This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://apos.audio/products/fiio-fg3-gaming-headphones
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://apos.audio/products/fiio-fg3-gaming-headphones
Okay I’ve tested these a bit and they’re pretty great. I don’t feel qualified to post an actual review, but I can at least share my experience as a plebian. And feel free to ask me whatever questions. Happy to test out things.
Anyway, first impressions. They’re surprisingly light. The earcups feel kind of warm, but not suffocating? I’ll have to see how they feel after doing something other than sitting here calmly, but they feel like they breathe pretty good so it doesn’t feel swampy despite the warmth. Plugging into the USB on my phone and PC just worked which is always a plus. Unplugging from the inline dongle controller thing lets you use the headphones on a regular dac/amp setup, but you’d have to do some finagling to get the mic to work I assume.
Headphones
I have no idea what I’m doing with this EQ, but the preconfigured ones cycle through orange, blue, and green. Orange is like someone turned up the highs, mids, and lows to 11, then turned everything else between to 2 and added some echo. I assume this is the “cinema” mode and watching a couple movie scenes can confirm that the dialogue is very audible, but it overall sounds like when I accidentally set my AVR to “concert hall” mode. It’s my least favorite, but I suspect it does a good job at its intended use case.
Blue sounds dead neutral. Like listening to speakers while your head is under a heavy blanket. Every part of the sound is kind of just right there all at once and nothing stands out. I think this must be the FPS mode, but I haven’t tried that yet. I did load up Rocket League and can confirm it sounds more…gamey? I don’t know how better to say it other than game sounds were more there in this mode compared to the others.
Green is the most “natural” sounding of the three and the one I prefer the most which makes sense as this would presumably be the HiFi mode. Things feel much more airy and pleasant. Vocals feel full, instruments stand out as unique parts of the song without being over-bearing. In some songs there feels like there’s a hollow spot somewhere I can’t define. Like that video of Steph Curry dribbling and finding the dead spot in the court except I’m not experienced enough to know what it is. They provide a website to let you play around with custom eq settings however and I feel like it’s a fixable gap for anyone with knowledge and experience.
These are definitely closed back which is a completely subjective like or dislike. I like the sound closed backs provide, but I often end up with one ear half way off because I’m paranoid reasonably concerned some kind of crisis is happening around me that I can’t hear. I had to come back to this part just to say while I was wearing these and writing some more, there was a definite crashing sound somewhere in the house that I couldn’t identify so I spent 20 minutes walking around the house at 1am on a ghost hunt.
Overall, these are very comfortable and the sound as judged by these ears is solid.
Microphone
I only have an old Blue Yeti to compare, but here’s what I can say.
This mic is definitely quieter, but it also does a better job at isolating my voice. I don’t think I’ve ever really tested my old mic for just ambient sound like I did just now, and I want to apologize to all of my friends on the other end of the line that have put up with it for years. So much background noise. The keyboard…I’m sorry. If you don’t mind the mic being right in your mouth then it actually gets pretty close volume wise, but I prefer to not be tickled constantly.
My one friend said I “sound way different”, but I think he might have just been confused by the lack of other noise since I just sang “I’m a little teapot” about 50 times with each mic and I personally don’t hear much difference. Looking at the Windows settings, the Yeti does have 2 channel input compared to the FG3 having 1, so maybe that’s doing something? Or maybe it has an impact on how things like Discord compress the audio. Not sure.
Overall, less background noise is a win for me and my voice goes through clear. Are you going to record the next audiophile worthy album on it? I doubt it? Will everyone hear and understand you in a call? Yes. Mission accomplished in my opinion.
I give it a “this was definitely worth the money” out of 5.