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FiiO FT13: Two-minute review
If you’re after a touch of individuality in your wired, over-ear, closed-back headphones, the FiiO FT13 have you covered. These are big, relatively bulky headphones but that does mean that on the outside there’s plenty of room for a quantity of highly polished purpleheart wood, while on the inside you’ve got a pair of 60mm ‘W’-shaped dynamic drivers that offer a frequency response of 7Hz – 40kHz.
The standard of build and finish is excellent, and the combination of plenty of adjustability in the headband and some judicious clamping force means the FT13 are comfortable in situ. Mind you, the use of lambskin on the inside of the headband, and the choice of suede even more lambskin for the earpads, means vegetarians aren’t going to be comfortable in the slightest.
Inside the big, nicely tactile travel case there’s a choice of four cable terminations, along with a generous length of very credible Furukawa cable that connects to both earcups. These options mean you should be able to connect your FiiO to pretty much any source of sound available.
Once they’re connected, there’s plenty to enjoy. The sound is large and spacious, and thanks to good low-frequency control there’s lots of momentum and rhythmic confidence. The FT13 communicate readily through the midrange, too. If it weren’t for a slight tonal discrepancy at the top of the frequency range and a more obvious rolling off of the same area, they’d be even more obvious front-runners and part of the best wired headphones.
FiiO FT13 review: Price and release date
- Released November 5, 2025
- $329 / £269 / AU$499 (approx.)
The FiiO FT13 wired over-ear closed-back headphones are on sale now, and in the United States they sell for no more than $329. The going rate in the United Kingdom is £269, while in Australia you’re looking at something like AU$499, where sold.
The FT13 look, on paper, like a lot of headphones for the money, but with everyone from Austrian Audio to Sennheiser having broadly similar alternatives available, it’s not going to be plain sailing…
FiiO FT13 review: Features
- 60mm ‘W’-shaped dynamic drivers
- 7Hz – 40kHz frequency response
- 1.5m Furukawa silver-plated OFC cable
As we all know, FiiO never knowingly underspecifies any of its products. And that’s the case again here – wired headphones may not offer much scope for piling on the features, but the company has given it a proper go.
So, there’s a 1.5m length of Furukawa monocrystalline silver-plated oxygen-free copper cable in the package. This is terminated with two 3.5mm plugs at one end – each earcup must be wired – while at the other FiiO offers a choice. Thanks to a neat plug arrangement, the cable can be terminated with either 3.5mm unbalanced or 4.4mm balanced sockets; the 3.5mm version can accept a supplied 6.3mm adapter, and the 4.4mm version can accept a supplied four-pin XLR adapter. Good luck finding a piece of audio equipment with a headphone socket the FT13 can’t connect to.
The cable feeds a pair of 60mm dynamic drivers. These are a ‘W’-shaped design, which makes the active area of an already oversized driver even larger than is the norm. The diaphragm is just 0.1mm thick and is made of a carbon-fiber and wood pulp that’s stiffened by wool fibers until it’s as light and rigid as possible.
The drivers are activated by a light, responsive CCAW (copper-clad aluminum wire) voice coil – it’s a high-efficiency design, says FiiO, and combines with the rest of the hardware to deliver a frequency response of 7Hz – 40kHz. Low impedance (32ohms) and high sensitivity (98dB) mean the FT13 are one of the more easy-to-drive options of their type around.
The headphones feature a long, slender, ‘U’-shaped damping tube above the back of the driver assembly inside the earcup. It’s intended to lower the resonant frequency inside the cavity in an effort to liberate greater low-frequency extension and control, and in combination with a standing wave chamber plus a quantity of resonance-absorbing cotton, FiiO suggests the FT13 offer more passive noise-isolation than any comparable design.
FiiO FT13 review: Sound quality
- Spacious, well-defined presentation
- Driving, rhythmically positive sound
- Lack a touch of high-frequency presence
Flawless sound is hard to come by no matter how much you’re spending on a pair of headphones, of course, and sure enough the FiiO FT13 are not flawless in the way they sound. In the context of the asking price, though, and balanced against all the ways in which their sound is deft and enjoyable, it doesn’t seem all that reasonable to get too bogged down in their deficiencies.
In any case, those deficiencies are fairly slight. The way they go about reproducing the top of the frequency range means treble sounds don’t have a whole lot in common, tonally speaking, with all the frequency information below here – and they roll off the top end quite pointedly. If it’s real high-frequency attack and drive you value in your headphones, the FT13 are going to be altogether too polite and mild-mannered for your tastes.
Otherwise, though, the news is all quite positive. With a nice fat 24bit/192kHz FLAC file of David Bowie’s Sound and Vision playing, the FT13 create a large, well-laid-out soundstage and keep every element of the recording secure in a little individual pocket of space. They do this, though, without sacrificing any sense of togetherness or performance – they just ensure everyone gets sufficient elbow room.
