’s 3.5mm and 4.4mm audio plugs for these closed-back headphones. And FiiO has even gone to town on those materials with a Furukawa monocrystalline copper and silver-plated oxygen-free copper braided cable.
They’re available for $329/£289 now.