Low frequency presence is considerable, but bass reproduction here is no blunt instrument. There’s plenty of detail regarding tone and texture available, and this level of variation combines nicely with decent observance of the attack and decay of low-end information. The FiiO describe rhythms confidently as a result. The modulation into the midrange is smooth, and here there’s similarly impressive detail retrieval and tonal fidelity – the double tracking of the vocal in this recording is made obvious, and the small harmonic variations in the voice are identified without being overstated. The FT13 communicate vocal intentions and attitudes really well.
Dynamic headroom is considerable, as a listen to a 24bit/44.1kHz FLAC file of Holy Ghost by Young Fathers makes apparent. The open and spacious sound of the FiiO allows the shifts in volume and attack in this recording to be made plain, and the distance between the quiet/malevolent and loud/even more malevolent passages couldn’t really be any greater. It’s worth noting the FiiO are pretty agnostic in this regard – they are more than happy to dig in and kick off if a recording demands it, but are just as comfortable dealing with the small-scale and understated.
- Sound quality score: 4 / 5
FiiO FT13 review: Design
- 356g (without cable)
- Magnesium alloy headband and frame
- South American purpleheart wood
Just as in the ‘features’ section, with the FT13 FiiO has taken what might, on the face of it, seem like an unpromising product type where ‘design’ is concerned and done its utmost. Unlike almost every price-comparable alternative, here it’s possible to discern that ‘design’, rather than simply ‘construction’, has happened.
The relatively large earcups are supplied with a choice of earpads. There’s suede (for a warmer sound, so the company says) or lambskin (for a cleaner presentation) and they’re easily swapped, but it should be noted that there’s no vegetarian option. On the outside of the earcups, meanwhile, the polished and lacquered purpleheart wood offers a genuine point of difference. The deep purple colour is entirely natural, the specifics of the grain are obviously unique to each pair of headphones, and its acoustic properties are long-established.
At 356g without the hefty cable attached, the FT13 are far from the lightest closed-back over-ear headphones around. But thanks to a light-yet-robust ‘U’-shaped magnesium alloy frame, some very carefully judged clamping force, and a ball-bearing adjustment mechanism with plenty of adjustability, it’s possible to get comfortable inside the FiiO and to stay that way for extended periods.
There’s a degree of articulation in the earcups, but the FT13 don’t come anywhere close to folding – the case in which they travel is necessarily bulky. It’s a reasonably good-looking case, at least, and the Yaoli linen from which it’s made is tactile, plus there are compartments inside for storing all your very many adapters and cable terminations.
FiiO FT13 review: Usability and setup
- Select your source of music…
- Ensure you have the appropriate cable termination fitted…
- And away you go
Something would be terribly wrong, wouldn’t it, if the setup and usability of a pair of hard-wired passive headphones was in any way complicated?
The FT13 are about as involved as it ever gets, really. The quartet of options for cable termination means it might take you a beat or two longer to plug into your source of sound than it otherwise would.
After that, ensure you have your favored earcup in place, get comfortable using the headband adjustment mechanism, and you’re in business.
- Usability and setup score: 5 / 5
FiiO FT13 review: Value
- Standard of build and finish superb
- Lots of available connectivity options
- Excellent sound quality for price
In terms of specification, materials, the standard of build and finish, and the available connectivity options, there’s really no arguing with the value the FT13 offer. In fact, if you consider the generous use of staunchly non-vegetarian materials in their construction, perhaps there’s too much going on here.
But when it comes to performance, the sound quality that’s available here is likeable in lots of ways – and if the balance FiiO has struck is your kind of thing, you’ll find the FT13 offer very acceptable value for money indeed.
FiiO FT13 review: Should you buy them?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
Dizzying array of connections; 60mm dynamic ‘W-shaped’ drivers; good passive noise-isolation. |
5 / 5 |
|
Sound quality |
Spacious and well-defined, with a driving, rhythmically positive sound; but slight lack of high-frequency presence. |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
Purpleheart wood offers unique finish; highly adjustable headband finds the midpoint between ‘design’ and ‘construction’. |
5 / 5 |
|
Usability and setup |
Select the termination you want for your music source, and you’re away. |
5 / 5 |
|
Value |
No arguing with the standard of build, finish or connectivity terminations, but lack of vegetarian options. |
4.5 / 5 |
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
FiiO FT13 review: Also consider
FiiO FT13 review: How I tested
- Tested for well over a week
- Used as listening headphones, at home
- Connected to numerous music sources using various different formats, file types and sizes
I connected the FiiO FT13 to the same brand’s M15S digital audio player using the balanced 4.4mm connection, to an Apple MacBook Pro using the 3.5mm jack and a Linn Majik DSM (5th Gen) using the 6.3mm connection. This way I got access to lots of different music, of numerous different formats, file types and file sizes, and I listened to the headphones for well over a week in several different rooms of my house.
The size and the purpleness of the headphones, along with the unwieldy nature of the cable, put me off using them outdoors, though.
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